[ 21 ]
Time to Level Collapse: 47 hours
IF FRANK AND MAGGIE FOUND MY TRAP, I DIDN’T RECEIVE A NOTIFICATION.
The best case scenario was that they were both dead, and I didn’t get credit for it. Of all the achievements in this game, Crawler Killer was one I wanted to avoid.
I did not receive any sort of achievement or skill for setting a trap, and it was a safe bet that’d be a thing here. I took that as a good sign. Donut and I did, however, receive an achievement for our “fight” with Frank Q and
Maggie My.
New Achievement! Bitchmeat!
You’ve been attacked by a fellow crawler in a safe zone, and the system has been forced to save your ass. That usually suggests you’re either really annoying, or you snore.
If this were a prison, you would now be my bitch. Wait… Reward: Bitches don’t get rewards.
I laughed. For the first time since we’d entered this ridiculous game, I laughed at one of the stupid notifications.
The ride was significantly smoother than I anticipated. We got about three or four miles per lump of coal, and I had an almost endless supply.
We only managed to travel east for a single junction before we hit a wall, and we were forced to choose between north and south. If the map in my
head was accurate, we’d hit the edge of Lake Washington above, once again proving that the dungeon didn’t truly circle the planet. We went south, traveling down a rough approximation of the I-5 corridor for a short time before passages that went east and west started re-appearing. I strongly suspected we needed to head east and inland before we saw any stairwells.
But the problem was directly east was a large mountain range up above, and if the dungeon had been desolate before, it’d be downright abandoned here.
Not for another 100 miles.
We decided to resume our trek east anyway, heading further away from the western edge of the U.S. coastline.
We drove for hours, seeing no sign of people or mobs or stairwells. It was difficult to gauge how fast we were actually moving, but I guessed it was about 20 miles per hour. My Chopper Pilot skill rose steadily as I drove.
Once I hit level 5, the throttle actually allowed me to increase our speed.
I didn’t want to go too fast, but I felt it was important to find a denser area of the labyrinth. From what little I’d seen on the show, I knew there were areas different than this. I had the sense that these giant squares were nothing more than just filler, like the randomly generated terrain at the edge of some maps in open-world games.
As we drove, I made Donut keep her map on full screen so she could better scan the area, looking for points of interest. We saw fewer and fewer training guilds out here, but they were there. The bathrooms continued to be all over the place, and rest areas dotted the maps, too.
My thoughts wandered to my father. If he could only see me now, sitting on this thing, holding my legs out so they wouldn’t burn on the side of the glorified moped. He’d laugh, call me a damn fool. He’d been a motorcycle guy. Not a full-time, leather-clad biker. He was more of a weekend warrior.
I hadn’t talked to or heard from the man in over 12 years. Not since he’d abandoned me that day, leaving me all alone in the world.
Before today, I’d never been on a motorcycle in my life, not that this thing really counted as one. I had a bicycle now that I sometimes rode to work if the weather was good, but I’d never even ridden on a dirt bike, let alone anything more powerful.
We stopped once to use a restroom that appeared just off the main corridor. Once we entered the hallway, we were beset by a group of bipedal, raccoon-headed monsters that were as tall as my knee. These things were called Scat Thugs, and the ones here on the edge of the corridor were all level
three. They were about as strong as regular goblins and were armed with needle-like spears. A pair charged me and got skewered by my knee pads. I took all their spears as loot, which were useless to me, but hopefully I’d be able to sell them later.
We used the bathroom—thankfully neither of us exploded—and we headed out on our way.
But the short excursion taught me something important. Those mobs were right there, barely twenty feet from the edge of the never-ending artery. We hadn’t seen their dots until we’d stopped the bike and approached the boundary of the alley. The fog of war encroached tighter upon us the faster we were going. That was important to know. We needed a skill or a spell or some sort of special ability that would allow us to navigate better. We were literally driving blind, and I didn’t like that. It was only a matter of time before we drove headfirst into a trap.
We decided to go back on the road, heading deeper east. I moved slower.
And then, after several hours, we finally saw something new.
I stopped the Chopper, examining the spray-painted sign on the wall.
“Two crossroads east, three south. Stairs + People.”
It was written in English in red, runny spray paint. I ran my hand across it. It didn’t come off on my finger, but it had a tacky texture. The paint was only hours old.
“Do you think it’s a trap?” Donut asked.
“Maybe,” I said.
Now that we’d stopped, I could see several x’s on my map, indicating mob corpses just down the hallways. We ventured in to get a better look.
These were white, horned goat things with mouths full of fangs. I examined the first one.
Lootable Corpse. Chilly Goat. Level 4. Killed by Crawler Brandon An with an assist by Crawler Chris Andrews 2.
Inventory is empty.
I examined all the goats in the area, and I counted 15 different names who had either killed or assisted in the slaying of the mobs. The goats had been sliced, fried with spells, and I saw several broken arrow shafts, though the arrow heads themselves were all gone. Some of the monsters were literally smashed flat, like the person had an enormous hammer.
“I’m pretty sure it’s not a trap,” I said. “Let’s go find them.”
The spray painted notifications continued the closer we got to the area.
Right where the sign told us to go was a T-junction. I coasted to a stop.
The Chopper made a chug-chug-chug noise. It would need another lump soon. I was getting good at understanding its sounds and vibrations. My ass was killing me, and my legs ached. On the ground was an arrow, pointing left, which was further east.
Looking at the map, I could see this area was different than any place we’d entered before. The east and west roads didn’t continue straight, but they curved away, indicating we’d come to the edge of a massive circle.
I suddenly had an uneasy feeling about what might be at the center of this area.
“I see the stairwell,” Donut said. “If you zoom out the map, it’s right on the edge of what we can see.”
Sure enough. In the area immediately south, and presumably in the center of this giant loop, there appeared to be a stairwell. I hovered over the white square on the map, and it simply read Stairwell to Floor Two.
I didn’t see any other blue dots or anything else. Just the empty expanse of the fog of war.
“Look, there’s something written on the ground,” Donut said, pointing down the left hallway.
After a minute’s hesitation, I stored the chopper, and we went toward the sign on foot.
“This road is safe. We are gathered a mile and a half this way. DO NOT go deeper into the spiral or you will activate the borough boss.”
Shit. Mordecai had said the bosses wouldn’t be guarding the stairwells until the fourth floor.
“I wonder what’s in there,” Donut asked, looking at the solid wall to our right.
Just as she said it, the wall rumbled as something rushed past on the other side. It was like we were standing on a train platform. Whatever it was, it was
something fast. Something big.
Very, very big.
We walked on foot. After about a quarter mile, a rounded portcullis appeared on our right, leading toward the center of the circle. The cross-beam gate was lifted about halfway up the floor. We’d be able to slip under and go deeper into the loop if we wanted. There appeared to be another ring just inside. The graffiti had called it a spiral. Looking inside, I could see another doorway just down this wide, interior hallway. So it was more like a round
maze than a spiral.
If we slid under the gate, it would no doubt slide closed and trap us.
“Let’s wait a second,” I said. “I want to see what it is.”
We didn’t have to wait long. The creature, whatever it was, rushed by in a flash, too fast for me to get an info box. It rolled like a ball. It was pink, fleshy, and it was the size of the entire hallway. It was like a nightmare Pac- man monster. It made a terrible grunting noise as it rocketed by, shaking the walls. The stench of sewage wafted up as it passed.
“My heavens,” Donut said, crinkling her face like I’d tried to feed her vegetables. “This is going to be unpleasant.”
