Primitive Information Device, Part 2
Dungeon Crawler Carl x Reader
Rating: just language and violence
WC: ~ 11k
Blurb: Carl and Reader keep up with each other after Odette's show.
Part 1
Thank you all for the love and support on part 1 it inspired me to keep going!! Thank you for the PATIENCE!!!!!!
This is uhhh a long one. I did my research (aka read) to make this as lore accurate as possible hahaha but there is obviously a lot of creative liberty with reader soooo. There is a part 3 in the works muahahah (last one planned... for now). Spoilers for every book after 2.
"Motherfucker," she groaned at the sunset above her.
Her Kindle had died right as she watched Biscuit trot down the stairwell to the fourth floor. She was so close to finishing the romance novel she was reading. She rubbed her eyes with frustration before placing the device in her inventory. She took one last look at the Over City, preparing to write a message to Carl, but stopping herself when she remembered he was already gone.
She pulled up their last exchange instead.
Carl: Donut and I are going down now.
Unc: Huh? But we still have three days.
Carl: I know. We got ourselves into a situation. Stay safe. I'll chat with you on the other side.
Unc: Okay. Take care, old man.
Carl: Take care. And I'm only three years older than you.
She smiled at the screen before minimizing it. She wondered what he was up to. She was grateful, sometimes, that she wasn't in Carl's party. That entire group seemed to attract disaster with a kind of reckless enthusiasm that she (and others, she was sure of it) found alarming. She had once messaged him that he seemed to be on a speedrun to an early grave, and he hadn't denied it. She later learned that his Game Guide, Mordecai, shared the same resentment.
"You can't save them all."
Ever since Odette's show, their messages had been coming with increasing frequency. She enjoyed talking to him and had started to crack through that tough exterior of his. He was smart, deeply loyal to his family, and kind. She couldn't believe the dungeon hadn't beaten that trait out of him.
They hadn't crossed paths again on this floor after the joint interview, but that didn't stop their chatting.
Biscuit had gotten them into all sorts of trouble on the third floor, his doggish nature meaning he was incapable of not being friendly to anyone—and unfortunately, that friendliness extended to danger, to the delight of mobs and harmful NPCs. On the bright side, she was getting plenty of skill practice on the mobs Biscuit kept dragging her way.
Her Situational Stasis skill had come in handy more times than she could count. All she had to do was hold one hand out, and whatever was threatening them simply stopped. It was like a pause button for catastrophe. Her Redirect skill had been equally useful, rerouting damage mid-flight when mobs threw things at them. This had been particularly helpful during an encounter with a mob of winged monkeys that hurled fire bananas.
She hadn't mastered any physical weapons yet, and she wasn't fond of the idea. The incessant violence of this place went against every instinct she had. But somewhere along the way she had become functional with a garrote—a long wire connected by plastic handles. According to the System description, this was an assassin's tool, which she found both funny and mortifying. Their strategy was simple enough: Situational Stasis to freeze the target, Biscuit's Advanced Retrieval to bring it to her, and then the wire. His bite was strong enough to finish most things on its own, but together they were more efficient. It wasn't elegant, but it worked.
Biscuit's Morale Aura helped buffer her before fights. She always felt steadier when he was near, calmer than the situation warranted. She was grateful for that more than she could say. Her real power, she suspected, would be best used in a party; energy redirection would be incredibly useful with powerful spellcasters. She had been gathering what information she could about Elysian from NPCs but hadn't found much beyond what the System had already told her. Her inner Catalogue was filing it all away regardless. Every detail, every face, every crawler or NPC she hadn't been able to help, was stored in her brain. She remembered everything. That was the deal the System had made with her.
She took one last look at the village behind her. An announcement cut through the air.
Hello, Crawlers!
As a reminder, this floor is set to collapse in six hours. Only a couple thousand of you haven't taken stairwells yet—I suggest you start wrapping your affairs up and getting down those steps. That's all for now. I'll see you on the fourth floor as you all get ready to kill, kill, kill!
She rolled her eyes at the cheerful voice and went down the stairs.
— ♡ —
Halfway through the fourth floor, in an empty subway car, she cried into Biscuit's fur while the train jolted and swayed around them. She had cried more times than she could count since the start of the subway-themed level.
Biscuit whimpered in distress because his emotional buffer wasn't enough to cheer his girl up.
She had never taken a subway in her life. This was not what she'd imagined it'd be like.
She had grown up, as most small-town teenagers do, with visions of moving to a big city like New York. She imagined herself taking the subway to some important job in an important outfit, fancy shoes; very put together, very adult. Instead, she was on the Winter Sky line in yoga pants, somewhere underground on a dungeon floor, completely alone except for her golden retriever. The line had been suspiciously devoid of monsters, which should have been comforting but was somehow worse because of how alone the two of them were. The loneliness was opening a gap for her depression to start poking around the back of her brain again.
She hadn't heard from Carl in a while either. She knew he was caught up in cahoots—he had told her that himself—but she felt an ache at the lack of communication. He was her friend now, and she missed talking to him.
Her only (and best) companion was Biscuit. There were literally no other life forms on this floor, save the Bopca Protectors that they'd meet in the safe rooms. The loneliness, even if it meant no hostile mobs, was sending her thoughts into overdrive. Her inner voice had not been as quiet as it was around other living forms.
She knew she should hold it together until they found a safe room. She wiped her eyes and watched the station number approach. 40.
She dabbed the last of her tears with her long sleeve and took a deep, shaky breath. "Come on, Biscuit. Let's get off here." He followed her with concern in his eyes but didn't say anything. The sound of his nails and her sneakers hitting the tiled floor echoed across the platform. That, and the buzzing of the lights, was all they could hear.
They found the safe room door at the end of the platform. "Mom, I can open my Fan Box now!" Biscuit's tail started going. "Same," she said, checking her interface.
Admin Note: Your Fan Box is ready to open.
"I hope you got some toothbrushes for that breath of yours," she told him, trying to lighten the mood. She knew it wasn't fair to Biscuit that she kept losing her composure like this. It felt selfish.
"What about a razor for your hairy legs?" Biscuit replied, tongue out.
"Hey!" She laughed as she pushed open the safe room door and was briefly blinded by the colors that assaulted her eyes.
The safe room was themed as a children's daycare, with bright paintings of rainbows and butterflies covering every wall and a Bopca Protector standing behind a small countertop. "Welcome," he greeted them. "Please let me know what I can do to help."
She settled onto a purple beanbag under a painted sunrise. Biscuit sat in front of her, eyes going slightly hazy as he opened his box. A light flashed. When it cleared, he was wearing a bandana around his neck—white, patterned with small bones and hearts alternating across the fabric. He looked down at it. Then back up at her. His tail went into overdrive.
"MOM. Do you SEE this?"
"I see it." She laughed.
"I look SO good. I look HANDSOME." His southern drawl thickened with excitement.
"You really do," she said. She pet him for a bit while talking to him about how she'd been feeling. Biscuit was the best listener, and laid on his back while she rubbed his belly.
At that moment, her guilt started eating her alive. "Biscuit, I—" She was trying to apologize to him, for the tears, for the persistent sadness, but he jumped off the ground and onto her lap and started licking her face until she couldn't stop laughing.
"Get off of me!" She clutched her stomach as Biscuit went back to the floor. "Mom, you don't have to be sorry. That's what dogs are for. I'm here to help you carry your burdens and make you smile a bit more."
"My sweet boy," she held his face and kissed him on his forehead.
She opened her own box before she could sink back into her emotions again. Then, she almost got emotional about the content of the box instead. Three complete series—her favorite fantasy novels, the ones she'd read in high school and college when things got really hard. She shouted a thank you at the ceiling.
Minx grinned as she watched the broadcast feed of their girl opening her box. The Marginalia had held an emergency fundraiser and spent a pretty penny getting these items into the dungeon. Biscuit's bandana caught the daycare lighting perfectly, and Minx cooed at how cute the dog was.
Biscuit snored lightly at her feet while she started reading. A few hours later, after finishing a dinner of beef stew the Bopca had made her, her interface lit up.
Carl: I know it's been a bit. Checking in. Donut and I just dealt with something absolutely insane. Would love a distraction.
Unc: My fan box arrived. I got sent complete sets of my favorite series.
Carl: That's really good.
Unc: Biscuit got a bandana. Little bones and hearts. He looks incredibly good and will not stop telling me about it.
Carl: Send him my congratulations.
Unc: He says—and I quote—"TELL HIM I LOOK GREAT! I WANT HIM TO KNOW!"
Carl: Noted. What kind of books?
Unc: Please don't laugh at me.
Carl: Promise.
Unc: Fae romance. I used to read them in high school when I was really sad.
Carl: No judgment. I've read A Court of Horny Roses.
Fuck, does he mean A Court of Thorns and Roses? She couldn't help but crack up, filling the safe room with her laughs. She chose not to correct him.
Unc: Color me impressed.
Carl: Are you sad now?
Unc: Yeah. I know I have Biscuit, and he's my best friend, but this is a different kind of sadness.
Carl: Fuck. Let me see if I can figure out how to get you here with me.
She stared at that last message for a long time. She tried not to overanalyze it, but she was just a girl. The way he said it, no softening, just let me see if I can figure out how to get you with me made her feel butterflies in her stomach—hope, she realized, which she hadn't felt in days.
This is not the time nor place for this.
She bent down and scratched at Biscuit's soft, golden head, trying to distract herself from her crush.
— ♡ —
On the fifth floor she had been assigned to the subterranean quadrant of Bubble 1,134.
It had been its own kind of hell, mostly—until Biscuit found the girls.
He had spotted the four crawlers on the first day underground and made the decision, as good dogs do, to go up and say hi to them. Lindsey, Nia, Piper, and Sofia had been at a fraternity party at their SEC school when the collapse happened. All four had stayed human, which she respected. They were smart, funny and brought a fun kind of bubbliness to the situation they were in.
She liked them enormously. The six had formed an almost instantaneous bond.
Together they had managed to free their quadrant. This had required all of their combined brain cells (Piper liked to make this joke) and Biscuit's enthusiastic, if chaotic, assistance.
"To your left!" Piper called from behind her, and she whipped her hand toward the Cave Viper mid-lunge—a small snake-like mob that spat acid venom. It froze. Biscuit launched himself into the air, grabbed it, shook it until its health bar emptied, and dropped it. He wagged his tail over the dead snake.
Lindsey led them up the ramp toward the surface, torch held high, her blonde hair catching the light. Nia moved beside her, protection spells cycling steadily over the group. Behind them, Piper and Sofia held the rear, Biscuit chatting cheerfully between them.
"Biscuit, shush," Sofia said. "We don't know what's on the surface yet."
"I know!" Biscuit replied. "That's what's exciting!" Sofia sighed, and the girls all laughed.
His tail didn't stop wagging once.
— ♡ —
Carl: Checking in. I'm catching up with your messages. You said you freed your quadrant?
Unc: Yep. Suck it.
Carl: Nice work. We've made progress but Donut is stressed about the time we lost.
For those five days Donut and Carl were missing (which she now knew meant that they had been in detention), no messages would be delivered to Carl's inbox, and the silence haunted her time underground. She had told the others about it around the third day of no messages in a moment of weakness, and they had reacted in a way that reminded her that they were in fact twenty-something year old girls.
"Oh my god, you have a crush on him," Piper had said immediately. "No, he's a friend." She insisted over the gaggle of girlish voices.
"Wait. Is this the buff guy from the recaps? With the underwear and the tattoos?" Nia had looked up sharply. "He's fucking hot! Why are you not with your man?"
"He's not my man. And I don't—I mean, I don't think I—" She had been very aware of her own face heating up. "We just check in on each other. Like friends." She tried once again to emphasize that word. It felt wrong for her to say.
That was when everything came spilling out of her. She told the girls about Odette's show, the weird intergalactic ship she now found herself in, and how that had jumpstarted her and Carl's friendship. Carl had told her about it towards the end of the fourth floor, in a moment where he thought he might not make it out. Everything clicked in place when she learned about #Cunc. She read the girls their conversation about it.
Carl: In case I die, I need you to know that Odette had you on the show because a bunch of horny aliens want to see us together.
Unc: Excuse me? What happened to hi, hello, how are you?
Carl: No time.
Unc: What do you mean by together?
Carl: Do you know what fanfiction is?
Unc: Carl I wasn't born under a rock. Of course I do.
Carl: Okay they're writing that crap about us. They call us Cunc.
Unc: CUNC?????? I'M DYING THAT SOUNDS LIKE A DISEASE HAHAH
Carl: Don't yell.
Unc: Are you actually being serious?? Why didn't Odette say anything?
Carl: Her intentions are her own. I need you to know in case I die and she brings you back to ask you how you feel about it.
Unc: Don't worry. I can work the cameras.
Carl: Actually, you can't.
Unc: You cheeky fucker!! Try not to die I'll miss you
Carl: Noted. I'll talk to you later.
"Wow. This is just like when I used to read One Direction fanfiction." Nia said, with Lindsey nodding in agreement. "I was always more of a Harry x Y/N." Lindsey whipped her head at Nia's comment. "Really?! I was always a Ziam girl. I wanted them to kiss"
"Of course you were," Nia said laughing. "I will say that Cunc is an incredibly tragic shipname. There's gotta be something better we can come up with. I'll work on it."
"Anyways, I feel like you talk to him a lot more than you're letting on," Sofia said calmly, pushing past the chaos of the bickering girls. "This is very romantic."
"He hasn't replied in four days," Piper added. "Has he blocked you?"
Sofia hit her arm. "Not the time."
"You guys have cute banter!" Piper blurted the compliment, trying to remedy her comment.
She had pushed her anxious feelings aside to focus on keeping everyone alive, which was the correct priority—but the feelings had been there. She had, however, let the girls add her to their group chat. They named it, after a brief and spirited debate, Girl Power! This was the kind of cheesiness she had needed in this desolate place.
— ♡ —
Somewhere across the galaxy, Minx pressed her hands to her face and rocked back in her seat.
She could not believe her luck. Her friends were going to freak out. She and her moderators were freaking out on their video call.
The girls had read the Cunc conversation out loud. The girls had clocked the crush IMMEDIATELY. The girls had named the group chat Girl Power!, which Minx had immediately added to the Marginalia's Cunc document under the subheading: in-game validation of ship; collateral characters arrive.
"They are doing our job for us now," said a moderator over the call. "Who would have thought that on-the-ground intelligence would outperform our analysis division."
"Lesser intelligence, may I add," another voice cut through. "It's genuinely humbling."
"They are doing it better," Minx quipped. "Look at them. Look at how quickly they got there. We took an episode of Odette's show and a hundred-page analysis with footnotes."
"To be fair, we did not have access to her in person." Someone added, and Minx heard collective hums of agreement.
"That is not a fair point and you know it. We should be ashamed of ourselves." Minx's serpentine voice cut through the hums.
The moderator sighed, in the way moderators did when they were being shut down by Minx. "I think you're being too hard on yourself. We found our girl quick—the romance came second."
"Carry on," Minx ignored them.
The Marginalia's moderator video call carried on, and the fan club's activities continued from there. The newsletter for that cycle was already being drafted. The artists were already taking commissions.
Somewhere on the fifth floor a girl in a bubble quadrant had not yet finished blushing about a man she had not yet admitted she had a crush on. The Marginalia continued to root for their girl, because they had a story to believe in now.
— ♡ —
Her and Carl's chat had quieted down as they each faced their own battles for survival. Towards the end of the floor, the girls had trouble helping to free their air quadrant. Of course, like a knight in shining underwear, Carl had managed to pop a majority of the bubbles to help guide crawlers to the stairwells, including theirs.
Unc: Carl, I'm not even going to ask how you did all of this. Thank you.
Carl: Don't mention it. Please get down ASAP. I'm about to face off some very angry gods.
Unc: Okay, maybe I do want to ask about that.
Carl: Go. Please.
Unc: Be careful.
Carl: I will be. I'll find you on the next floor. Take care.
Unc: Take care. We're going down.
— ♡ —
They descended to the sixth floor because of Carl's bubble escape scheme, which she had watched on the recap with her hands over her mouth. The crawlers couldn't believe the balls this man had. When Lindsey said that, her cheeks had flushed red.
Lindsey choked out laughter when she saw her blushing face. "Whoops, made you think of his dick." Nia smacked the back of her head and Lindsey yelped in pain.
She spent the next few hours anxiously checking her interface until a message finally appeared.
Carl: Hi. Missed me?
Unc: Carl. Oh my god. Are you okay? Is Donut okay?
Carl: Don't worry about us.
Unc: That is genuinely impossible for me to do. You are actually insane.
Carl: I promise I wasn't like this on the surface. What's your plan now?
Unc: The girls and I are going to try to scout a hiding spot before the hunters are released.
Carl: Good. We've gotten pulled into that TV show quest I mentioned. We'll have to deal with that first. Watch out when they release the hunters.
Unc: Okay. Talk soon.
She closed the interface and looked out at the jungle stretching in every direction.
"Mom," Biscuit said beside her, reading the worry on her face. "We're going to be okay! I really think so!"
"I know," she said.
Piper walked up behind her and started playing with the ends of her ponytail. "I know you're worried, but I think he's got it." Piper's tone was gentle. "Nia thinks we should follow the river and get as far as we can from the hunters."
"Come on," she said, snapping out of it. "Let's find somewhere to hide."
"Girl gang, girl gang," Lindsey and Piper chanted as they whacked a path through the thick jungle.
The group hiked for several hours, and not once did she stop thinking about Carl.
They finally approached a settlement occupied by Ursine NPCs and quickly headed into a bed-and-breakfast. The girls were all exhausted from the hiking, and ready for food and a bed.
A female Ursine wearing a nightgown stood behind a small counter. She looked up at the crawlers and smiled. "Welcome, ladies." She glanced down at the big ball of golden fur. "And dog. Our safe room entrance is located past the kitchen door."
Lindsey looked at the girls and told them that she was going to go kill the mayor to take control of the settlement. Exchanging glances, the group shrugged shoulders and sent her on her way. "Lindsey is literally not scared of anything," Piper commented. "She was like this in college too. There wasn't a keg she couldn't conquer." The group watched Lindsey beeline her way to the town hall through the window.
The girls all said their thanks to the attendant and headed towards the kitchen. After settling into their personal spaces, which they had all combined on the lower floor, Biscuit headed into his and hers room. She and Biscuit had decided to just share a room—he had slept on her bed ever since he was a puppy. He jumped on the bed as she stepped into the bathroom to wash off the day. When she stepped out of the shower, Biscuit was snoring in the middle of the pink comforter.
Carl: Checking in. Where are you?
Unc: We're in a Ursine settlement on the farther end of the floor. Lindsey killed the mayor.
Carl: Let me guess. She renamed it Lindseytown.
Unc: YES. How did you know?
Carl: Oh, shit. I'm good at this.
Unc: To be fair, that one's predictable.
Carl: Don't steal my thunder.
Unc: What are you up to now? We watched the recap episode. That took some real guts to infiltrate Zockau like that.
— ♡ —
"Carl?!" She screamed as Big Tina made her way around a corner. The giant dinosaur was showing no sign of stopping the chase.
"Holy fuck, MOVE!" Carl yelled her name, beckoning her towards him.
Big Tina ran after her as she sprinted as fast as she could. Cramps dug into her sides as she pushed past the pain. She looked back at the dinosaur, a mouth full of teeth staring at her. "Can you please for the love of god slow down!" She screamed as she ran.
She had gotten herself in this situation because of her own doing. Her team had made it into a safe room, and she had gotten distracted while collecting some of the local flora for medicinal plants. She hadn't noticed the sun setting until the dinosaur was already sprinting at her.
What she hadn't known was that Carl, Donut, and Mongo had made their way to this settlement earlier that afternoon.
Carl grabbed her into his arms as he pulled her into the safe room. They fell to the ground, Carl making sure she landed on top of him. They panted as they took each other in. Realizing what had happened, she scrambled to push herself off of him.
"What are YOU doing here?" They said at the same time. Carl pushed himself off the floor.
"Are you insane? You were about to be eaten by a dinosaur!" Carl said, angrily. "Don't you ever endanger yourself like that!"
"It's nice to see you too, Carl," she replied as she dusted off her pants.
His eyes met hers. The pale green eyes seemed to startle him the same way it had on Odette's show, like he was seeing her for the first time again.
"I'm sorry. I shouldn't have yelled at you like that, but don't scare me like that again." He walked up to her. They pulled each other into a hug. "It's good to see you. Alive."
She let herself hold onto the hug for as long as she could. He didn't move away either.
"Carl, that stupid dog is here again. We must leave." Princess Donut's voice was answered by Mongo's squawk as she rounded the corner of the safe room entrance. Her fur ruffled as she observed the embrace between the two humans. What on Earth are they thinking? The Princess thought.
She noticed the cat staring from the corridor and pulled away. "Hi, Princess Donut." Donut preened at the use of her formal title. "Finally, some respect. I like this one."
She walked up to pet the cat's back and to quickly pat the raptor, careful to avoid his teeth. "I'm glad to see all of you well. You're more than welcome to come into our personal space and catch up, if you have time."
Carl and Donut glanced at each other before Donut invited her group in. "Carl told me that Nia is interested in potion making. Mordecai will want to meet her. So, we insist you join us."
Internally, she freaked out at Donut's comment. He's been talking about my friends to Donut?
— ♡ —
Carl and Donut's personal space was a luxury compared to her group's. They had enough space to spread out, and she sat on the couch with Sofia and Piper while Carl sat across from them in a chair. Nia had gone off with Mordecai, Lindsey joining her best friend to keep an eye on her. Donut had declared that Biscuit had to stay off the couch, so he laid on top of his girl's feet.
Carl took his time explaining what he and Donut had been up to, and the rest of his family too. He detailed the damage he and Donut had done to Zockau, the encounter with Signet, the drama with Vrah, and everything else in between. He shared about Katia, Elle, and the others and what they had been doing. The girls couldn't believe how many crawlers Carl knew and cared for. Sofia had sent out a message to the group chat, giving her approval on Carl.
Sofia: Don't you love a guy who loves his family?
Piper: OMG, my heart is going to burst. Green flag!
Sofia: And his voice is sexy as fuck.
Unc: Can you guys not do this right now.
Lindsey: Fuck. Am I missing a chance to make you squirm?
Sofia: Just know that Carl is like the most chivalrous guy ever. Also, confirmed he has a six pack.
Lindsey: YUMMY.
Unc: GUYS!!
Carl glanced at her reddening cheeks but kept on talking. Piper then gave their group an account of how they came to be and where they had been. The girls had left the original Ursine settlement because they were trying to be proactive by killing hunters, but had run into this weird village instead. Big Tina had been an unaccounted for problem.
Everyone had been in the safe room except for her, who had been trying to create some sort of salve for a burn that Biscuit had gotten on his paw.
Carl listened attentively, but his eyes glossed over once in a while and the girls knew that meant he was sending messages.
"Okay. Our game plan is to take care of this dinosaur quest stat, then to start moving towards the Butcher's Masquerade castle." The girls nodded.
"What can we do to help?" His eyes snapped toward her.
"You, nothing. I have to deal with Signet first."
"Are you sure, Carl?" she said. "We're not scared."
"It's not about if you're scared." He looked at her directly. "I don't want you fighting my battles for me." Sofia and Piper side-eyed each other at this exchange.
"Okay." She acquiesced and leaned back into the couch. There was something in how he had phrased that that she didn't know what to do with.
"Are any of you invited to the Masquerade?"
The person he did not want to see raising her hand, did. "Goddammit," he muttered under his breath.
"I got the notification early on the floor. I'm pretty sure I'm the 50th top crawler. No one else has one." Carl nodded at the information.
"Okay. I'm going to take you with me, but your group will stay together and do as I say."
— ♡ —
"Mom," Biscuit's voice was quivering. "Do you have to leave me? I promise I'll be good if you let me come with you."
She held the dog's head in her hands. "Oh, my baby. I love you so much. We will see each other in a couple of days."
He licked a tear that fell down her cheek. "I need you to protect those girls. They will make sure you are loved on. Can you do that for me?"
Biscuit composed himself and held himself a little higher. "Yes, mom. I'll be a good boy."
"That's my boy," she said. "I'll message you. If we happen to be in our personal space together, I'll see you then." She gave him one last kiss on the forehead before hugging her friends in a group hug.
"We love you," said Sofia. "If at any point you want to back out, we will haul ass to get you."
"I love you girls. Take care of Biscuit, and we will see each other in a couple of days." She turned to walk towards Carl, Donut, and Mongo.
Donut and Carl had spent the previous couple of days taking care of several quests, but now needed to get moving to the castle because of the creeping branches. Carl had told her that Miriam Dom had died, and that they were in some other deep shit. But the overarching floor's theme was hanging over their heads, and they needed to get moving. Biscuit and the girls were going to circle another way towards the castle, but she was going with Carl because of her invitation.
The four of them began their hike towards the castle. She and Carl fell into a comfortable pace next to each other.
Biscuit: MOM I MISS YOU SO MUCH ALREADY
She jumped back at the screaming in her head. She and Biscuit had never thought of using the messaging function until now.
Carl laughed. "Biscuit just decided to message?"
"Yeah, how can you tell?" She answered, rubbing her temples.
"Donut also types in all caps. It seems to be a quadruped quirk. You'll get used to it." Carl told her.
She sighed. "There's no hope he'll learn how to type like a regular person?"
Carl's grin widened. "No chance."
Carl's voice softened. "I know it was a lot of us to ask you two to separate. I can't imagine doing this crawl without Donut."
He continued. "I don't want to sound crazy, but she's my best friend."
She chuckled. "You're not crazy. Biscuit's always been my best friend, even before he could talk." She took a drink from her water canteen, before continuing. "I had a hard time making friends during my first year of my PhD program. I would come home and just talk out loud to him. He remembers all of those conversations, which now mortifies me at everything he's witnessed me do."
Carl smiled, as he validated her. "You know, I almost stole Donut from my ex-girlfriend." Her eyes widened in surprise. "Bea was going to sell her, but I couldn't just let her do that to Donut. She's a special cat."
"Aww, Carl, you win cat dad of the year." She lightly pinched his arm. "That's so cute."
They kept on chitchatting before she changed the topic.
"So, I know we talked about it, but that interview we did was really weird. Have you been back?"
"On Odette's show? Oh, yeah. A ton." He answered.
"Damn, she must not have liked me. Do you guys still talk about—you know—the"
He cut her off . "That's probably for the best you haven't been on. And just so you know, she hasn't dared talk to me about Cunc again" He chuckled. "Which makes me suspicious that she's working something up behind the scenes."
She glanced worriedly at him. He tried to reassure her. "Listen, we've been through the worst. And hey, you didn't even know about this ship business."
She paused for a second before answering him. "So, you don't find that shit totally weird? That our images and likeness has been created into merchandise? That we have—what'd you call—those videos made—" She had been giving fanfiction a lot of thought since Lindsey and Nia's comments. A deep, hidden part of her would have loved to see what people were writing about them.
"Are you talking about snicks?" Carl raised an eyebrow.
She snapped her fingers. "YES! Those. It doesn't freak you out to hangout with me? They're probably making content of us right now." She looked around at the imaginary cameras she was sure were trailing them.
Carl sighed. "Is it weird? Absolutely. Is it any weirder than all of this shit?" He paused for a moment. "Actually, probably. But let me remind you I had a snick made of me and an orc alien prince." Carl rolled his eyes at the thought of Prince Maestro. "Carl's naughty little piggie, huh?!" He yelled into the sky above. "Fuck you, Skull Empire!"
She laughed at that. "Wow. I'm sensing some sort of history here."
Carl nodded and chuckled. "I'm glad the dungeon brought us together, even if it was through this. By the way, even Donut knew what a ship was." Carl said, looking at her.
"Well, she's the pop culture queen. I'm not surprised." She answered.
"Hey. Don't think about what's happening outside the dungeon, okay? It's going to die down eventually. No one's bothered you about it again, right?"
She shook her head no. "I just haven't stopped thinking about it. I don't want it to bleed over into real life."
Carl looked at her. "And would that be so bad?" His tone was light, and he nudged her with his elbow.
She froze in place.
"What do you mean by that?" Her voice came out steadier than she felt. Her eyes widened as so many thoughts raced through her head. Holy shit, is he about to confess his love to me? Her heart was beating out of her chest. She sucked in a breath while the girl brain part of her waited for him to tell her that she was the most beautiful, intelligent, special girl in the world and he needed her to survive the dungeon.
(Minx practically died when she heard them talk about Cunc. Her blog had about 500 new posts that day.)
Carl ignored her question. She deflated a bit, and snapped back down into reality. She cursed herself for letting the idea of a crush throw her off her game. Of course Carl wasn't confessing his love. Her feet started moving again.
His tone got more serious as he asked if she was doing okay.
"The sadness isn't something that really goes away, but the feeling has gotten a lot quieter since Biscuit and I joined the girls. It's just something I've dealt with since I was a teenager." She breathed before continuing. "For a moment, I got really scared on the fourth floor that I was going to die and that Biscuit was going to be alone without me. The voices just got a little louder. I promise it's not that bad, but it is something that I have to deal with on my own."
She swiveled her head. "I promise I'm not crazy—I'm not hearing actual voices." She laughed nervously.
Carl did not take her vulnerability lightly. He knew more than anyone about the constant stream of voices and thoughts that made doing anything impossible. He glanced down at her, and she had the odd sensation of being observed. He'd always been aware of that, that she was shorter than him, but standing next to her made it real. The fake sunlight through the thick jungle canopy seemed to settle around her differently than she expected—like a golden halo.
"I understand not wanting to disappoint Biscuit," he said.
She smiled sadly at that, knowing he was being sincere.
"I never want to disappoint him, but when it gets too loud in my head, there's nothing I can really do."
Carl nodded. They marched for a couple minutes in a comfortable silence.
Then, she spent the next couple of hours drilling him with questions.
"What's your favorite color?" she asked.
"Red." He answered.
"Where did you live on Earth?"
"We still live on Earth." Sarcasm laced his response. "I guess in Earth, now."
"You're such an ass. I mean on the surface, idiot." She laughed.
"Wow, resorting to name calling now. Seattle."
She stuck her tongue out at him and replied. "Okay, cool. You like the Seahawks?"
"Yes."
"Who's your favorite player?"
"Doesn't matter. They're probably all dead."
"Okay, edge lord."
"What did you just call me?"
"So, you were a boat mechanic. Is that how you got so ripped?"
"And a Coast Guard veteran. Show some respect." He winked at her while she shook her head.
"Okay, but is it like the police, where you can have fat police officers?"
He bit back laughter. "Hell no. I used to go to the gym too. Not to be like this, but… you gotta be fit for the sort of job I had."
"Weird brag on your part. Cats or dogs?"
"You know I can't answer that in front of her." He said, pointing at the cat riding Mongo.
"Okay then. A runaway trolley is speeding towards five people, but you can pull a lever to a sidetrack where it will only kill one person instead. What do you do?"
"Hold on, what the fuck. Are you trolley problem-ing me?" He snorted.
"Yes. What's your answer?"
He was quiet for a moment, thinking.
"I pull the lever," he said finally. "Every time."
"Most people say that."
"I'm not done." He kept walking, eyes on the path. "The one person on the sidetrack. I pull the lever and then I spend the rest of my life trying to figure out if it was right. I don't think you can be sure that it was the right choice, to pull it. I think you just have to live with the choice you made and not pretend it was clean." He glanced at her sideways. "That's my answer."
She looked at him for a moment. That was the most Carl answer she had ever heard. A better answer than she could have given. He truly was humanity's best.
She let out a low whistle. "Okay," she said, nodding her head in approval. "That's a good answer."
"What's yours?"
"I'm a philosophy student. I don't give answers. I just ask the questions." She waved her hands around as she mocked a pretentious tone.
"That is deeply irritating."
"I know."
He laughed. It was a real one, and she looked away before she could do anything embarrassing with her face.
— ♡ —
The castle disappeared.
One moment it was there—stone walls, torchlight, the distant sound of Donut's performance echoing through the ballroom—and then it wasn't. The Zerzura spell took it cleanly, the entire structure lifting and vanishing to the ninth floor, leaving everyone who had been inside suspended briefly in open air above a bramble-choked ruin before gravity took effect.
She dropped. Everyone dropped.
The exposed basement rushed up to meet them and she hit the ground hard, rolling to absorb the impact. Around her the chaos was immediate and total: mantis nymphs swarming up from every crack in the exposed foundation, hunters materializing out of smoke and shadow, elves regrouping around Imogen's crackling form, the brambles descending from above like a slow green ceiling.
Her Catalogue skill logged everything in the first couple seconds. Exit points. Threat vectors. The nearest crawlers. Carl, forty feet northwest, already moving.
She didn't have time to think about Carl.
"Stasis!"
Her hand shot out and the nymph mid-leap froze in the air in front of her face, its mandibles inches from her throat. She held it, redirected a bolt of elven magic that was heading for a crawler she didn't know, and kept moving. This was what Elysians did, what she did. Read the situation. Preserve what could be preserved. Keep people alive long enough for someone else to finish the job.
The garrote was in her other hand before she'd consciously reached for it from her inventory.
She worked her way through the nymph swarm using Stasis to freeze, redirect to reroute, the wire for anything that got close enough. Around her she caught glimpses of the larger fight, listening to Donut's voice rising in some kind of spell, the crack of Florin's shotgun, Imogen's lightning painting shadows across the pit walls.
She used Reluctant Mend once, on a crawler she didn't recognize who was bleeding out near the east wall, and immediately felt the familiar static blur at the edges of her vision when she used that skill. Her Catalogue ability dimmed. She hated that feeling. She pushed through it.
"Behind you!" someone shouted. It was Piper, from somewhere to her left. The girls had found each other in the chaos, after they'd been able to join the ballroom, well, when the party had ended.
She turned around.
The hunter was already there.
He wasn't one of the big names. Just a giant cockroach-alien-race in hunter's gear with a crossbow already raised, and she caught one second of his face before he fired. Something deliberate in it, something that said I know exactly who you are was etched all over his face. The bolt caught her in the shoulder and spun her sideways into the wall.
The pain registered a half-second behind the impact. She slid down the stone, hand going automatically to the wound, her Catalogue cataloguing it in her interface. Non-fatal. Serious. The bolt had gone clean through. She hesitated for a moment before pulling the bolt out of her shoulder. Blood gushed from her wound.
She couldn't quite move yet.
I know who you are, Bax's eyes, the hunter, seemed to say. She'd seen that look before and had become familiar with it ever since she joined Carl on this last segment of the dungeon. On the faces of people who'd watched the Marginalia content. Who'd seen the clips of Odette's show. Who'd decided that the easiest way to hurt Carl was through whatever she was to him.
She was going to be very angry about that later. Right now she was mostly focused on staying conscious.
"Oh my GOD" Piper was at her side, hands already pressing against the wound, spell cycling up. Sofia appeared on her other side a second later. She looked past the girls to see Bax fidgeting with his crossbow, tongue out in concentration as he tried reloading the weapon.
"I'm okay," she gritted her teeth as she spit the words out, her vision starting to go in and out.
"You are literally not," Sofia said.
Across the pit she caught a glimpse of Carl.
He was fighting, of course he was fighting, the man was always fighting, but his head had turned. She didn't know what he'd seen or how he'd seen it through the chaos but his eyes found her and for one second that stretched longer than it should have, she saw his face.
She'd never seen that particular expression on him before. It wasn't the fury she'd expected—she could tell that was going to come later. It was almost a look of despair, like seeing her like this was going to haunt him for a long time. That raw desperation was going to be dangerous.
She filed it away in her head before the static took the edges off her vision again and she stopped being able to think about it.
"Don't you dare use Mend on yourself," Piper said, reading her mind.
"I wasn't going to," she slurred, trying her best to not pass out. Bax continued fidgeting with the crossbow in the chaos of the battlefield.
— ♡ —
Carl was on top of a hunter he had just killed when he felt it.
That was the only word for what happened. Felt. Like a thread yanking at his chest, like a warm breeze drifting over the sound. His head turned as the feeling got louder.
He saw her against the wall.
He couldn't help himself from doing the math. He did the calculation that everyone in his life had been subject to—Donut, Katia, Louis, every member of his family—the calculation of who, where, how bad.
He didn't realize that that math now accounted for her.
She was bleeding. The bolt had gone through. Piper was already there. Sofia was already there. The girls were doing what girls did, which was the thing he had been counting on without admitting it.
Across the pit her eyes found his. He could see in her, feel her, that she was going to pass out.
His focus redirected. He saw the hunter past her, fumbling with a crossbow.
The rage inside snapped. He moved.
Everything blurred out around him. He only registered the hunter, a giant cockroach in hunter's gear, tongue between his teeth in the way of a creature concentrating on a thing he was not good at. He felt the ground beneath his feet, the gauntlet on his own hand, and he made the decision in an instant.
He punched the hunter once. The cockroach didn't see him coming, couldn't even try to put up a fight against Carl.
The hunter went down.
Carl put his boot on the hunter's head and pressed. The gore from the hunter's head was nothing new to him, but the tug of emotion was.
When it was done he stood there for a second, looking at what remained of the cockroach's twitching body. Gross.
He had neutralized the threat. And then, finally, in that moment of standing on cockroach brain matter and other body fluids, he stopped lying to himself about her. He cared about this girl in a way that lived deep in his primal nature, in that place where the river of noise he tried so hard to quiet down grew louder and louder. Yes, he heard. Her. Her. Her. Find her. Take her. She's yours.
He needed to put an end to this now. He tried quieting the noise and forced his eyes away from her. The girls had her. He trusted the girls. She was safe with them.
He turned around and went back into the fight, because there was still a fight. He tried to ignore the voice at the back of his brain. The alternative was crossing the pit to her. Putting his hands on her face. Doing nothing else for a long time.
The fight needed him more than she did right now.
— ♡ —
The hunter who'd shot her was dead minutes later.
She didn't see how. But of course, it had been Carl.
She came to propped against a section of collapsed wall while Sofia ran her Triage spell and Nia cycled protection enchantments over their small corner of the pit. The battle was still going. She could hear it, could feel the ground shaking with Imogen's area attacks, could see the flash of Donut's spells painting the smoke overhead.
She gasped when she saw a golden ball of fur run and launch himself at an elf. "Biscuit." She tried yelling, but it came out hoarse and soft. Her head was too fuzzy to use the chat. She prayed he'd be alive by the end of this.
She had to pry her eyes off of her best friend as enemies descended upon her and her girls. She used Stasis twice more, with her good arm, from where she was sitting, freezing threats she could see coming before they reached the others.
The brambles kept coming down.
When the arena finally declared a winner she was on her feet again, barely, with Piper's shoulder under one arm, and the survivors were moving toward the stairs in a ragged, exhausted way.
The girls had her. She didn't need to be carried exactly, but she wasn't walking without help, and they gave it without being asked. They set her down for a second, letting her catch her breath.
She heard Carl before she saw him. His voice cutting through the general noise of the aftermath, sharp and wrong in a way she hadn't heard from him before.
"Where is she. Where—" He panicked as he didn't find her at the spot she had collapsed at.
And then he was there, pushing through the crowd of survivors, and his eyes found her. They were wild, broken. Full of anguish.
He fell on his knees in front of her. His hands came up to her face and gently held her for a moment.
"I'm okay," she said, trying to reassure him. He didn't look convinced. He turned her face slightly, examining the shoulder wound, his jaw tight. His hands were careful as he looked.
"You're not," he said, flatly. Exactly what Sofia had said. "Non-fatal," she said. "I've had the report." She tried tapping her forehead to get the joke across. "It's in my noggin."
Piper shushed her.
He looked at her for a long moment. At the bolt wound, at Piper's arm around her, at her general state of having recently been shot. His jaw was twitching. His hands were still cupping her face.
"The hunter," he said.
"Is handled," she said. "I know."
"He targeted you because—"
"I know," she said again, quieter.
Whatever she was to him. She'd thought about it against the wall, and she was thinking about it now. She didn't know what the answer was.
He looked at her. She looked back at him. The stairs were pulling everyone now, the System nudging survivors toward the descent, and around them the battered remains of the battle's winners were moving.
"Carl." Donut's voice, from somewhere behind him. "We have to go."
He didn't move immediately. That was the thing she filed away, later, when her Catalogue came back fully online and she could think about it properly. He didn't move immediately.
"Go," she told him. "We're right behind you."
He looked at Piper. Something passed between them that wasn't words.
"Take care of her," he said.
"Obviously," Piper said.
He looked at her one more time. She held the weight of his gaze before he finally turned and went.
The stairs were as chaotic as everything else. She went down with the girls, Piper and Sofia taking turns with her weight, Lindsey clearing the path ahead, Nia keeping the protection spells running. Biscuit found them somewhere on the descent. She didn't know how he did, she'd told him to stay out of the battle hours prior, and she was going to have words with him later about following directions. He pressed himself against her leg and kept pace.
"I thought I said—"
"I know what you said," Biscuit replied. "I came anyway. I had to help."
She felt some guilt from holding him back. But she also didn't have the energy to argue with that. The girls limped forward into the stairwell.
Behind her, somewhere in the crowd of descending survivors, she was aware of Carl. She didn't look back. She didn't need to. She knew he'd be behind her.
The stairs took them down.
— ♡ —
Except, the seventh floor didn't happen. Prepotente had blown it up. The six of them teleported away.
— ♡ —
Before you enter the eighth floor, you must secure your starting location.
Warning: all parties consisting of more than five members will be automatically split into squads of five or less. You will remain partied with the other members of your team, but some challenges on this level may require you to interact only with your squad.
Your party consists of six members. It has been split.
Your squad consists of:
Crawler Unc (Squad Leader)
Crawler Biscuit
Crawler Sofia Gomes 4
Crawler Piper
Six spots remain.
You may not break squads on this floor. Boy, I hope you get along.
Squad Leader Unc, please proceed to the platform and choose your starting location. You have ninety seconds to choose, or a random location will be chosen for you.
— ♡ —
The System notification appeared at the same exact moment as his message.
NEW CHAT MESSAGE: Carl
Unc: carl are you okay
Carl: Are you okay
A pause.
Unc: ...we sent those at the same time
Carl: Yeah.
Carl: Shoulder okay?
Unc: Imani got to it before we went down. I'm fine. You?
Carl: I've been better. I've been worse. Where'd you end up.
Unc: Rio de Janeiro. I picked. We got split up from Lindsey and Nia. You?
Carl: Sorry to hear about that. We're in Havana.
Unc: Oh. We're practically neighbors.
Carl: Practically.
— ♡ —
Sofia had gone very still beside her. They were standing in the middle of an outdoor market in the Zona Sul area (or what used to be an outdoor market in Zona Sul) watching ghost-vendors arrange ghost-fruit in the early morning light. A ghost-woman with silver hair was picking through neatly stacked papayas.
"Minha avó," Sofia said quietly. "She shopped here every Saturday." Sofia told them that she'd visit her grandma every Summer. This market was a tradition for them.
She didn't know what to say. She put her hand on Sofia's arm and held it there.
— ♡ —
Unc: Carl. The ghosts.
Carl: Yeah.
Unc: They're just going about their lives. This woman just walked through Piper on her way somewhere. She was carrying flowers. She didn't even notice.
Carl: I know. It's eerie.
Unc: It's sad seeing Earth's last days. No one knew. Life went on.
Carl: Yeah.
Unc: That's so cruel.
Carl: I know.
Unc: Is Donut okay? Mongo, Mordecai?
Carl: Yes. They're shaken up from Prepotente's fiasco.
Unc: Tell them I say hi.
Carl: I will. Get some sleep. These floors don't get easier at the start.
Unc: Talk tomorrow.
Carl: Talk tomorrow.
She closed her interface and stood in the ghost-city as it went about its last beautiful ordinary day. Behind her, Sofia was still watching her grandmother arrange papayas. Piper had put her arm around Sofia's shoulders.
Biscuit pressed himself against her leg.
"Mom," he said quietly, which was unusual for him.
"I know," she said.
"It's really sad."
"Yeah."
"Do you want me to be extra cheerful tomorrow to make up for it? I can do that. I'm very good at that."
She looked down at him. "Just be yourself, babe."
"Okay," he said. "I can do that too."
— ♡ —
They had flagged four cards so far. The Curupira had been Biscuit's idea. He'd spotted the backwards footprints in the sand at Ipanema and tracked the creature three kilometers into the ghost-city. The Iara had been harder. The river mermaid had nearly drowned Piper before Sofia redirected her with a spell and held her with a binding long enough to flag her. The card was beautiful and terrifying and they were not entirely sure they liked her.
She'd been not thinking about her family since Chapel Hill. She'd gotten very good at it.
The dungeon undid nine months of careful not-thinking in a couple seconds for all of them.
Sofia had cried for hours after seeing her grandmother's ghost in the market. She'd held her through all of it. Eventually, the tears had stopped, and she felt like Sofia's eyes held a new, hardened glint in them. She messaged Carl from the floor of a ghost-apartment in Santa Teresa, well after midnight, Biscuit's head in her lap, the girls asleep in the next room.
— ♡ —
She had just fought and killed a three-headed monster. That three-headed monster were the heads of her family.
At least she knew they were dead if the dungeon was using their faces. That bought her some comfort through her sobs.
Unc: I saw my family today.
Carl: Tell me.
Unc: They were having Sunday dinner in my childhood home. My mom had made her spaghetti sauce. She made it every Sunday. My dad was complaining about something on the news, like always. My little sister was on her phone under the table thinking no one could see her. They were just… there. Being them. Not knowing what was coming.
Carl: I'm so sorry.
Unc: There was an empty placemat for me. They turned into this three-headed hippogriff thing and it was horrible. I had to kill them.
Unc: I've not been thinking about them since Chapel Hill. I thought I was okay, or that I was able to push all those feelings down. Seeing them alive and there and completely fine and just not knowing what was going to happen. That was horrible.
Carl: Yeah. If it brings you any comfort, they didn't suffer. The collapse was instant. The dungeon is trying to break you. You can't let it break you.
Unc: Have you seen anyone? From before?
Carl: Not yet. I don't think I want to. My situation before the collapse was… complicated.
Unc: You don't have to tell me.
Carl: Bea and I didn't end well. There's stuff there I haven't dealt with, but it's not about her specifically. More like being cheated on, over and over. I told you how Donut reacted to her on Odette's show?
Unc: Yeah, she made me proud. Fuck her.
Carl: Ha. I've just accepted that the dungeon has a way of making you deal with things.
Unc: Okay, random thought. I'm trying to make myself laugh here, but we should probably assume no body, no death rules. If we didn't see them die, they're alive. You should expect your worst enemy to pop up at any moment.
Carl: Ha. Don't be afraid to be sad, though. But you're right.
Unc: Are you physically okay? I know you've gotten into some fights.
Carl: I'm fine. I just don't know what I'd do if I walked around a corner and saw my family.
Unc: I think that's very human of you.
Carl: High praise from a philosopher.
Unc: I'm being serious.
Carl: I know. Thank you.
The chat went quiet for a while. The ghost-city of Rio moved around her, alive and bustling, even at this hour. Biscuit shifted in his sleep and made a small yipping sound she'd learned meant he was dreaming about chasing something.
Carl: Get some sleep.
Unc: So should you.
Carl: Yeah.
Unc: Carl.
Carl: Yeah?
Unc: Good night.
Carl: Good night.
She sat with Biscuit for a long time after that. In the next room she could hear Sofia and Piper talking quietly. She thought about Sunday dinners and trauma people don't deal with until they have to, and about a man in Havana who was practically her neighbor, and about all the new flurry of emotions her brain kept replaying over and over and over until she passed out.
— ♡ —
She'd been watching the recap feed loop, from a safe room, over and over again. She knew something had happened in Carl's Phase Two. The recap kept cutting away.
Unc: Carl. We've been watching the recap, but your segment is cutting out. Are you okay.
She was still watching when her interface lit up.
Finally, he answered.
Carl: Hey.
Unc: CARL.
Carl: I'm okay.
Unc: You're not. What happened in Phase Two. The recap keeps cutting right before—
His message came in before she finished typing hers.
Carl: The dungeon used my past against me.
Unc: God. What did it show you?
Carl: My dad. He was dying. I had to watch the recording. His whole—the end of it.
Unc: Carl I'm so sorry.
Carl: That's not the part I'm sorry about. He deserved to die.
She waited.
Carl: I have a brother. A half brother. His name is Asher. The dungeon put his face on the hydra, on this boss it built out of people from my life. That's how I found out he existed.
Unc: The dungeon told you about him.
Carl: Bea knew. She hid it from me. He tried to contact me before the collapse and she hid it.
Unc: I don't even know what to say. How old is he?
Carl: Young. Just a kid. Maybe 12, He was afraid of lightning. That's all I know. He was afraid of lightning and he tried to reach out to me and I didn't know he existed and now I don't know if
Carl hadn't finished out the text.
Unc: Carl.
Carl: I'm fine.
Unc: You don't have to be fine right now.
Carl: I know.
Unc: Is Donut with you.
Carl: Yeah. She's here. Mordecai too.
Unc: Good. Don't be alone with this.
She minimized the interface down and looked at the ceiling. She thought about Asher who was afraid of lightning trying to reach out to a brother who didn't know he existed. She thought about what it must feel like to find that out the way Carl had found it out.
She opened her interface back up.
Unc: For what it's worth, and feel free to ignore this. He reached out. He wanted to know you. Whatever happened after—that part was real.
She almost fell asleep when the notification came through.
Carl: Thank you. That means something to me.
Unc: Get some sleep, old man.
Carl: Working on it.
— ♡ —
A long time passed before they sent each other messages other than just short checkins. They were in the last days of the floor when she got the ping.
Carl: Something really bad just happened.
Unc: Carl? We're trying to get our key right now.
Carl: I hurt Mongo and Katia really bad. I did something to Li Jun.
Unc: Oh shit.
Carl: There's more. Shi Maria merged with me during the final battle. There's a spider in my chest now. She tattooed her eye onto me. The Eye of the Bedlam Bride, she's called.
Unc: Carl, are you okay? You're scaring me.
Carl: No, listen.
Unc: Who's Shi Maria? You're saying she tattooed you?
Carl: Yeah.
Unc: From inside.
Carl: Yeah. Right in the middle of my chest.
Unc: Carl, do you have a concussion?
Carl: I'm not kidding.
Unc: … we're going to come back to that. I've had to process the nipple rings and now this. Are you in pain?
Carl: It's not pain exactly. Mordecai is still explaining what it means. And I'm bald now. Donut doesn't like it.
Unc: You're bald!?
Carl: … That's what you're most concerned about.
Unc: Carl. I don't know if I'd like you bald.
Carl: Superficial. I'm being haunted by a spider demon and you care about that.
Unc: I'm glad you're safe for now. We will deal with this.
Carl: Yeah.
Carl: We're going into Faction Wars next.
Unc: I know. I saw the announcement.
Carl: Your group joining one?
Unc: The girls want to. We've been talking about it. Certainly won't be those Skull Empire fucks.
Carl: Princess Posse has room. If you want in.
Unc: Are you asking me to join your faction.
Carl: I'm asking if you want to join the faction. It's technically Donut's faction.
Unc: That is genuinely the least convincing clarification you've ever offered.
Carl: I'm asking. Please.
Piper grasped the key in her hand. "Hey, are you chatting right now!?" Piper kicked the crawler she was fighting in the groin. "Could use your help over here!"
Sofia knocked the last crawler out cold. They walked up to her, the beach scattered with unconscious bodies. "We should go before they wake up," Sofia said quietly.
They all knew what that meant. The group knew that it was death for the crawlers they had just defeated. The dungeon had pushed them to this.
They had spent the day refusing to fight back when the group first ambushed them. Piper and Biscuit had tried pleading with them, but it was no use.
None of them would forget this. It only made them angrier.
Biscuit sat by the doorway to the stairwell, tail not moving. He got up as Piper approached with the key.
"Wait." The two girls and Biscuit looked at her. "The next floor is going to be our biggest challenge yet. Carl has offered us a space in his faction. He wants to unite all the crawlers." She explained.
Sofia and Piper looked at each other and nodded. "We're in. Let's take these fuckers down."
Unc: We're in.
Carl: Good. I'll see you on the next floor.
Unc: See you on the next floor. Take care, old man.
Carl: Take care.
She closed the interface. Piper put the key in the door and unlocked it. She pushed the door open with her boot.
"Well?" Piper said to the group.
"I miss Lindsey and Nia." Sofia's voice quivered, and Biscuit pressed himself against her legs. It hadn't been the same without Lindsey's chaos, or Nia's decisiveness with spells. They had grown into their own sixsome, and now it was time to get the girls back.
She stared into the darkness of the stairwell, the warm draft rising from the cavernous opening beckoning her forward, encouraging her to venture to the next floor.
Piper was quiet for a moment. "Let's go find our girls."
The four of them entered the stairwell to the ninth floor.
— ♡ —
The Marginalia thread had been popping off since the start of the ninth floor and currently had more than nine hundred replies.
Minx scrolled through it like a scholar reviewing peer-reviewed work. And in some senses, she really was a scholar of her two favorite crawlers. The thread title was, in the Syndicate language, untranslatable to humans, but the closest English equivalent was something like: PROJECT CUNC — PRELIMINARY FINDINGS — ELYSIAN/PRIMAL PROXIMITY BEHAVIORS — COMPILED EVIDENCE.
Reply #303 was a frame-by-frame breakdown of Carl's facial expression when the bolt hit her shoulder. Reply #103 was a supercut of every time he'd said her name on the livefeed, with timestamps. Reply #217 was a six-thousand-word analysis of the trolley problem walk that drew comparisons to courtship rituals on four different planets. Reply #350 had simply read: HE DIDN'T WANT TO MOVE WHEN SHE GOT HIT. The reply had received nine hundred reactions.
She'd contributed earlier in the day, somewhere around reply #380. A clip from the Big Tina rescue, looped, with no commentary. It didn't need any. The video of her falling onto Carl spoke for itself.
But she'd stopped scrolling an hour ago, and returned to her research. The fangirling would have to wait. She'd pulled up the class data on her second screen and she hadn't been able to look away from it since.
Elysian and Primal. The Marginalia had access to the archives through channels Minx wasn't going to think about too hard, and what she'd found there had sobered her. Elysians were rare. Primals were rare. The two together, paired, in proximity—that was rarer still, and the crawl records were sparse but consistent.
Elysians stabilized Primal output. Primals amplified Elysians redirect. An Elysian near a Primal grew steadier. A Primal near an Elysian grew stronger. The classes were complementary in a way the System didn't announce but absolutely accounted for. They were, on paper, designed to find each other; not by intent, but by the way the universe was built.
Minx looked at the first screen, then to the second. Behavioral patterns on one side. Class data on the other. She minimized the first and replaced it with the Marginalia's social interface.
She was not surprised to see the thread had nearly tripled since she'd posted. Somewhere in there, reply #911 was a new compilation of every time Carl's eyes had found her in a crowd. Reply #912 was someone simply typing i cannot survive this someone make them kiss nowwwww.
Minx laughed. A real one, the kind that surprised her out of her seat for a second, because the Marginalia was nothing if not committed to the bit. She let the laugh run its course. Then she sat back. The dread started to gnaw at the back of her mind.
Her girl was on the ninth floor. Walking toward him.
Minx hoped they figured out their collective strength before the dungeon checked it.
