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December 6 - December 9, 2025
I also bet most of them were probably wearing more clothes than I was at the time of the incident.
Like I said, it was below freezing. I was outside. And I was wearing boxers, a leather jacket, and a pair of pink Crocs sandals that barely fit me.
I was also holding a crying, scratching, squirming, and spitting cat named Princess Donut the Queen Anne Chonk. She was a tortoiseshell, Persian cat worth more than I made in a year. My ex-girlfriend called her Princess Donut for short. I just stuck with Donut.
My name is Carl. I am twenty-seven years old. After a stint in the US Coast Guard, I ended up working as a marine tech, fixing electrical systems for rich assholes and their party boats.
I never considered myself a big fan of cats. But, if we’re being truthful here, I liked Donut. That cat did not give two shits about anybody or anything, and I could respect that.
Per Syndicate rules, subsection 543 of the Precious Elemental Reserves Code, having failed to file a proper appeal for mineral and elemental rights within 50 Solars of first contact, your planet has been successfully seized and is currently being mined of all requested elemental deposits by the assigned planetary regent.
Per the Mined Material Reclamation act along with subsection 35 of the Indigenous Planetary Species Protection Act, any surviving humans will be given the opportunity to reclaim their lost matter.
they have chosen option 3, also known as the 18-Level World Dungeon.
Congratulations! You’ve earned your first achievement: Crazy Cat Lady. You have entered the World Dungeon accompanied by a cat. Ahh, isn’t that sweet?
New achievement! Trailblazing Crazy Cat Lady. You are the first crawler to have entered to the World Dungeon accompanied by a cat. You must really love that thing. Too bad you’re both probably going to die a horrible death at any moment. Or maybe not.
New achievement! Early Adopter. You are one of the first 5,000 Crawlers to enter a new World Dungeon. Sucker.
New achievement! Empty pockets. You didn’t bring any supplies. None. You know you still gotta eat, right?
New achievement! Why aren’t you wearing pants? You entered the dungeon wearing no pants. Dude. Seriously?
New achievement! Unarmed combat. So. You just gonna waltz right into something called a “World Dungeon” and you’re not even going to bring a weapon? You’re either braver than you look, or you’re just an idiot. Good luck with that, Van Damme.
New achievement! Loner. You entered the dungeon without any human companions. Didn’t anyone teach you there is safety in numbers? Reward: None! Haha. You are so dead.
New achievement! Fall into an obvious trap. Reward: Well, if there’s a heaven, and if you haven’t been too much of an asshole, maybe they’ll let you in. Because you about to meet your maker.
“There are six basic starter species the Syndicate uses to seed worlds. Humans are one of them. They find a compatible world, sprinkle the humans on there, wait a couple thousand years, and then reveal themselves to the largest settlement.
The Syndicate consists of over three billion independent star systems. Every season, a new Dungeon Crawler World debuts across the net. Quintillions of citizens of the Syndicate become obsessed with the Crawl.”
I’m on an alien television show. Holy shit.
“So, you’re the green dot, the blue dots will be other crawlers, white dots will be NPCs such as myself, and mobs will be red.
That’s the deepest anyone has ever delved, kid. Level 13.”
New achievement! Level-Up, Baby! You’ve received enough experience to gain a level. Reward: Leveling up is your job. You don’t get rewards for doing your job.
I awakened feeling refreshed and full of energy. I looked at the countdown time, astonished that I’d slept 10 hours straight. I hadn’t slept that long without waking in at least five years. It took the literal end of the world to finally give me a full night’s rest.
What was the point of living, if I couldn’t live with myself?
I looked at the cat sitting next to me, and I wondered, not for the first time, if this was all a dream. An hour and a half earlier I’d been certain I was about to die, and now I was aboard some sort of yacht from another planet, ready to be interviewed on an intergalactic talk show.
But then she moved, and something clicked in my brain, allowing it all to come together. Odette was a naked crab-taur wearing a bug mask.
Mud skipper. They attempted to get it listed as hate speech by the Syndicate a couple cycles back. Hardly anyone called them that until they made a big deal about it. But yes, that’s what I mean. The kua-tin. Borant. Nobody likes the kua-tin, at least not their system of government. Borant is a different story. Some of those folks are okay. All they want is to put on a good show.
Mordecai, for example. He won’t tell you this, but the season doesn’t count against his indentureship unless one of his crawlers makes it to the fourth floor.” “So if we don’t make it, he’s stuck until next season?” I asked. “He’s stuck until the next Borant-sponsored season, which’ll be at least another seven or eight seasons after this one. And with the political environment as it is, a lot of people aren’t certain Borant will be around that long. All indentureship contracts get frozen during a bankruptcy seizure action.”
“You’ve been hit on twice now,” Donut said. “Once by a meth-addled goblin shaman and once by Abraham Lincoln’s grandmother. I can’t wait to see who you attract next. Five gold coins says it’s some sort of bog witch with a beard.”
“You called them velociraptors.”
