A magic protection spell. That would be useful. I’d hold onto it for now.
The Scroll of Confusing Fog filled the room with a mist that only the mobs could see, and the Iron Skin potion raised my physical armor by 100% for five minutes.
The real prize was the kneepads. While it wasn’t pants, I was happy to finally have something to put on my legs. I pulled them out of my inventory and examined their properties.
Enchanted Spiked Kneepads of the Shade Gnoll Riot Forces
Adds 10% Damage Reflect to all equipped armor.
Cancels all Momentum-based attacks.
Made of skin and fur and the spiky things from the back of Thorn Cadavers, these kneepads are both good protection and they’re stylish. Stylish, that is, if your knees are cosplaying as hedgehogs.
The kneepads were built like slip on knee bracers, so I pulled my feet through each one and pulled them up. They appeared much too small, but they magically adjusted. The spikes were thin, needle-like. Each spear was about eight inches long. They were retractable and appeared to only magically pop themselves out when needed. I hoped I wouldn’t end up skewering my hand if I reached down to scratch my legs.
“Remember when I said you looked ridiculous before?” Donut said, looking me up and down. “Mordecai, darling. Is there a worst-dressed award for the dungeon?”
“Actually, yes. Sort of,” Mordecai said. “After the main episode tunnels, a hosted special comes on where a couple commentators discuss the state of the game. They usually do a segment on weird things happening in the dungeon. They do a lot of contestant profiles and such. Sometimes when people win boss fights, they’ll pull them out of the game for 10 minutes to do an on-camera interview. The show is almost as popular as the official program, though they’ll never let you watch this one.”
Donut’s eyes got big as saucers. “They interview people?” She looked at me. “Carl, we need on that show. Make it happen.”
I sighed. “That’s not how this works, Donut, and you know it. And besides, I am not your agent.”
“No, no you’re not. Miss Beatrice is my agent, and once we reunite with her, she’ll make sure I get on that show. But she’s halfway around the world. I figure we’ll have to wait until the fifth or sixth floor before the dungeon shrinks enough for us to find her. I really hope we don’t have to wait much longer than that.”
I exchanged a look with Mordecai.
“Sure,” I said finally. “Now let’s get back out there.”
13
The first thing we did was angle our way toward that corpse.
I asked Mordecai if we’d be able to loot everything the dead woman had, and he said yes, crawlers drop everything but the unopened loot boxes. Non-crawlers would also be able to loot her body, but they wouldn’t have access to her inventory, so the woman likely had some items on her.
“Maybe she’ll have some pants for you.”
“Unless she’s over six feet tall then probably not,” I said. Items from the surface didn’t magically re-size themselves. Still, I held out hope she’d have something.
“By the way,” I added a few minutes later, “those magic missiles of yours run out pretty quickly. You really need to start training with your claws.”
Donut didn’t say anything for several moments. “I… I’ve never done anything like that before. I’m scared of getting hurt. What if it hits me back? I don’t want to get hit back.”
“How is it you can be so reckless and timid at the same time?”
“I can’t control my instincts! I’m just a few generations shy of being a ferocious tiger stalking through the jungles.”
“I’ve seen your pedigree,” I said. “You’re a few generations shy of nothing. Also, your grandfather was also your uncle.”
Both of us turned the corner, and there she was.
She was sitting, leaning up against a wall just off the main corridor. She was on the very edge of the Hoarder’s neighborhood.
The woman was naked. She had no clothes, no gear at all. The manner of her death wasn’t obvious.
She appeared to be about thirty years old. Slight. Asian. Her hair was pulled back into a ponytail. A full sleeve tattoo of koi and a crane decorated her left arm. The bright colors of the tattoo suggested it was recent ink. She had several other, older tattoos.
“I think goblins came along and took all her stuff,” I said. I examined her, popping up the info box.
Lootable Corpse. Crawler Rebecca W. Level 3. Killed by Crawler Frank Q.
Apple Core.
I felt as if I was slapped. Killed by Crawler Frank Q.
That’s when I saw it. A gunshot wound, right in her chest between her breasts, right in the middle of a moth tattoo. It’d killed her instantly, not leaking hardly any blood.
“Oh goodness. This Frank Q gentleman doesn’t seem like a decent person at all,” Donut said.
I instinctively looked up at my map, looking for blue dots. There were none. Would the dots be hidden if the person was trying to hide? If I wasn’t in the area of the neighborhood map, the red dots wouldn’t appear unless I was right on top of them. But NPCs always appeared if they were within a couple hundred meters, even if they were around the corner. Could other crawlers hide from me?
Christ, another thing to worry about. A crazy asshole with a gun.
I was suddenly, inexplicably reminded of that day. The last day I ever saw my father.
You’re a bully. You’re a bully and nobody likes you. It’s why mom left.
I was expecting him to get angry, to hit me. But he never hit me, not once. The man just laughed and laughed, and that was enough. I don’t need you to like me. But you will respect me.
The memory came quickly, out of nowhere. I didn’t know why. Nobody had died that day. Nobody had been hurt at all, not physically.
“Maybe Frank Q isn’t a human,” Donut was saying. “Maybe he’s one of those cocker spaniels.” She sniffed at the corpse. “Yes, this is definitely the work of a cocker spaniel.”
I sighed. “She’s been shot,” I said. “Look. That’s from a gun.”
“Maybe the dog had a gun. If I had a gun in my inventory, I could shoot it.”
“No, you couldn’t. It wasn’t a dog.”
One of our neighbors in the apartment had a dog named Angel. A cocker spaniel. I couldn’t remember the woman’s name, but her dog was always barking her head off. Bea was friendly with the owner, and they were always chatting in the hallway. Every once in a while Angel would burst into our apartment, barking, running in circles. She’d pee on the floor and shriek-bark at Donut, who would sit atop her cat tree and hiss and spit and poof all her hair out.
“We need to be careful,” I said. “Keep on the lookout for other players. If we come across any, don’t tell them what gear we have. They can’t examine it if they’re not in our party.”
“We are in a dungeon filled with killer cockroaches and drug-dealing llamas. Some imbecile with a gun doesn’t scare me,” Donut announced. “And they shouldn’t scare you, either. We should hunt this vile killer down and bring him to justice.”
“Weren’t we just talking about this? And this guy doesn’t scare me,” I said. I looked down at the dead woman. I wondered who she was, why someone like her was outside at 2:30 in the morning on such a night. I’m never going to know her story. Nobody is ever going to know it. I wondered how scared she’d been. Only to be killed by a fellow human. He’d looted her corpse, taking everything, leaving only an apple core. It made me irrationally angry. “In fact, I think you’re right. I want to find him if we can.”