My stomach dropped. In a rush I reopened the map and traced our route back the way we had come from. It didn’t take long for me to find two Xs with a blue dot nearby in a small glowing room. I examined one of the Xs quickly.
Corpse – Crawler Jenn #12294
Then I immediately focused on the blue dot.
Crawler Kylie #14
My breath caught in mt chest.
“She’s still in the bathroom,” I said, “check your maps.”
“But that’s impossible.” Lynn replied. “We checked and there was no one in there.”
“You wouldn’t see her if one of you opened the door.” Simbul chimed in cheerily there she took on a lecturing tone. “All bathrooms are instanced to whoever opens the door. If she closed it and then you opened it, it would look like she wasn’t there. So, until she opens it from the inside, you’d never find her.”
“But she is hurt.” Mary said, the distress evident in her voice. “After Jenn blew up trying to follow her in…”
“Ehm. Blew up?” The little fairy asked. She examined something only she could see. “Oh! That’s not good. Your friend is in critical health!”
“Yeah, no shit.” Matt said. He then went on to explain what happened to Tommy, Jenn, and Kylie.
“Oh! Oh no! That’s unfortunate.” Simbul groaned, suddenly looking tired before perking up again. “That sounds like there was a bug in the Spatiotemporal system that controls the instanced areas! In this case, it was the bathroom! Likely, the system sensed a conflict in ownership of the instanced space and decided to remove the offending body! Your friend, Jenn, didn’t really suffer if that makes you feel any better, unlike your friend Tommy. They say burning is one of the worst ways to die!”
“That doesn’t help,” Aaron said flatly.
“More importantly, how do we get her out?” I asked. “There has to be a solution.”
“There is!” Simbul beamed.
“And that is…” Lynn said.
“To wait!” The little fairy chirped. “Oh… Too late!”
“What?” Aaron asked.
I looked back to my map and now saw an X where Kylie’s dot had been before. For a long moment I stared at it, my brain frozen at the implication.
There was a roar of anger and I closed out the map just in time to see Aaron pull back and start to swing a fist at the fairy. He froze in place and the word “Naughty” appeared above his head.
“Aggressive behaviors are not tolerated in the Guildhall.” She explained. “You are in time out for 100 seconds. I hope you stop to reflect on your actions and behave. That it your first strike! The next one will freeze you for an hour, and the third one will strip you of all your gear and teleport you to a space outside of the Guildhall. This is a feature all safe rooms have!”
A moment later Aaron unfroze and sat back down, clearly still pissed off.
“There really was nothing you could have done for her.” the fairy said, as a look of grief actually appeared on her face. “I’m sorry. Truly I am.”
Then she perked right back up.
“Okay! Let’s continue!” She said cheerily. “If you focus, you will find that you can adjust the position of your HUD elements into any configuration you wish! I advise you place them in a layout that you find most comfortable and familiar!”
I focus and swap the minimap with my health bar, putting the timer over the minimap, then move my health to the upper left and the blinking folder to the lower right.
We were given a few minutes to play with the layout and while doing so I figured out how to open the menu. The first tab on this was the stats menu which I opened curiously. I had been a gamer in the past so none of what I saw was overly surprising to me. My stats were:
Strength – 5
Intelligence – 5
Constitution – 3
Dexterity – 4
Charisma – 6
“Hey, not a bad stat spread for starting off, young lady!” Simbul chimed. “You’re a strong one!”
She then went on to explain that for now, we couldn’t adjust our stats but, that we would get three points to distribute into them as we see fit after we pick our race and class once we reached the third floor. She also explained that at that time, depending on our race choices, our baseline stats could change and on top of that, our class selection could impose penalties or bonuses to those stats.
“Since we are all in the menu now and looking at things, let’s move on to the next tab!” She said joyfully as if this was her bread and butter. “The next tab you’ll find is one of the most important later on, your ratings tab!”
I clicked on the tab and the information popped for me to see.
Ratings
Views: 0
Followers: 0
Favorites: 0
Patrons: 0
These, she explained, were pretty much irrelevant for the first floor as the live feed wouldn’t be available for views until the second floor, at which point the numbers would start to rise. If I got enough viewers, I would be featured on the premiere and subsequent recap episodes and that would give me a massive spike in viewership which could in turn land me benefactors called patrons, who were invaluable to have because they could send me loot boxes that would outclass the standard dungeon loot.
Speaking of loot boxes, she moved on to that next, explaining that there were different tiers of boxes, which I had already guessed due to the names I had seen on my achievements list. The tiers were, from lowest to highest: Bronze, Silver, Gold, Platinum, Legendary, and Celestial. Apparently, a bronze benefactor box was better than a gold box from the dungeon. One of the reasons for this is that we could get items from the benefactor’s home world, like power armor, from the benefactor box, but the boxes from the dungeon would only contain things from our Earth or that were themed with the dungeon itself. Ultimately, what it boiled down to is how entertaining we could be for those who watch, the more entertaining, the better the loot, the better the chance to survive.
“Now, this whole little theme you girls have going on, that is viewership gold.” The fairy said excitedly. “With any luck, you’ll get high ratings off the bat.”
“Great, so we’re gladiators for the intergalactic community basically,” Matt mumbled.
“Exactly!” Simbul chirped. “Now, lets go over healing then open some loot!”
She waved her hand and several small red vials appeared on a table, one for each of us. Marv knickered and another vial appeared for him.
“Okay! Everybody gets one complimentary emergency healing potion as part of the tutorial package. Try not to waste them doing anything educational.” She said and the potions floated toward us individually.
Mine stopped directly in front of my face causing a tooltip to appear automatically:
Standard Healing Potion
Restores minor injuries and replenishes at least 50% of missing health. Does not cure health draining effects like poison or diseases such as Minotaur inflicted Herpes. Don’t be a fool, wrap your tool.
Warning: Repeated rapid consumption may result in nausea, vomiting, dizziness, and poor life choices.
Simbul suddenly pointed at Aaron.
“Okay! Emergency demonstration time!” She said joyfully as if this were the best day ever.
“I don’t like the sound of that,” Aaron muttered immediately.
“You are currently leaking at an alarming rate,” she said cheerfully ignoring him. “So, we are going to demonstrate healing consumables!”
She motioned for him to grab the potion floating in front of him and he did.
“Drink up!” she chirped with a huge smile. “Legally I am required to inform you that delaying medical treatment may result in death, dismemberment, infection, blood loss, internal bleeding, reduced mobility, and poor ratings.”
“Poor ratings?” Matt repeated incredulously.
“Post death, ratings are abysmal!” she quipped.
“Drink the potion, Aaron.” I said.
Aaron stared down at the glowing red vial like it had personally insulted him, then with a grimace, he uncorked it and swallowed. His face immediately twisted in horror.
“Oh, that is foul,” he hissed.
Matt immediately took a cautious step backward.
“That bad?” Mary asked.
“It tastes like somebody liquified cough syrup, copper pennies, and regret.” Aaron said between dry heaves.
“Accurate!” Simbul chirped happily.
Then the wound in his arm began to glow faintly red and the torn flesh slowly pulled itself back together before our eyes.
Mary gasped softly.
Within seconds, the bleeding stopped completely, leaving behind only bloodstained fabric and ragged holes where the shrapnel had torn through.
“…Okay, that part’s actually impressive.” Aaron said as he flexed his hand experimentally.
“Dungeon medicine is wonderful!” Simbul announced proudly. “The side effects of manually drinking that are mostly emotional.”
“Manually?” Matt asked. He arched an eyebrow.
“Now, for the rest of you!” Simbul announced. “Grab the potion in front of you and will it into your inventory.”
I frowned slightly.
“That sounds fake,” I said.
“It does!” she agreed cheerfully. “Still works.”
Hesitantly, I grab the potion and mentally will into my inventory.
The vial vanished instantly which caused me to jump. A new section appeared inside my menu.
Inventory
And below that, a tab labeled:
Healing Items
Standard Healing Potion x1
“Oh,” I said softly.
Around me the others reacted similarly as their potions disappeared one by one.
“Okay that’s actually kind of cool.” Matt said as he stared at his empty hand.
“Yes! The crawl contains many exciting features designed to distract you from the omnipresent threat of violent death,” the little fairy replied.
“I’m beginning to notice a pattern.” Matt said dryly.
Simbul pointed dramatically downward.
“Now place the potion on your hotbar,” she said. “It’ll appear when you try to move the potion.”
I focused on the potion icon in my inventory and mentally dragged it downward. A small bar appeared at the bottom of my vision with 12 slots on it. I slid the red vial icon slid neatly into the first slot.
“Excellent!” Simbul chirped. “Using healing potions pulled directly from your inventory requires manual drinking.”
Aaron’s expression darkened instantly.
“Which tastes horrible,” he muttered.
“Correct! But, hotbar activation bypasses the taste entirely!” she said beaming.
Aaron stared at her in disbelief.
“…You could’ve told me this first,” he mumbled.
The fairy smiled brightly.
“Yes! But then I wouldn’t have had a visual aid!” She smiled brightly. “Thank you for your cooperation.
New Achievement: Basic Organizational Skills
You have successfully utilized inventory management and assigned an item to your hotbar. Studies indicate organized crawlers survive approximately 12% longer than those who store healing supplies loose in their pants. Just kidding, you would have to be an idiot to do something like that when we provide unlimited inventory space. You are now officially more competent than a statistically concerning percentage of the crawler population.
Reward: Bronze Adventure Box!
Matt stared upward blankly.
“We’re getting achievements for using menus now.”
“You’d be surprised how many people die before figuring them out,” Simbul replied immediately.
The room became quiet again after that, a little too quiet. Then she inhaled sharply, clapped her hands together once, and the bright smile returned like someone flipping a switch.
“Okay!” she announced. “Good news everyone! Nobody currently inside this room is actively dying anymore.”
Aaron stared at the floor blankly and Mary looked like she might cry again. Matt rubbed his face tiredly, Lynn was cuddling next to me as if I could make the bad in this new existence go away and me? I honestly, I wasn’t sure how I felt anymore.
“Now!” she chirped. “On to loot box processing procedures!”
Matt blinked.
“That sounds deeply dystopian,” he said.
“It is!” Simbul replied immediately. “But with prizes.”
She practically vibrated with energy.
“…Oh dear,” she said as glanced at something only she could see and her wings buzzed slightly faster.
“What?” Aaron asked flatly.
Simbul looked toward me, then toward Marv, then back toward me again.
“Your party’s reward distribution is… unusual,” she said, her head tilting slightly to the side.
Matt immediately pointed at me.
“It’s because of the magical girl thing, isn’t it?” he asked.
“Partially,” Simbul admitted then added, “I think.”
“Partially?” Lynn repeated nervously.
Simbul hesitated.
“…Why does the horse have higher rarity boxes than most of you?” She asked.
Marv lifted his head and knickered proudly.
“Stop encouraging him,” Aaron muttered.
“I’m not!” she protested.
“You absolutely are,” Matt replied.
Simbul shook herself slightly.
“Right! Important tutorial information! Loot boxes open automatically in ascending order of rarity. Please do not attempt to interrupt the process,” she said. “We will start with the pretty lady in Sailor Moon outfit, go ahead and start to first one, it’ll trigger the rest, girlie!”
Her wings vibrated with anticipation.
I sighed and ignored the comments about my gender because I wasn’t sure if she actually thought I was a girl. It’s not like it would be the first time that’s happened.
“Wait…” Lynn interjects as I’m about to start opening my boxes. “You know about Sailor Moon?”
“Duh, I had to have something to entertain myself in the down time I had over the years waiting for the dungeon to open. I’m well versed in your Otaku culture, thank you very much!” She puffed her little chest out proudly.
“Can we sell the boxes?” Matt asked immediately.
“No.”
“Trade them?”
“No.”
“Throw them at enemies?”
Simbul paused.
“Dude, why would you even ask that?” Aaron asked.
“…Technically yes, but statistically that strategy ends poorly.” Simbul answered.
“Good to know.” Mat said with a smile.
I shook my head and willed the first box to open.