Following her dungeon's level-up, there were several changes. First, the five-run limit for dungeon runs per week increased to ten, and she gained access to "rooms". Her current dungeon setup was designated as "room 1" automatically, and she could now create additional rooms.
Her maximum amount of dungeon essence increased from 100 to 300, but the first room still had a hard limit of 100 dungeon essence. Playing briefly with the dungeon interface, she found that each sequential room of the dungeon could at most double the dungeon essence used in any previous room. The consequence of this was that she couldn't use all her dungeon essence and just throw fifteen crabs into the start of the initial room. If she left her first room as is with five crabs, she could add a second room with ten crabs.
Morna immediately requested to face off against ten crabs, but Chuck and Jacob were much less enthused about the potential death match as they'd struggled with just five crabs. It was getting late, so Gen decided not to torture them and called a halt to the runs for the evening. Ideally, she'd like to wait for her current poll to resolve and take her time designing level 2.
LEO was making it abundantly obvious that having better-designed dungeon levels gave more benefits than just slamming things together. She had no doubt he'd make snide comments regardless of how well she made it, but she hoped at least she wouldn't agree with the criticism next time.
Jacob offered to host them for dinner along with his family. Chuck shrugged and accepted, but Gen had had enough of Jacob's family trying to ingratiate themselves with her for the evening and quickly declined. Morna simply stated her snacks were better than anything Jacob's family could make.
Jacob's smile was strained as he waved goodbye to Gen and Morna, and Chuck looked to be second-guessing his decision to take the free meal as he watched them go.
Gen started heading to a trolley when Morna stopped her.
"Gen! You didn't go to the gym today, so we should jog back to the clubhouse!"
Gen froze, trying to mentally calculate just how far away they were. It was at least five miles, and from the previous day's experience of running for her life from mechanical hounds, she knew her physiological limit was three miles, even with her life on the line.
"Ummm, I've got more deliveries tomorrow, so I think I should take it easy today…"
Morna smiled brightly and gripped her arms.
"Gen, you healed somehow after yesterday's exercise, right? You can just do that again."
Gen groaned deeply, regretting her failure to hide her pool's regenerative abilities.
"It'll take longer, though! Jasper probably misses me. I should check in on him and the other ones…"
Gen's eyebrows knit together as she struggled to remember all the other iguanas' names. Jasper would doubtlessly be offended if she forgot, but she honestly could only remember Waldo, as he was the only tan one and also the only one with a human name. The rest were named after rocks, minerals, or something like gems?
Unaware of her inner struggle, Morna rolled her eyes.
"I'll call Hon, and you can check in on Jasper through the screen, and then we can run back!" Her expression turned serious, "You're planning to do another scenario next month, right? No offense, but running is probably the most reliable skill if you don't want to die. You got away with it in the gnome scenario and were lucky enough to be turned into a flamingo for the zombie event, but without a baseline level of fitness, you'll die for real, and you're too fresh of a generated to risk going on hiatus. If you can't surpass the physical ability of a couch potato by next month, as your friend, I think you should hold off on doing another scenario just in case."
Gen stopped walking and stared at Morna. She'd honestly just assumed she would do the next scenario. It was the only way to level up, and the idea of taking her time had never crossed her mind, but with that said, Morna wasn't wrong. From what she'd learned of the world, most people were stuck at level 1, having too few viewers to risk dying in an entirely random and chaotic scenario.
Her first scenario started with ten actors, and only four had survived. The number would've been even lower if she hadn't regenerated Jacob. She hadn't given it thought previously, but were all those people on hiatus, or had any of them been abandoned by their viewers and actually died?
Aside from the first asshole she had helped eliminate, she didn't know the rest to wish any particular ill will on them.
Giving a big sigh, she said, "Fine, we can run, but we're going to have to take a break, though, or I'll be dead before we even get to the scenario…"
Morna raised a fist in victory and turned to start, but Gen stopped her.
"For real, though, I should check in on Jasper and see if he needs anything. He's not really like a pet, and he's more intelligent than a toddler, but I think I might not be being the best mom…"
Morna laughed and said, "I don't think that lizard needs any mothering. Worst case, he's probably eating Hon alive." Gen laughed as well and watched as Morna dialed Hon.
The video call connected quickly and showed a screaming Hon with Jasper clamped onto his finger, refusing to release as Hon flailed around.
"GEN MAKE HIM STOP!"
Morna cackled, "He really is eating him!"
Gen knew firsthand iguana bites weren't a joke and yelled, "Jasper! Stop it!"
Jasper somehow still looked stoic while flying chaotically through the air, clamped onto Hon's finger, but he must have heard her as he released and did a mid-air flip before landing on the floor.
The angle was bad as Hon nursed his injured finger with tears in his eyes, but Gen could tell Jasper had gone easy on him, judging by the fact that the digit was still attached.
Taking stock of the situation, Gen asked, "Hon, what did you do to Jasper?"
Hon halted his crying as he looked offended, "Why do you think this is my fault? I was being helpful and giving him bread!"
Hon rotated the camera to point at Jasper, who was, sure enough, standing next to a crumpled loaf of bread.
Gen's eyebrows knit together. She wanted to assume the best of Jasper as they were partners, but she knew for a fact he got a bit neurotic when it came to food.
"Jasper, why did you bite the hand that was feeding you?"
Jasper looked unashamed as he stared at the bag of bread with disdain and whipped it with his tail.
Putting two and two together, Gen felt a mounting headache. "Are you seriously just hangry? You can't bite people just because you don't like their food."
Jasper hissed.
Sighing, Gen rubbed her forehead, trying to think of an appropriate response. Despite Morna's reassurance, it felt like she had a delinquent child on her hands. When she'd left the club, members seemed to have things in hand, giving snacks to the iguanas, but after being spoiled with the unlimited luxury food during the zombie event, it seemed that Jasper had reached his limit on eating stale bread.
From what she knew, most of the club members' financial situations weren't that much better than Chuck's, and lived almost exclusively off of bread from the infinite breadboxes in people's rooms, and even if they liked Jasper, she couldn't count on them actually spending emmys to give him anything better.
"Jasper, I'll bring you some food, but you need to apologize to Hon. He doesn't have anything other than bread for you, so you can't be angry at him."
Jasper shot an accusatory glare at Hon, and the camera flipped, showing Hon had broken into a sweat as he was halfway through eating a hot dog.
Defensively, Hon said, "I don't normally splurge on non-bread! But I have some emmys from the event and thought I deserved this! Jasper wanted it, and I told him it was mine, and he could eat bread if he was hungry! Then he attacked me!"
Gen sighed. Obviously, Jasper still shouldn't have attacked, but the situation was starting to make a bit more sense, and she couldn't completely blame him after she'd ditched him at the clubhouse without considering his food situation and taking all their emmys with her.
"Jasper, even if someone doesn't want to share doesn't mean you can attack them…"
Hon had flipped the camera around, and she saw Jasper's unapologetic stare. Knowing how stubborn he was, she just said, "We can talk more when I'm back. I'm going to a store now with Morna, and then I'll head there."
Hon gave Jasper a fearful look before retreating from the common room and ending the call.
Gen groaned, and Morna laughed from her side as she said, "I take it back. You are a bad mom!"
Gen glared at her, "Shut up. I don't want to leave him for long so we can jog to a store, but we're taking the trolley the rest of the way."
Morna looked like she wanted to argue, but hesitated before shrugging, pulling up a map on her phone, and saying, "There's a Plot Twist near here."
Gen gave her a blank stare. "What is that?"
Morna laughed, "The name is sort of dramatic, I guess. It's a convenience store/pawn shop. They're all over the place here. People who have abilities or artifacts like my snack items will sell them to the stores, and then they resell them around. The locations will transfer goods around so there's usually a decent variety, but lots of times what they have will depend on what actors are nearby selling to that location."
Gen felt a wave of confusion as she had a thought, "Wait a second… I know people have abilities and stuff, but are there not like I don't know factories and farms?"
Morna laughed, pointing at her, "What a generated thing to say!" She kept cracking up, "Like a farm from the old books? Where they got all the chickens crammed in little cages?"
Gen frowned, "Not necessarily inhumane… But yeah, with cows and wheat and stuff…"
Morna gestured around herself, "You saw the edge of the city, didn't you? It's just a wasteland of broken reality outside of the cities themselves, and each square mile that LEO is stabilizing comes at a premium. I won't say farms and factories don't exist, but they and anything like them are rare and extremely specialized. Things like the garden upgrade in your house is pretty valuable. Food usually comes from LEO in one way or another."
Gen mulled the revelation over for a moment. Alfred had warned them about food costs the first day, but she hadn't exactly questioned it. She still didn't have a full grasp of the economy, but she was starting to understand how someone like Chuck could be so low on funds even when LEO was giving everyone free housing.
Morna snapped her fingers, "Time to run!"
…
Gen barely even registered walking around Plot Twist while she struggled to breathe and recover. Blindly, she wandered the store collecting food items that Jasper might find tolerable. She didn't have a refrigerator in her room, so she limited herself to non-perishables. Ramen, beans, and chips filled her cart, and she resigned herself to the fact that she would have to take the iguanas out to eat periodically if she didn't want them to revolt.
She was still zoned out when she checked out and got brought back to reality by the cashier's voice.
"That will be 14 emmys."
Her eyes widened slightly at the total as she looked at her cart full of random junk food and snacks. A full day of delivering packages had gotten her only three emmys. She could afford it with her banked event winnings, but she didn't have to be a mathematician to know that it was not a sustainable rate of expenditures.
Gritting her teeth, she paid the balance and double checked her balance to see 860 remaining emmys. She and Jasper were going to have to have a very serious talk.
…
The return to the clubhouse was primarily in silence as Morna played on her phone, and they quickly parted, heading to their own rooms once arriving.
She found Jasper waiting for her in the hallway, and the other iguanas weren't visible, likely sleeping in the bedroom. Sitting down, she leaned against a wall and regretted her lack of furniture. With a new perspective on her financial situation, she regretted not shamelessly taking more from Jacob. How was his family even getting the furniture if factories weren't a thing? Does someone have a summon sofa ability?
Shaking her head and focusing on Jasper, who was silently staring at her, she said, "I'm sorry for not taking your guy's food situation into account when I left this morning."
She laid down the bags of groceries between them as a peace offering, and Jasper stared at them before nodding his head in acceptance.
"You shouldn't have bitten Hon, though."
Jasper gave her a hard stare, but eventually rolled his head in agreement and moved over to lie his head in her lap. Surprised by the physical contact, she froze for a second before placing a hand on his head and idly petting his scaly skin.
His eyes closed in relaxation, and she could feel his tight muscles relaxing as she came to a realization.
"Existing is stressful for you as well, isn't it?"
His half-lidded eyes watched her as she continued. "I don't know how the teamwork augment works exactly, but you want to take care of all your friends, and you don't exactly have a lot of control over what's happening… Nobody can even understand you if old Gen doesn't body swap you."
She hesitated a second before using her phone and checking her emmy count and focusing on Jasper before selecting transfer. Her total of 971 dropped to 368 as she gave 603 emmys to Jasper.
Jasper didn't have a phone, but he must have been aware of the transfer somehow, as she saw his eyes widen.
"That's half the winnings from the zombie event. You'd probably argue that you deserve more, but I have to be at least this greedy."
After that, she explained her perspective on their current financial situation and how much the groceries cost, and how little she'd earned from deliveries.
"We have a couple of options. We have some seeds from the tangy melon you ate that I can plant in the garden, and we also have the mint condition seeds that I recently got, but I don't know if those are edible. If nothing else, I can probably sell them to the store for some extra emmys. All of that will take a bit of time as I have no idea how quickly things will grow, even if the garden has climate control."
Jasper listened patiently, and she hesitated before suggesting the next option, "The other option is to unsummon the other iguanas and even yourself if you want… I don't know if there's an artifact to unsummon you guys directly, but from what you told me, when you die, you all return to another space waiting to be summoned…"
Jasper hissed.
She raised her hands defensively, "I'm not saying you have to! I'm just saying there's probably a painless way to do it, and as far as I know, where you guys are before coming here isn't necessarily a bad place."
Jasper calmed down and didn't react for a while, and she assumed he was mulling things over.
Giving him time, she continued, "Regardless, I want you to know that I enjoy having you around, and while I don't know the other iguanas as well, I like them as well. I'm going to prioritize looking for an artifact or something that lets you talk. In the interim, I'll try to check in with you each morning to see if you need anything, and I can take you shopping. You can do whatever you want with your emmys, but if you run out, I don't exactly have a ton myself to keep up with food expenses…"
They sat together a bit longer in silence before turning in for the evening. Gen took a brief soak in the tub to take the edge off the muscle soreness before fumbling her way through the dark to fall asleep next to the iguana pile. Jacob said the bed should be transferred by the next day, and she was looking forward to it.
…
Ding!~
"What on earth is a quack?"
She'd both feared and hoped her viewers would pick the new option. She was curious about what it was, but also fearful that it wouldn't be useful. The fact that it fell under the feature category in particular made her curious about what it could possibly be.
She didn't have time to investigate, however, as her job arrow flashed into existence and started blinking to tell her to get started on deliveries.
Groaning, she got up and saw that, for once, the iguanas were all up already. Heading to the hall, she found the bags of groceries she'd left out the previous day had been organized and stacked neatly. A few bags had been opened, but fewer had been consumed than she expected from the ravenous iguanas.
Still not seeing Jasper or the others, she looked around and heard small noises coming from the garden. Peeking in, she saw the iguanas hard at work planting seeds. She was only level 1, so in the overworld her summon iguana ability was weakened, and each iguana was only a few inches long, so it was particularly adorable watching them tilling the soil and planting seeds.
Jasper noticed her observing and headed over to her. He stared up at her, and she bent down, letting him climb onto her hand so they could talk.
"I'm about to head to deliveries. Thanks for handling the groceries and getting the garden started. Anything you need from me before I go?"
He shook his head, but unexpectedly climbed onto her shoulder.
Confused, she asked, "You want to come with me?"
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He nodded affirmatively, and she shrugged as she headed out and started following the arrow. The first destination was a surprisingly familiar one as the job arrow took her back to the factory-looking Edison Labs she'd been at the previous day.
Seeing the same guard there again, they relaxed as they recognized her, and she asked, "Delivery for me?"
He nodded and handed her a letter with the name Rosalina written on the front.
Seeing the familiar name, she missed something the guard said and had to refocus as she asked, "What was that?"
He pointed at Jasper on her shoulder, "Your little friend. You didn't have that yesterday. What is he a pet?"
She glanced at Jasper and hesitated before saying, "More like a partner."
The guard's eyes narrowed in interest, "Is he an ability or an artifact? It would help to have another pair of eyes if you're selling."
Gen didn't hesitate as she shook her head, "Sorry, he's not for sale…"
The guard shrugged, and she hurried away. She technically could summon an endless number of iguanas, but obviously, she couldn't trust people to keep track of them, and if any of the iguanas got hurt, Jasper would lose his mind hunting the perpetrators. Obviously, she could summon un-augmented iguanas to sell as pets, but without the teamwork aspect, they wouldn't be useful for anything other than companionship. Maybe there would be a market for them, but with how high food prices were, most people didn't seem to be in the market for pets, even if they were as cute as a mini-iguana.
A thought occurred to her, and she stopped midstride. If food was an issue, technically iguanas were edible… Glancing at Jasper, she shook her head, clearing the thought away. Her summoned iguanas were tiny, so she'd need to eat them like potato chips to get a decent meal out of them. The mental image of summoning iguana after iguana just to cook them up in oil was too traumatizing to consider, even if she wasn't a vegan.
Ignoring Jasper's questioning gaze, she focused on her delivery. The one from yesterday had said Irving on it, and while she couldn't place the name, she definitely knew someone named Rosalina. Normally, she'd attribute it to a coincidence, but LEO himself was the one assigning her jobs, and she had no doubt he wouldn't mind some drama by using her deliveries to walk her straight into people from the event.
Not wanting to give him the satisfaction, she had Jasper hide behind her hair while she dropped off the letter and made minimal small talk before hurrying away.
Once they'd escaped, she had Jasper come back out and explained, "She's probably the one from the event. They wouldn't recognize me because my body was turned into a skeleton while you were piloting it during the event, but seeing an iguana might make them question things."
Jasper rolled his head, indicating he did not care, and she laughed while they continued through deliveries. During the downtime on public transport, she started trying to do some research on potential options.
Seeing the iguanas gardening had given her an idea to see if they could get some more seeds to jump-start their gardening operations, but she was shocked to find out how difficult they were to find. In the concrete hellscape that was Spotlight, there wasn't much in the way of plants growing around, but she quickly found that even food items it was rare to sell any fresh fruits or vegetables. Processed food was everywhere, and she started to get the feeling most people wouldn't even know what a tomato was if she threw it at their head.
No one had lawns or yards, so gardening was basically unheard of, and while some people had specialized greenhouses or house upgrades like her garden, they were few and far enough between that there wasn't any easily available source of seeds.
Frustrated with the roadblock, she resolved that they would have to just work on propagating what they had already and hope her viewers picked something good when the next plant poll rolled around.
Moving on to searching for artifacts that would allow Jasper to communicate, she found an entirely different issue.
"Why do these websites all look so sketchy?"
In her memories of Kyle, the world of digital markets had reached something near perfection with streamlined UIs and big-name retailers all making any product easily locatable through well-reviewed sources.
What she was finding now, however, looked more like a wild west of early 90s Craigslist and Myspace wannabees all showing suspiciously priced items with exaggerated effects.
"No wonder so many people were at that market in the zombie event. How is anyone supposed to find things online?"
Deciding to make her tech problem into someone else's, she shot G2n a message.
Gen: How do I buy things online? The internet here is seriously messed up. Isn't there some sort of vetted marketplace?
She didn't have to wait long for her terminally online friend to respond.
G2n: With the addition of abilities that directly interact with technology and the web, the concept of cybersecurity is a totally different playing field in Reelity. Most people don't trust anything they can't directly touch and analyze. So anyone selling something online is either a scammer or desperate. If you want something in particular, you should find a vetted auction house and have them look to see if anything is coming up.
Gen: For real? That's so inconvenient. What auction houses are vetted? I would look it up online, but apparently I can't trust anything there…
G2n: There are plenty of options, but you might want to check with your friend Francine. The Fortune Wardens are supposed to be a pretty good group, and they have several auction houses here in Spotlight.
Gen thanked G2n and started a new message to Francine.
Gen: Not to be that type of friend, but can you use your work connections to find me a type of artifact in the auction houses?
There was no immediate response, and she completed another two deliveries before Francine answered.
Francine: Of course! It's not my job directly, but helping people find artifacts is a big part of what my company does anyway. LEO makes so many varied things that most people don't even know what is available without an expert helping to explain the market. What are you looking for?
Gen: I'm hoping there's something that could help Jasper communicate? I don't know how common something like that is, but with magic and everything, it should be possible, right?
Francine: I haven't seen something like that yet, but I saw a hat that induces a fear effect in sharks just this afternoon, so I'm sure I can find you something. Any particular budget?
Gen showed the messages to Jasper and said, "I'll split the cost with you? Maybe something like 300 emmys?"
Jasper nodded in agreement, and she sent the number to Francine before breathing a sigh of relief. Hopefully, the price would end up being lower, but it would be worth it just for the convenience of not having to play yes/no games with Jasper for simple questions.
The rest of the deliveries were uneventful, and she made four emmys total. Work complete, she headed straight home afterward to start inspecting her upgraded dungeon. Entering the dungeon design space, she selected the newly acquired "quack" feature and saw that it had no associated cost and was free to place.
Sharing a look with Jasper, she selected to place it in the first room and immediately got another message.
SELECT A BASE FORM FOR QUACK
AVAILABLE FORMS
- Crab
- Iguana
"Ummm, the dungeon doesn't really have any iguanas so far, so let's go with that one."
FORM SELECTED… GENERATING QUACK…
In front of them appeared a humanoid iguana with a labcoat and a stethoscope. It stood motionless, much like the crabs did while in design mode, but she sensed that it would communicate with any actors in her dungeon.
Observing it, she got a description.
Quack: Will attempt to give medical aid to any willing actor. Medical ability and effectiveness will be randomly positive or detrimental.
"Huh."
She stared at it a bit longer before shrugging and setting it to spawn after the first room was completed.
"I guess it's like a gamble, if an actor is hurt, they can risk asking the quack for help, but maybe they'll make it worse?"
Leaving her first room as it was, she added a second room and placed ten crabs in a half circle around the entrance. She looked at the completed dungeon and frowned.
"It's still pretty basic, isn't it?"
Viktor had preferred board games over tabletop games, but he had some level of experience designing labyrinths in his time. Granted, no one wanted to play them as they were "too difficult" and not "fun", but he had enjoyed crafting the ultimate challenges while sticking to the appropriate challenge ratings for the invading party.
With that experience in mind, she felt her current dungeon was still disgustingly boring. Cracking her knuckles, she got to work.
Switching perspective~…
***
Paul took a breath and stepped through the dungeon entrance right after Charlie and Bella. Despite their families' connections, this was the first opportunity any of them had had to enter a dungeon, and they were even lucky enough that it was being run with the safety on. He'd researched dungeons a lot and knew that dungeon owners gained more benefits from sending those who entered on hiatus, so it was rare to get a risk-free opportunity to enter.
When Sarah had suggested the opportunity to the three of them, he'd leapt at the opportunity despite his normal caution. He hadn't been able to impress Sarah during the zombie event, and the unexpected message was the first time he'd heard from her since then, so he couldn't disappoint her again!
He still wasn't clear how Sarah knew the dungeon owner and had only been told it was owned by a friend of a friend, and they needed to test it out some, but he was more than happy to act as a guinea pig if it allowed him to show off his abilities. From entering the portal, he knew the dungeon was only level 2 and unlikely to be too much of a threat to their group.
The initial room was dark, and a stone pillar was in the center of the room with words engraved on it.
Hope is the first step on the road to disappointment
Charlie pointed at the sign and laughed, "Ohh spooky! You think whoever made this dungeon is an edge-lord or something? Like maybe if it was a high-level dungeon, but isn't that a bit sinister for a level 2 one?"
Bella rolled her eyes, and Paul wisely kept his mouth shut. Dungeon masters could famously observe the proceedings of their dungeons, and even if this one was low-level now, he wasn't foolish enough to piss off someone who would be important in the future, and doubly so if they were friends with Sarah.
Charlie looked annoyed at their reactions and scoffed, "Come on! Lighten up, you guys, we're just here to test things…"
He looked around and didn't see any immediate threats. Shrugging, Charlie leveled his flame thrower and started walking around the pillar. Paul and Bella cautiously followed after him with their weapons at the ready.
Paul whispered to Bella, "See any threats on your map?"
She rolled her eyes, "We haven't gone anywhere yet, so nothing is mapped out."
Ignoring her attitude, Paul moved forward following Charlie. Sarah would certainly hear about their relative performance, so he couldn't be as cautious as normal and let Charlie or Becca take the glory. Analyzing the room he saw it was filled with large pillars placed randomly that limited their vision with no obvious threats.
Charlie looked impatient as he stared at the pillars, seeming to fight an inner battle between charging forward to find something to fight and moving tactically. Paul watched him carefully. He hoped Charlie would make a mistake that he could capitalize on to look better, but if the challenge wasn't high enough, then he'd be the fool for not taking initiative…
Their internal deliberations were interrupted as a scuttling noise was heard ahead, and an iguana walked around a pillar to stare at them.
All three of them involuntarily shuddered at the sight of the creature. The iguana trauma from the zombie event was fresh in their minds. Charlie reflexively used his blink ability and teleported to the back of the group. Paul cursed as he was now in front of the group. Panicking, he leveled his submachine gun and opened fire on the iguana, bullets peppering it and filling the room with explosive echoes.
A few seconds later, the iguana was a pulped mess, and his gun clicked empty, needing to recharge its bullets.
Becca nervously laughed from the back, "I think you killed it, Paul! It's just an iguana, you didn't need to shoot it so many times!"
Charlie also stepped forward, trying to look cool despite his panicked momentary retreat. He patted Paul on the back patronizingly. "Don't worry, buddy, I'll handle the front while you recharge."
Paul glared, but stayed silent. He'd been prepared for a lot, but for an iguana of all things to appear…
They walked closer to the thoroughly dead iguana, and Becca asked, "You think it's a coincidence that it's an iguana…?"
Paul shook his head, "I doubt it, Sarah probably met the person responsible for the iguanas in the zombie event, and they're the one who owns this dungeon. It's well known that a dungeon master's abilities influence their dungeons."
Charlie looked at the dead iguana warily, "So what, they're going to shoot infection at us and make us into zombies again?"
Becca rolled her eyes, "Idiot, that was because they had the spitter mutagen! It wasn't a zombie, just a normal iguana."
Paul couldn't help but ask, "So was it actually dangerous or just a normal iguana?"
Becca glared at him, "Maybe we'd have known if you hadn't gone all psycho on it!"
Paul pointed at Charlie accusatorily, "That's because our frontliner ran away all of a sudden! I had to make an immediate tactical decision!"
Charlie ignored the barb as he called out, "Shut up! Incoming!"
Becca and Paul turned to see where he was pointing, and three more iguanas were lumbering into view around another pillar.
Charlie leveled his flamethrower, looking less panicked this time, "I'm going to fry them!"
Not waiting for a response, his weapon let out a whoosh of flames as the lizards turned into flaming corpses.
Becca groaned, "Stop killing them! We still don't even know if they're dangerous! Let me catch one with a snare before you two keep being so trigger-happy!"
Charlie scoffed, blowing the smoke off the nozzle of his flamethrower as he said, "Finding out they're vulnerable to fire was necessary. You're welcome."
She rolled her eyes, and they kept moving forward. It didn't take long for them to encounter another iguana, and this time they waited for Becca to use her snare ability to shoot a spectral bola and capture the overgrown lizard.
The three of them cautiously moved over to it and watched the squirming and hissing lizard as it struggled with the snare.
Paul poked it with his gun, and it hissed again, flicking its tail back and forth angrily. "Is it really just a normal iguana?"
Charlie shrugged, looking around warily, "Maybe it's venomous or something? We can't take chances, and who knows how many of these things there are." He shot Becca an annoyed look, "Can I just kill this thing already?"
Becca stared at it a while longer before sighing and saying, "Fine, just kill it. For the record, though, just because we didn't learn anything doesn't mean it wasn't smart to look."
Charlie baked the lizard alive with a quick blast of flames and scoffed, "Whatever, the only thing you need to look at is your minimap and make sure nothing is creeping up on us."
Becca froze, and Paul groaned as he realized she once again hadn't been paying attention to her ability.
Her voice was nervous as she glanced the way they'd come, "I'm seeing about a dozen signatures in the area we passed through…"
Charlie and Paul both looked back with tight expressions, but didn't see any active threats.
Charlie looked serious as he started forward again, "Let's keep moving. We can't let them surround us!"
Not waiting for a discussion, Charlie hurried forward with a flamethrower at the ready. Becca and Paul shared a glance, but had no choice but to hurry after him. The maze of pillars quickly became confusingly repetitive, and it was only thanks to Becca's minimap ability that they didn't get turned around at several points. They kept running into iguanas, but each one was quickly eliminated by either a burst of flame or a well-aimed shot from Paul's gun. Becca kept her own akimbo handguns at the ready, but hadn't shot yet.
The monotony was finally broken when they found something new. It was a soft egg the size of a watermelon, and as they watched, an iguana materialized next to it before ambling away in a random direction.
Charlie shouted excitedly, "It's a spawner! We just take that bastard out and then no more iguanas!"
Rushing forward with his flamethrower, he was caught entirely off guard when a giant crab claw appeared from behind a pillar and grabbed him around his midsection. Charlie howled in pain as his bulletproof body armor did little to protect him from the crushing force of the crab claw.
Becca shot her snare ability, but it did nothing as it entangled the large claw. Charlie still had a grip on his flamethrower, but couldn't get a good angle as flames shot wide, missing the crab entirely. An audible pop sound was heard as one of Charlie's ribs cracked, and Paul stopped hesitating, unleashing a barrage of bullets into the crab's arm while carefully avoiding Charlie.
The crab's exoskeleton couldn't withstand the sustained fire, and after a dozen rounds, the bullets pummeled their way through sheering the arm in half and freeing Charlie altogether. He hit the ground with a painful grunt. Still trapped in the claw, he managed to angle his flamethrower just right to hit the crab's center of mass.
A second later, steam and blood were pouring from the crab's dead body as it collapsed lifelessly.
Charlie looked furious as he tried to struggle free from the claw still wrapped around his torso. "Get this thing off of me!"
Paul scoffed, "Why don't you just blink free?"
Charlie glared, hesitating before admitting, "It doesn't work while I'm restrained! Now get this off!"
Paul noted the critical weakness of Charlie's ability. They were allies in a technical sense, but he never knew when the detail might come in handy. Becca and Paul struggled for a few seconds, but managed to pry Charlie free eventually. During the time several more iguanas had spawned, most had wandered off, but one stood staring at them judgmentally.
Charlie glared at it before burning it to cinders and moving onto the egg, which likewise melted away beneath the heat of his ability-enhanced flamethrower.
Spitting a mouthful of blood, he said, "We seriously need to kill all these lizards? How many have spawned already?"
Paul shook his head, "From my research in scenarios and events, often you just need to eliminate all the spawners, and it should count as completed even if some of the spawned creatures are still around. I haven't seen any reports for dungeons specifically, but it's probably the same thing."
Charlie held his cracked ribs in obvious pain as he said, "Well, I'm going to kill every one of those fucking things I see."
They worked with methodical efficiency, exploring the rest of the room with Becca's map and locating three more spawners, dispatching them easily. The quantity of iguanas had gradually increased, but the animals weren't actually aggressive or dangerous as far as Paul could see, and Charlie burned them with a bit too much enthusiasm for his tastes. They didn't find any more crabs during their exploration, and upon destroying the last spawner, an unfamiliar feminine voice sounded from above in a casual tone.
"Room 1 Complete"
Charlie was in obvious pain from his injury, but perked up with the message. "Whose voice is that? The dungeon master?"
Paul looked up to the sky and nodded, "Most likely, usually only LEO speaks like that, but from what I understand, the showrunner in dungeons is the dungeon master rather than LEO."
Charlie spat another mouthful of blood, "Well, she's a bitch! Wasting our time in this room. What was the point of all the iguanas? There was only one actual enemy!"
Paul wisely said nothing as he nervously looked around. Presumably, the mysterious dungeon master could hear them, so he didn't speak carelessly. Becca didn't have the same reservations as she said, "Obviously, they were to distract us and lure us into a false sense of security, so the crab could ambush us… Looks like it worked just fine on a meathead like you."
Charlie shot her a glare, but before he could retort, they were interrupted by a new voice.
"Salutations!"
All three of them whipped around to see a new figure appear. It was humanoid, but clearly reptilian with distinctly iguana-like features. It wore a labcoat and had a stethoscope around its neck as it focused on Charlie.
"Oh dear! What a sorry state you appear to be in, my dear traveler! Never fear! As a reward for your brave and arduous journey, the name is Gregor MacGregor, and with the pinnacle of science on my side, I can cure you of your fleshly woes!"
Charlie stared at the iguana-man and coughed a bit more blood before warily glancing at Paul. "You read all those books about dungeons, what the hell is this?"
Paul hesitantly looked at the supposed doctor and said, "Dungeons often have features which aren't directly antagonistic and actually sometimes helpful. They can appear as rewards for bonus objectives or just as sightseeing locations. They're not meant to be directly dangerous, but they don't come without risk. As we got the room complete message, he for sure shouldn't be an enemy, as we won't encounter new ones until moving onto room two."
Charlie stared daggers at Gregor for a moment longer before coughing and saying, "Hurry up and do it!"
Gregor clapped his clawed hands together and smiled a toothy grin. "Of course, my good sir!" Pressing the stethoscope onto Charlie's chest, Charlie winced in pain, and the iguana exclaimed, "Well, this is no good at all! Your rib is cracked, and your lung is punctured! I have just the things to fix you up in a jiffy!"
He held out a stick of chewing gum. "Blow a bubble with this and breathe it in, and your lungs will be sealed in record time."
Charlie didn't look fully convinced, but accepted the gum chewing it carefully before blowing a bubble and sucking the air back in as directed. The iguana kept a cheerful expression throughout the process, and Charlie visibly relaxed once completed and said, "It hurts less now, and I'm not coughing blood, my rib is still broken though."
Gregor laughed, "Just step one was done, and now it's time for step two!" From nowhere, a large metal detector-looking archway appeared, and Gregor continued, "Step through here and your rib pain will be a thing of the past, or your money back!"
Charlie eyed the archway, but did as commanded and stepped through. Something fell to the ground as he walked through. Charlie immediately collapsed. Paul and Becca stared in horror as the object on the floor was revealed to be Charlie's pearly-white ribcage, complete with a single cracked rib.
Gregor smiled and clapped his hands, "Tadah! No more rib pain!"
Charlie's eyes were wide on the floor as he made a strangled choking noise, unable to breathe.
Becca leveled her guns at Gregor, "What did you do! Put them back!"
Gregor stared at her, confused, "Put them back…? I'm afraid I don't know how to do that, tell you what! If you're not satisfied, I will refund you, however!" He paused, "Let's see here… You paid me nothing, so I'll return nothing! Pleasure doing business!" With a popping noise, he disappeared out of existence, leaving Paul and Becca alone with Charlie's dead body.
Becca whirled on Paul, her eyes accusatory, "You said he wasn't an enemy!"
Paul was pale as he held his hands up defensively, "He wasn't! I think? He healed Charlie the first time! It must be up to chance or something? Like playing the lottery! He just got unlucky, how was I supposed to know that would happen!"
Becca rolled her eyes, "Whatever, let's move on, the safety is on, so it's not like he's really dead."
Paul shot a last look at Charlie's body before nodding and following after Becca. While distracted by Gregor, the many pillars in the room had faded away, and there was now an obvious door to the next floor.
Paul calmed his breathing and gave Becca a final look before opening the door and peering through. Ahead was a tunnel with stone walls. Along its length, dozens of holes of varying sizes were present at varying heights.
Paul stared at the holes warily, remembering how Charlie had been grabbed by surprise. Looking at Becca, he said, "Keep your eyes on the holes more crabs could reach through and attack."
She stared back at him, "Obviously."
Sighing, he entered and approached the first dark hole, taking a flashlight from his back and shining it into the dark hole to find that it was only a few inches deep and led nowhere. Checking another, he cursed as he found the same. Looking back at Becca, he opened his mouth to warn her, but she was interrupted by saying, "What are you going to tell me that some holes are actually dangerous and the other ones are decoys? I'm not an idiot like Charlie, you know!"
Shutting his mouth, he turned away, not having more to say. Becca pulled out her own flashlight, and they made slow progress as they cautiously made their way down the corridor, checking each hole warily for surprise attacks. Paul felt his nerves fraying and was almost relieved when, from a hole giant claw finally appeared and snatched his flashlight.
"Crab!"
Fumbling with his gun, he aimed it into the hole and opened fire, sending a flurry of bullets into the darkness. Not panicking, he only shot half a magazine before pausing and listening.
Becca stood at the ready as she asked, "Did you get it?"
The wall exploded in answer as a giant crab bodied its way through the surprisingly thin section. Paul reflexively summoned a forcefield with his ability and stumbled back, only for the wall behind him to explode as well, and another crab joined the fray.
Two more explosions were triggered further down the passage, and a section they already passed had additional crabs crash through and surround them. Becca shot one's legs with a bola and started shooting her handguns while Paul made a tactical decision and used his rocket jump to shoot down the corridor and beneath the legs of an approaching crab. Free from the surround he started shooting the crab he'd bypassed and considered his options. He had a consumable claymore he could set up and…
From behind, something crashed into him, and he was knocked to the ground, caught off guard. Blearily, he looked up and saw that he'd entered a circular room with four more of the giant crabs forming a half-circle around him.
"Shit."
Switching perspective~...
***
Gen took a bite of popcorn while she watched Paul being ripped to pieces by the crab. Morna was laughing to her side and had created the snack with her item. Gen had done a lot of experimenting with her dungeon over the last few days, and finding she could bring others with her into the observation mode was just the tip of the iceberg. From several test runs with G2n, Morna, Hon, Chuck, and Jacob, she had a somewhat refined dungeon layout, and they were watching the inaugural run of a group going in blind. Morna had reached out to Sarah to recruit the guinea pigs, and it had gone about as well as Gen could hope for as she got a message from LEO.
Dungeon Run Completed - 3/3 invaders killed.
- 6 emmys gained
- Large amount of dungeon XP earned - Level up!
- LEO's notes: Hahaha… I never get tired of watching people get bones taken out of their bodies!
Gen smiled at the level. A big issue they'd run into with testing was that viewers apparently got bored watching the same people run the dungeon repeatedly and doing the same things. Fresh blood and copious death were unsurprisingly exactly what she needed to push through from level 2 to level 3 in her dungeon, as five previous runs by her friends hadn't gotten her nearly as much as this single run had. In the back of her mind, she knew that it could go even faster if she turned the safety off, but she wasn't in so much of a rush to level the dungeon that she wanted to actually kill people. Just traumatize them a bit, even if they made colorful comments like Charlie had.
Not leaving the observation area, she ignored the trio as they rematerialized outside the dungeon. She wasn't actually friends with them, so the dungeon entrance had been placed in a random alley with no connection to her, and she assumed they could find their own way home.
Instead, she focused on the new polls that appeared.
Putting aside whatever the hell a dungeon flavor was, she was interested that the current dungeon aspect poll was limited to only traps as the previous two had each had a creature, trap, and a feature. Of those three trap was the only one her viewers had yet to select, but she had no way of knowing if that was a coincidence.
Standing into a stretch, she was starting to feel more confident in her place in Spotlight. It had been a solid week of doing deliveries and exploring the city. While the emmys earned by the delivery job were still minuscule, she was feeling more confident in their financial situation as the dungeon continued to level and the seeds the iguanas planted started to sprout.
Her phone buzzed, and she saw a new text.
Francine: I think I found something.
Free vote here!