I'd run some loops, assessed the local threats. First enemy, ankylosauruses. Second, something that looked like wind-up teeth with a thin layer of fur and four stubby legs. They were apparently wombat-related nonsense.

  I headed back, reaching home just as Lacie left. "We forgot to open boxes," she said, just as the timer clicked to 0.

  System Message. Attention. Attention. The gates are down. The hunters are loose. Run, Run, Run.

  "Alright, let's do that."

  We were in a safe room, so we just did it there.

  Silver Quest Box.

  Phased Weapon Oil x5.

  Gold Asshole's Box.

  Desperado Pass Tattoo.

  Major Nightclub Sponsorship Decal.

  An emblem like a dagger dripping blood floated through the air, landing on my neck and searing itself into my skin. It would have seemed painful, if not for all the injuries I'd recently gotten used to. Oddly, even though the high neck of the running top should have covered it, the tattoo was visible. "What the heck?"

  "I know you're not all about tattoos," Lacie said immediately, grabbing my hands, "but I assure you it's a good one. Very hot, fits your vibe."

  Glowering, I looked at the weapon oil.

  Phased Weapon Oil

  Apply this to any bladed offensive weapon to receive the following buffs for the next fifteen minutes:

  The item will hide its wounds from sight.

  Victims killed by the weapon or its side-effects will be listed as dying from an alternate source.

  You will not receive credit or experience for the kill. Nor will you get one of those nasty skulls by your name if you happen to kill a fellow Crawler. Wink, wink, nudge, nudge.

  "Man, why do they have to keep on with this assassination nonsense." I glared up, as if the AI were in the ceiling. "I'm not gonna go around murdering people, and if I did I wouldn't lie to the world about it."

  Lacie leaned in and gave me a hug. "I love how stubborn you are. Let me take it. We can at least sell it off."

  I looked at her nervously. We could sell it, but I was suddenly wondering if she had any bladed weapons. I shook that thought away. Lacie was snide, but she was a good person. And finally yet another decal for my top.

  Major Nightclub Sponsorship Decal

  The godless hedonists of the desperado club like your style. I know you were worried about things not going your way after you got nothing from your girlfriend last night, gooner. Worry not. I assure you that the benefits of this patch can be spent not only at the casino, but also at the strip clubs and brothels. This level has the excellent High Class Bitches, and the quality of those disease-carriers only improves as you descend and the floor they're on comes closer to matching their age.

  This sponsorship grants no bonuses.

  This is a major sponsorship with a kicker on Bladed Weapons.

  This sponsorship pays double, but the payment is in Desperado Club Credits.

  I showed it to Lacie. "I don't think I even want this thing."

  "It's going to give you a massive amount of credits at a club in the game. Admittedly, it would be nice if it gave bonuses, but it's definitely an upgrade." She aligned it over the tattoo. "Stop whining and equip your gear."

  She was right. Besides, when I touched it, it snapped into place above the tattoo, so it lined up perfectly, changing my look not at all. Well, it added a little metallic gleam to the emblem, but that was whatever.

  Next, Lacie opened her box.

  Silver Quest Box.

  Scroll of Change Weather.

  "Is that good?"

  She was reading it, contemplatively. "It's incredibly powerful, but I'm not sure when it would be useful. It feels like it's designed for warfare, like miring an army in mud or something." She frowned. "Everyone says the AI gives stuff like this out because you'll need it soon. First floor, I got a potion of regeneration, and if I didn't have it I would have died to a boss a few days later."

  "Ah. That's not a good sign." I looked over our items again. "I would like to point out that, yet again, I received nothing that actually helps me fight."

  "Yeah, I noticed," Lacie said as she headed out of the saferoom. "Your situation's weird as fuck."

  I had nothing more to say, so I just followed her out. I led Lacie out to the hills to show her the mobs. One of the tooth-monsters was four feet off the ground, gnawing on an upright tree, legs flailing uselessly.

  Voggler - Level 42

  The result of a war-mage experiment to make wombats actually scary, the voggler is the definition of the mouth writing a check the stomach can't cash. Eager to eat literally anything, it will just find a thing and chew on it until it gets through. The more-aggressive males have been known to eat their way through boulders. However, they can only eat a bit, most ends up loose on the ground, never getting turned into adorable little poop-cubes.

  "Can I—" The instant Lacie spoke, it leapt off the tree and came at us, teeth clomping on nothing with a deafening chattering noise, tiny legs scrambling in the loam.

  I'd been ready and sent a fastball that knocked it on its back and took out a tooth. Another few fastballs ended its life.

  "They also seem a bit weak for this floor," she said.

  "I dunno. I bet the bite's vicious," I said. "Now, I assume we're honoring the deal with that group and won't be trying to swipe their quest."

  "Yeah, let's just grind. I need to work on some spells, and you need to improve that kazi-wazi judo thing."

  "Kaeshi waza."

  "Yeah, that."

  Help support creative writers by finding and reading their stories on the original site.

  We headed deeper into the hills.

  We likely seemed ill-prepared, but we were being careful. Lacie was nigh-invisible, I was skipping through tree-tops and searching for traps, paying attention to my blindsight-senses at all times. When we found mobs, we made sure we were fighting in a way we could easily disengage and focus on a new threat.

  We expected the hunters to stalk us. We expected those murderers to track as down.

  That first day, nobody came. We went back to the safe room, Lacie rested, and I sat around. She said they were watching our feeds and would know if I left, so I promised her I wouldn't go out alone anymore.

  It was a fair point, but incredibly boring. The training room wasn't activated, but I went in there anyways. The dungeon doesn't let you "train" skills beyond a certain time limit, but training to use skills matters too. I couldn't do a ton in that small of a space, but I could try some specific flips and see if I could get a good fastball out of them. I figured I should be able to adjust a double-double only slightly, standing in-place, and send a fastball hurtling out in any direction.

  I gave myself a black eye—for about a tenth of a second; the regeneration skill works—when the heavy steel ball ricocheted directy into my face.

  Bored with that, I lay down and messaged Jack and John, who were about the only people who I really chatted with. I used to talk to Sandra, but apparently Mom would notice when she was messaging too long, assume it was me, and harrass her.

  The J's were leveling fine. About the same as me, and they also had a larger group, so they were probably better situated. They were really worried about me, but they also had never seen my skills, and I wasn't about to talk about having a 16 in dodge.

  They said we might get some business, if my sensei skill was as good as I claimed. If I could actually take Lacie from 0 to 4 dodge in 2 days, there would be a lot of people interested in buying that service. We just had to figure out how to get them into our personal space, which apparently required that it be level 5.

  On that note, I began wandering about the personal space, looking it over. Somewhere in there I got a sponsor again, but didn't pay attention to it. With how low my views were, it wasn't like I was about to get a box from them. Pacing aimlessly, I somehow almost missed my time to rest, going to bed late enough that Lacie was up fifteen minutes before me.

  I joined her in the crafting room, where she had eight small pots with labels and notes on each, like she was running some sort of experiment. I sat back, enjoying just watching her for a bit. After a few more minutes, she adusted the settings on several controls and was done.

  She looked my way and said, "We have fan boxes. You, in particular, have a platinum fan box."

  I frowned, remembering how we had earned those. "Yeah. We should open those."

  As we sat on the edge of the bed, she set a hand on my shoulder and said, "Sorry, again."

  "It's fine." I opened my box without any more words. It appeared, one item popping out. Platinum Belly-Button Stud of Dexterity +6.

  "Well, we know what the fans want."

  I held up the little silver stud, eyes unfocused. I put it in my inventory. "What's in your box?"

  She got Alluring Lingerie of +2 Charisma. After a long look at my face, she said, "I'm gonna go change. Don't worry about the piercing."

  She headed into the bathroom, obviously feeling awkward about everything. A few seconds later, she gave an excited shriek. After a few more seconds, she rushed back out, still tugging the mesh top into place. I barely noticed the new bra because she yelled, "I'm going on a show!"

  "What?"

  "The shows they pull crawlers out for! They're putting me on a panel tomorrow. This is so exciting!"

  "Wait, they take people out of this place and do talk shows?"

  Grabbing my arm, she headed out saying, "I still don't understand how you've learned so little about the dungeon. Allow me to regale you with second-hand tales of the wonderful world of Shadow Boxer, Death Watch Extreme Dungeon Mayhem, and Dungeon Crawler After Hours with Odette.

  That day, my confusion drew laughs from Lacie as she gossiped about shows neither of us would ever see. She also talked about her show, which she knew basically nothing about, which was called, "Fit (Dungeon Masterpieces 23)".

  There were no hunters, but we saw the murderers. I think they were trying to sneak up on us. We'd talked about this. Lacie clearly thought we should have it out and end them, but not strongly enough to argue for it. So, my position of being insulting while trying to stave off a fight was the plan.

  I waved and yelled, "Hi Chue! Hi Carlita! Do you think what you're doing qualifies as hiding? Hi Jenny!"

  They didn't reply, but they were soon fighting a neighborhood boss that looked to be giant flea of some sort. I could have thrown a few knives in to get some credit, but that felt low, so I just let the day slide by with more grinding.

  We found a Giant Microceratus which seemed like a useless way to name things, although I suspect that was because they intended it for another floor, but the regular Microceratus would have been too small of a dinosaur here. It wasn't very dangerous.

  We got back an hour before the show so that Lacie could do her makeup. She came out looking preposterously hot, gave me a peck on the cheek, then vanished with a popping sound. I sat down in the safe room, ate some of the local cuisine—the bugbear did not impress me with his skills—and waited.

  Eventually, I moved to a window seat and practiced throwing breaking balls that came back without the knife's ability teleporting them to me. The challenge was catching the handle of a tiny, flying glass knife, not the blade.

  It also occurred to me that I might be good at Five Finger Filet, and I spent twenty minutes with the little blade darting quickly between my fingers, utterly wrecking one of the tabletops. I paid the bugbear five gold for damages before he could complain.

  Lacie: I'm back!

  I rushed in, and she chattered away during our training session. Apparently, Dungeon Masterpieces was a show about the hottest female crawlers each season. For each new planet, they took some local terms to rebrand the show into that specific world, trying to give a new angle on sex appeal. It was currently titled "Fit" because the host had learned a british accent.

  This had been a round-table with a few of the hottest crawlers (that they could afford) talking about how earthlings flirted. Elle had been the big star. The second guest had been a former model and influencer of no great note named Leane Orchid. Then there was a former only-fans and twitch e-girl named Jazzie Juice, and my own girlfriend.

  I wasn't sure how I felt about her going on a show to wow people with her body, but I was so proud that she had. And she did deserve it, because she was incredibly sexy.

  "They could have gotten fifty influencer/e-girl types on," she insisted. "I was just there because the goth vibe is different."

  I knew she was wrong, but she didn't trust my opinions on style. Which was fair.

  Lacie had especially enjoyed the last segment, where the host played clips of other crawlers and had the panel explain why they were "well fit" or "just shit".

  In three days of training, I got her dodge to level 5, and my ability to see her exact progress towards the next level vanished, presumably because I no longer had a 4x multiplier of her skill.

  Then I worked on Find Traps to no avail and we headed out for day three of being "hunted", as if anything were actually happening.

  We'd messed up, I think. We'd been so nervous about hunters that we hadn't been grinding as hard as we could have. The mobs in this whole region were weak, the XP was poor, and we weren't skilling up quickly. When the hunters did come, we wouldn't be as prepared as we could have been.

  On the other hand, a recent announcement had declared our private chats safe, so we'd been able to actually discuss our plans with something other than references and innuendo. It turns out I'd been about 95% right about what Lacie wanted, enough that it would have worked the same. She'd been terrified I would say the plan was too dangerous when we could just talk about it, then she was worried when I said it seemed pretty reasonable.

  I told her what I'd told people on earlier floors: If you can't take a high-risk challenge on this floor, you won't be able to take a low risk challenge one floor down. There would eventually be a place where that rule had to break, but it wasn't going to be 4 floors shy of making any deals.

  Able to chat more openly, that next day was a lot more fun, but still uneventful. We were running out of places to plausibly hunt.