“It sounds to me like the computer fancies you,” Donut said. “Or your feet, at least. We’ll need to take advantage of that. If the system likes us, then maybe it’ll go easier on us.”
“It makes me uncomfortable,” I said.
“Being eaten by a bugbear makes me uncomfortable, Carl. So if your boyfriend ogling your tootises keeps these easy-peasy bugs coming at us instead of more of those lava-spitting llamas, then you better buck up, get over your human male privilege, and take one for your princess.”
“Take one for my princess,” I muttered as she cackled with laughter.
I saw the safe room glowing green on the edge of the minimap, and we angled our way toward there as we continued to argue.
The Scatterers were becoming more frequent, and I knew the main nest had to be nearby. At least I hoped that was what was happening, and that Donut wasn’t right. A single level four cockroach scuttled away at our approach, disappearing toward a large, round cavern that was just past the entrance to the safe room. We didn’t pursue it, choosing to head toward safety.
We entered the safe room.
9
Entering Safe Room.
We entered the room, and both of us stopped at the entrance, gaping.
“What is this magical place?” Donut asked, jumping from my shoulder, her tail swishing about with excitement. “That’s the biggest cat tree I’ve ever seen!”
“It’s not a cat tree,” I said. “It’s the playground.”
We were in a fast food restaurant. It was almost like a McDonald’s, but instead of everything being red and yellow, it was white and blue. The playground with the massive slide and tunnel system and ball pit were straight out of my own childhood. The signs on the walls were in a weird language, Polish maybe. Pictures of plastic toys from some cartoon movie indicated this month’s prize inside their off-brand happy meals. I couldn’t remember the movie’s name, but I recognized the hippopotamus and ferret thing. The movie was new, just released.
They had taken a complete, intact fast food restaurant from some random country, and placed it here underground.
We’d come in through a main entrance. Large windows surrounded the empty restaurant, but the glass showed nothing but solid wall beyond. Three large screens stood directly above the counter where the menu would normally be.
But instead of a menu, the screens contained information about the game in Syndicate common language. Donut bounded toward the play area, disappearing into the colorful children’s maze while I read the screens.
The first was a countdown until the level collapse, which was in four days and 17 hours. The line below that read:
Countdown until the premiere of Dungeon Crawler World: Earth.
23 hours, 42 minutes.
Remaining Crawlers:
4,322,395.
I blinked at that. Holy hell. It had been 10 million just a few hours before. As I watched, the number just kept going lower and lower.
I looked down at my feet, which were bloody and covered in bits of bug chitin and that white goo that came out of the bigger ones. We’d been lucky so far. We’d found some good gear and had survived several attacks. Weren’t these other people working together? It seemed like too many people had died. I shuddered.
I swallowed and continued to examine the signs.
The next screen over read:
Leaderboard:
Leaderboard will populate upon collapse of the third level.
The third screen read:
Welcome to the Safe Room. You are on the First Level.
Rental Rooms currently available: 20
Rental Room price: 0 gold.
Personal spaces will become available for purchase on the fourth level.
Food is available at this location.
Rooms available? I looked at the minimap, expanding it to fill my screen. The restaurant had three exits. There was the door we’d come in through, a second door on the opposite wall that had a dotted line on the other side and an X over the door. I mentally clicked on it, and a box popped up.
Personal Spaces are not yet available.
That made it sound like I could buy an actual house or base of operations here. But if the floors kept collapsing, did that mean I’d have to buy a new one each floor?
Through the third door, which would’ve normally led outside, I could instead see a small hallway flanked by ten tiny rooms on each side. Mini hotel rooms, each no bigger than a closet. Sleeping spaces.
That’s when I noticed the white dot on the map. I startled, realizing there was a creature standing right next to me, just behind the counter. I waved away the map and looked. A furry creature with a paper hat stood there, barely taller than the counter, which explained why I’d missed him. I examined his properties.
Tally – Bopca Protector. Level 63.
Caretaker of this saferoom.
This is a Non-Combatant NPC.
Bopca Protectors are magical, gnome-like creatures who exist solely to watch over Safe Rooms. They do everything from scrub the toilets to prepare your food. They are surly, smelly, and they never wash their hands.
I cautiously approached the counter. The hairy dwarf didn’t move, like he was a statue. His hair was brown, but it had an odd, almost green tinge to it. The creature had so much hair on his face that I could only see his black eyes and his bulbous nose, which was covered with angry, red veins. He smelled vaguely of wet moss. He wore a blue apron, a plain paper hat, and he had a nametag that read, “Tally.”
“Hi there,” I said.
“Do you wish for food?” he said, his voice louder than I expected. The creature had a Slavic accent. Not quite Russian, but close.
“Uh, what do you have?” I asked, looking back up at the menu board, which hadn’t changed. “Is there a list somewhere? Sorry, I’m new here.”
“Tally knows you are new here. This dungeon has just opened. It opened without warning, so Tally is not ready. But I am ready enough to make most food for human crawler. Tally is prepared, has been preparing for many of your years to make food for human crawlers.” He leaned, raising up on his toes to look at Donut who was bouncing about in the ball pit. “I am not prepared for cat. But I have milk. Is better than pet biscuit.”
“Actually, she really likes yogurt,” I said. “I’m not supposed to give her too much. Bea gets…” I paused. “Cats need meat to survive.”
“Will you be renting room?” The creature barely moved a muscle when he talked. It unnerved me.
“Yes,” I said. “I know our time is limited, but I need to sleep.”
“I shall give yogurt to cat. I will have meat for cat when you wake. But I can make food for you now if you wish.”
“Sure,” I said. “You really have yogurt?”
“Yes. What is it you wish for?”
I realized, at that moment, that I was starving. “Is there anything you recommend?”
A pause. “You wish me to make food of my choice?”
“Yeah,” I said. “Why not? As long as it’s not any sort of fish. I’ve had enough fish to last two lifetimes.”
Tally nodded by barely moving his chin. “What is your spice tolerance? One to five?”
“Uh, are we talking human spice tolerance? I like spicier, so four. But only if it’s on a human scale.”
“It is a human scale. Now sit. Open boxes. Wait. Tally will bring you food, then you sleep.” He placed a fast food cup and a small paper bowl on the counter and then nodded at a row of self-serve soda machines before turning and waddling toward the back.
My choices at the soda machine were something called Hoop Cola, water, milk, vodka, and something called Warka, which I determined to be beer after I tapped the lever. I was tempted by the beer, but I went with water. I filled the little bowl with water as well. I took a sip, and I was surprised at how cold, how pure it tasted. I shook my head and sat at a booth.