He indicated a pair of chairs, asking us to sit. I sat down, placing Mongo’s cage on the floor between me and Donut. The guide seemed oddly excited about this. I noticed for the first time that he’d cleaned up his chambers. His bed was made. The shelves with the picture of his brother and the urn with his mother had been straightened and dusted.
Once we were settled, he continued. “You’re going to go down the stairs, and you will immediately find yourselves back in this room. You will first choose your race, then your class, and then you will distribute your stat points. From there, I will give you information on class guilds, if applicable. Not all classes have guilds.”
“How many choices will there be for race?” I asked.
“A lot. It is unique every season, and the both of you will have a different pool of choices. The class choices will depend on your racial choice. You know how in every new Olympics they introduce a few new sports, usually ones associated with the host country? That’s how it is with classes. The base classes will always be available. Fighter, mage, rogue, bard, cleric, etcetera. But there will also be additional, more specialized classes available, including new, earth-specific classes.”
“What does that mean, though? Earth-specific classes?”
“I don’t know yet. I won’t see the list until you do. But you will have an incentive to pick one of these classes. They like it when crawlers pick the new classes because it’s good for ratings. The system AI...” He paused, making sure I was paying attention. “Again, the system AI and not Borant will give you some recommendations based on your preexisting skills. These recommendations are generally good. However, these recommendations do not take into account how these choices might affect your standing socially. Does that make sense?”
“Yes,” I said. “The AI might say it’ll be best to turn into a rock monster paladin, and I’d be a badass, but it might also tank my views.”
“Exactly. I will also be allowed to offer limited advice. After class selection, your stat points will automatically distribute up to the race and class minimums, and you will be free to distribute the rest as you please. However, you, Donut, can’t distribute stats because of your Enhanced Growth buff. You’ll want to find something that comes with a boost to constitution if you can. Got it?”
“Got it,” I said. Donut grunted assent.
“Wait a second,” I said. “What was your class? I know you chose a changeling as your race, but what was your class?”
“I chose Arcanist, which allowed me to explore several different magic schools. Certain classes can further specialize when they hit the sixth floor. It was then that I chose the fire path. I was a Changeling Fire Mage Arcanist. It worked out well for me. I ended up a few levels behind people who went straight to fire magic, but I could still wield other magics without a big penalty.”
“So you didn’t pick one of the special classes for your planet?”
He frowned slightly. “I almost chose a skyfowl class, something called a Storm Commander. But Odette talked me out of it. My brother ended up picking it instead, on her recommendation.”
I paused, my eyes immediately moving to the framed photo on the shelf. He’d mentioned his brother a few times, but I hadn’t realized he’d been a crawler. I’d assumed he’d been lost during his planet’s initial collapse.
“Finally, there’s the matter of the third floor itself,” Mordecai said, making it perfectly clear he had no desire to go down that conversational path. “I prefer to explain it when you get there because there’s a lot to take in. It’s not something you need to worry about just yet. Okay?”
“Sure,” I said, standing. “Now…”
Thwum.
“Mongo!” Donut cried.
I’d stood too close to the cage, and the monster tried to bite me. He teleported away.
“Whoops,” I said.
“Carl, you scared him!”
“I scared him?” I picked up the now-empty cage. “Well, that sucks. I guess it wasn’t meant to…”
Donut bolted out the door, yelling, “Mongo! Mongo!”
“Goddamnit, Donut!” I cried, running after the cat. “Don’t go out there alone!”
We eventually found the thing huddled in the main hall, crying like a baby, squawking at the top of his little chicken lungs.
“There you are! You’re going to get lost! Don’t wander like that!” Donut cried, out of breath.
The dinosaur looked up. The little shit looked like he’d been crying. His beady, reptilian eyes grew giant when he saw us. He ran right to Donut, little arms out, like a long-lost puppy reuniting with his owner.
“It’s okay, I’m here. Mommy is here,” Donut said.
He rushed up and chomped her directly on the nose.
The next day consisted of grinding, killing brindled vespas, and wrangling Mongo.
We quickly learned that only one thing stopped the thing from trying to murder me and Donut: seeing another mob.
If any sort of enemy came anywhere near us, the crazy chicken went absolutely apeshit. He screamed and snapped and tried to kill himself in an attempt to get to the creature. He was like a goddamned psychotic wolverine hopped up on bath salts.
Other than his ability to inflict punishing nose chomps, the dinosaur chicken remained mostly harmless. I was afraid to let him near any mobs, even simple brindle grubs in fear he’d get himself stomped.
But in the end, that’s exactly what we needed to do. It was the recap episode that gave me the clue. We were only on the program for a few short moments, but I learned something important. The four-eyed, orange-hued host of the show mentioned that Mongo was a pack hunter. That gave me an idea. After the episode, we went out and found a lone brindle grub struggling its way down a hall.
“You need to show him how to kill it,” I said. “I’m going to let him free, and you two kill it together.”
“You mean I gotta use my claws?” Donut asked.
“Yep,” I said.
She sighed. “All right. Who knew being a mother would be this difficult?”
I opened the cage, and Mongo shot out like a bullet toward the level-two brindle grub, who squeaked and tried to crawl away. The little dinosaur leaped in the air, slashing with his clawed feet and chomping down on the bug. The health bar on the grub appeared, but it barely went down.
“Look, these guys are juicy on the inside,” Donut said, coming up behind the two combatants. “If you cut here, all the stuff falls out and they’re dead.” She rolled the grub over and cut with her claw along the bug’s stomach, like she was unzipping it. The grub shuddered and died, spilling white goo everywhere. Mongo shrieked with joy and began to vigorously devour the remains, filling himself up so much his stomach bulged afterward. The little dinosaur puked on the floor and then ate that, too.
“Christ, that’s disgusting,” I said.
“Good boy. Good Mongo!” Donut cried.
Mongo stood on top of the grub’s remains and peed. Luckily the ban only applied to humans otherwise we’d have summoned about 100 elementals that first day.
“Come on, let’s keep killing,” Donut said. The next hall down held three grubs. I followed at a distance while they rushed over and tried it again.
Mongo seemed to have been paying attention. He managed to kill the second grub by himself, slicing open its belly with the hooked claw on his foot. He bounced up and down with excitement after he did it.
By the time he’d finished off all three grubs, Mongo’s dot turned from red to white. He still wasn’t “bonded” to Donut, but he no longer attacked us. Actually, that wasn’t true. He still attacked, but not as much. We didn’t need the cage anymore. He followed us on foot, sometimes running ahead, sometimes hopping sideways and lagging behind. If we approached an unknown mob, I had to stick him back in the cage, however. He did not like that one bit.