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August 16 - August 16, 2025
A well-built, young and disgustingly handsome man wearing a tuxedo waited for us. His skin was a dusky gray, and he had a short pair of devil horns jutting from his forehead. The man stood about my height, and he had long gray and black hair that was held back in a ponytail. A barbed tail poked from the rear of his tuxedo. A pair of black, bat-like wings sat folded tightly against his back. “Hello, Mordecai,” I said, examining his new form. “Jesus, dude. Looking good.”
Mordecai – Incubus. Level 50. Guildmaster of this guildhall. This is a Non-Combatant NPC. Also known as the Gigachad of the Over City, Incubi are the male counterparts of the infamous Succubus. The smooth, seductive, and ultimately deadly Incubus can be identified by his stunning good looks, exquisite charm, and sensuous feet. They can only be found on the urban levels of the dungeon. They give new meaning to the phrase, “hit it and quit it.”
They were addicted to meth. They were fighting the llamas over it. That storyline didn’t exist in the previous season. That was added for this world and this world only. Next time they’ll be addicted to solar berry extract or something like that. Or they’ll be fanatics of some god. Or something else.”
“Nobody ever has,” Mordecai said. “So, I don’t know. The same with the 15th floor. Borant and the system AI are required to have a plan in place, but nobody has ever gotten that deep, so nobody knows. That sort of thing is way above my pay grade.”
“Don’t mess with the guards,” Mordecai said. “Don’t attack the NPCs. Don’t try to rob the stores. Don’t get drunk and pass out in the streets. There is no jail here. Only the death penalty. If you run afoul of the guards, don’t try to fight them. They are slow, but there are a lot of them. Run from them and into the ruins. They won’t follow you there. You will never be able to return to that particular village.”
Terror the Clown – Level 10 It’s okay if you just pissed yourself. You wouldn’t be the first.
bar. He stood with his pants down to his knees, eyes closed. “Now ladies,” he said, his voice slurring heavily. “One at a time. Grannie first. There’s plenty of Mordecai to…” He trailed off. He opened an eye, looking upon us.
“My good sir, I must ask you sheath your sword immediately!” the Bopca cried. “This is a family establishment!” I glanced over at the gnome. His name was Gordo.
New achievement! It’s Elementary, My Dear Crawler! And you thought all you had to do was bonk monsters on the head.
Donut: YOU WERE DRUNK AND YOU MOLESTED SOMEONE’S GRANDMA.
New Achievement! Meet an Elite. Sometimes they’re NPCs, sometimes they’re mobs, but usually they’re just assholes. Elites are powerful, one-of-a-kind entities. These are the non-boss, non-divine hero class of Dungeon Crawler World.
Donut: HE HAS AN ERECTION, MORDECAI. IT’S VERY INAPPROPRIATE. MONGO IS APPALLED.
Here is the thing with elites, and this is extremely important, so pay careful attention. Your quest with this circus and this Signet woman is a storyline, a drama created for the viewers by a team of writers.
It will play itself out whether or not you get involved. It will have its own show and team of people working on that show who have been working on it for a very long time and who will be very protective of it. Some of these dramas and storylines become quite popular in their own right.
There are AI-controlled rules to keep the dungeon ‘fair’ for the crawlers, but those rules are much looser when it comes to elites.
Not every quest will involve elites, but if it does, then I will always suggest that you stay the hell away.
Mordecai: Managers only have one rule. We can’t engage in direct battle with mobs. Everything else is fair game.
Somewhere in there, deep, deep down, there is a spark of the old Heather. The beloved bear has moments of lucidity as she runs down her terrified prey. In those brief moments, she thinks: Good. I’ve always hated all you assholes, anyway.
New Achievement! You Can’t Fight City Hall! But you can sure die trying. You have discovered a city boss! That’s right. Let me say that again for the assholes in the back! A. CITY. FUCKING. BOSS.
Reward: A lot of people are probably going to watch you die. That’s a better prize than most of us get.
To Redstone Grimaldi, nothing was more important than his family. He loved each and every one of them. When the cataclysm came, and the poison cloud swept over the circus, he was center stage. He remains there to this day.
This creature was also an elite. His name was Apollon the Mighty. He stood behind a small stand with a faded sign that read, “Iced Cream. A frozen treat from another world! No chewing necessary! Glides right in like a winter dream!”
You will not break me. Fuck you all. Quest Completed. The Show Must Go On.
New Achievement! Yellow-Bellied Chickenshit! You initiated a boss battle, and it somehow ended with neither of you dead. What a disappointment you are. What a goddamned smear. Reward: Pussies don’t get prizes.
The Freeballing Benefit The benefit’s description was: Freeballing And I’m freeeeee! Freeee Ballling!
Mordecai was still laughing. “You shouldn’t have said you really wanted those pants.”
“Cats don’t drink cocktails,” I said. “Cats don’t shoot lasers from their eyes, either, but here we are, Carl. Mama needs a night off.”
It is posited that a person in control of a Djinn’s lamp and the resulting three wishes once exclaimed, “Fuck this forest” or “Fuck this level” or “Fuck you all” or some iteration thereof, and the enslaved genie took that as a challenge.
The next chair contained a pudgy, fuzzy brown creature that looked like the result of a wombat/Ewok union. The thing only stood about four feet high, and didn’t wear any clothes except a fucking orange scarf around his neck, like Fred from Scooby Doo. He had two huge cheeks and giant eyes. He was disgustingly cute. I vaguely remembered that Miss Quill had a beanbag version of this race sitting on her shelf.
never considered myself a shy person. I’d been wandering the dungeon wearing nothing but boxers for weeks now. But the sight of myself up on the screen, running full tilt through the Over City with nothing but a one-armed leather jacket and my nuts dangling free filled me with a strange, almost primal sense of vulnerability. I don’t know how nudists ever got used to it.
