Most of them were armed with long, angry-looking spears with feathers hanging off the end. They wielded them like lances.
“Dogs riding dogs,” Donut spat as the pair of Danger-Dingo-riding kobolds charged at us. “I’ve had nightmares like this.” She hissed and fired a pair of magic missiles, hitting the mounts. The level-five dingoes stumbled, rolling forward. I formed a fist as the two kobold riders went flying. The first one crunched onto the ground, breaking his neck. The second bounced up, yapping, teeth frothing. It charged at me. I punched it, and it splattered against the wall. The things were more solid than they looked.
I fell back as one of the dingoes lunged at me. This one had a Septic debuff blinking over its head. This monster’s snarl and bark was deeper, more terrifying than that of its rider. Their white face paint made them appear even more frightening. Donut leaped onto the back of the dingo, ripping with her rear claws as she hopped high into the air and fired a third magic missile at the still-recovering second mount, killing it. The dingo on top of me shuddered, then fell over, dead. Stinking blood and gore washed over me as I pushed it off.
Donut landed deftly next to me and started licking her paw.
“That was pretty slick,” I said, brushing myself off. My entire front was soaked in gore. “You’re getting a lot better at that.”
“I think I have a bonus to damage against canine creatures,” she said. “That reminds me, I saw something weird earlier, and I forgot to tell you about it. It was a new tab that said ‘Racial benefits,’ but it was only there for a second. It blinked and disappeared.”
“That is weird,” I said. Instinctively, I pulled up my own menu, and I didn’t have anything like that.
The safe room was just around the corner. After we obliterated the kobold and dingo corpses, we headed toward it. This was another one of the non-manned rooms. The room appeared to have once been some sort of industrial kitchen, but with all the appliances removed except a large, walk-in freezer that still was in working order. We inspected the giant refrigerator, but it was empty.
A stainless steel counter stood underneath the set of screens, and on the counter was a plain, metallic toaster, surrounded by a pile of crumbs. It didn't seem to be plugged into anything, but I couldn't lift it up, either. Up on the screen it read, Free Mana Toast! One per Crawler!
I pressed down the little handle, and a moment later it popped up. A burned triangle of toast jumped out, landing on the counter. I picked it up and smelled it. I examined its properties.
Mana Toast.
This is toast.
It refills your mana. That’s it. Nothing more. Fuck you.
“Well, that was unnecessary,” I muttered. I gave my piece to Donut, who tucked them both away into her inventory.
The room also contained a drinking fountain, a couple chairs and cots, and a set of bathrooms. As had become our custom, we checked both of the bathrooms out. They were empty, but someone had clearly been here before us. The toilet paper had all been taken, and the shampoo dispenser in the woman’s shower had been emptied. The floor was wet, like someone had recently taken a shower.
Mukta (Admin): Crawlers Carl and Princess Donut. You are to be transported to your interview in ten minutes. Prepare yourselves.
Mukta?
Donut: WHO ARE YOU? WHERE IS ZEV?
Mukta (Admin): Your Outreach Associate has been put in a time out. She will return to you tomorrow. I am her substitute until then.
I glanced up at the clock. We had eight hours until the next episode. That wasn’t right.
Carclass="underline" We weren’t supposed to go for another couple hours.
Mukta (Admin): Administrator Zev had you scheduled on a program called Dungeon Crawl Tactics. I have overridden her decision and picked a better program for you. This one is paying a higher fee. Do not worry, it is similar to the other one. It is still round-table style. Close enough at least. They still offer gifts to the participants.
Carclass="underline" We were promised the right to refuse interviews. I don’t want to go on this one.
Mukta (Admin): You seem to be under the impression that you have a say in this, crawler.
Donut: WHAT DID ZEV DO? WHY IS SHE IN A TIME OUT?
The message clicked away, and the chat disappeared from our log. There was no way to respond or initiate a new message.
“Carl, I’m not ready!” A brush appeared in front of her. “Brush me, quick!”
The front of my jacket was still covered in dingo gore. I moved to the bathroom to clean myself off the best I could. “I’ll get to you in a minute.”
“I don’t like this,” I said a few minutes later as I brushed a knot out of Donut’s fur. This was my first time doing this since we’d come to the dungeon. I had a quick memory, of Bea teaching me how to properly brush the cat. The first time I’d ever done it, Donut had yowled and tried to disembowel me. Bea and I had fallen over ourselves laughing at the indignant look on the cat’s face. It had taken months before she’d sit still and let me do it.
We only had a couple minutes, and I spent it looking at the handful of achievements I’d received from our rage elemental gambit. Donut actually had several more than I did, all of them bomb-themed ones I’d already received. She didn’t waste time opening the associated boxes just yet, instead opting to use her precious few minutes cleaning herself.
Most of my own bomb-themed skills moved up to level nine. I now had a handful of mechanic and construction-themed skills as well. I received two achievements of note:
New achievement! Grease Monkey!
Don’t get ahead of yourself, Dale. You built and deployed a wheeled device. When the primitive humans in Mesopotamia made the first wheel, they probably thought they were hot shit, too. It still took them another 5,000 years after that to invent the toilet.
Reward: You’ve received a Silver Mechanic’s Box!
New achievement! You call that a trap?
A mob has been injured because of something you purposely left lying around the dungeon. From scattered Legos to spiked pits to buckets of flesh-devouring Skinner Ants to dimensional rifts that instantly boil all the blood in one’s body, the art of trapmaking has a celebrated and storied history in the annals of Dungeon Crawler World.
So if you’re going to do it, you better do it right. Whatever it was that gave you this achievement, it was probably something stupid. This will help you make the next trap more… exciting.
Remember: If you don’t make it titillating, we will.
Reward: You’ve received a Gold Sapper’s Box!
I was a bit confused about what, specifically, gave me the trap achievement. I knew Donut had received this one, too. I guessed it was from either dropping the chain or the oil slick. Probably not the bombs, which were placed in another category.
The mechanic’s box gave me a tool called a Gorgon Marital Aid. It was shaped like a spatula. “What the hell is this?” I muttered, pulling up its properties.
Gorgon Marital Aid
A favorite amongst intergalactic porn stars, this is a hardening and de-hardening tool. May only be used at a workbench. Assists in fusing joints or creating varying degrees of plasticity in otherwise rigid materials without affecting material strength.