Chapter 27 - Patch Notes

Chapter 27

Patch Notes

“Now, what I’m sure all of you have been waiting for, the highlights portion of our program.  You back home sitting on your couches and eating your Sluirm Pellets, get ready to record the names of whomever you find most interesting so that starting on the second floor, you can tap into their feed directly!” Cascadia said with a flourish… well, as much of a flourish an oversized bipedal mudskipper is capable of.  “For you crawlers that don’t get featured in this next segment, better luck next time!  Remember these segments air every thirty hours so use that time wisely and get creative!”

The scene around us shifted and we were in a large chamber in the middle of a huge group of well-armed men in uniform whose ages ranged from late teens to early fifties, if I had to guess, but the scene seemed to be paused.

“Ok, for those you who are new, mainly our new crawlers, this is how this works,” Cascadia said cheerily.  “We will show clips of either the really amazing or really stupid things our new crawlers have done over the last thirty hours.  In the case of boss fights, the boss introduction overlay will pop up for you to see.  Keep in mind, these have been edited down to fit the runtime of our episode.  Now, let the mayhem begin!”

She threw her fins in the air dramatically and vanished, leaving us in the middle of the paused scene.

A fanfare played and the familiar BOSS BATTLE! popped up in the air.  The text underneath declared that this was a borough boss and proceeded to list the names of all the men that surrounded us.  There were so many that it had to show them in groups, cycling through them so fast I couldn’t keep up.  It took it a full minute to reach the VS The Invaders that came at the end.

After a brief moment, the men started running and screaming, some firing blindly at some unknown creatures.  As the chaos around us unfolded, I caught a silvery flash in the distance and when I focused on it, I could see where they were fighting.  It reminded me of the alien ships from the classic War of the Worlds movie.  As their eye stalks moved, they fired beams that swept across the cavern, disintegrating all that were touched. 

In just a few seconds, more than three-quarters of the humans had been wiped out, with one particularly brave-looking young man running at the ships pushing what appeared to be a bomb on a cart.  As the cart bounced and jolted on the uneven cavern floor, I expected the eye stalks of all the ships to turn on him, to stop him, but they didn’t.  They kept focusing on the survivors who were firing every weapon at their disposal toward the ships.  One was even sent crashing into the ground under a heavily focused fire from the fighters. 

Sadly, it cost them dearly and soon, only about 10 remained, including the young man I had now deemed Bomb Boy.  Bomb Boy apparently reached the destination he wanted to be at, in the middle of the grouping of ships, because he stopped and turned back to the few remaining survivors and saluted them before pulling a sleek device out of his pocket and dramatically pushed the button.

Jesus Christ!

The world around us went white and a wave of high heat rolled over us as the cavern shook from the resounding boom.  When my vision recovered, I saw the Victory! text appear before it moved on to declaring the winners to be the Zanibian Freedom Fighters.  It then scrolled through the entire list of photos and names of the men, though now most were shots of them right at the moment of their deaths.  It did finally list the five survivors of the blast at the end.  I knew I should have paid better attention and read their names, but I was still in shock at the outcome.

The scene shifted again and this time we were following what appeared to be a thirteen-year-old girl with a determined look on her face.  She wore what looked like glowing silver armor covered by an oversized soccer jersey and had a mace in her right hand.  Flanking her were two huge rottweilers as they faced several giant spiders that were bigger than the dogs themselves.  The dogs proceeded to rip the spiders to shreds as if they were nothing more than old chew toys.  The girl, whose name had finally popped up as Luca Mar, got in her fair share of hits too, but the dogs did more of the work.

The scene shifted again and we saw a group of about ten men and women all armed with various weapons.  In the lead was a man named Friedrich Müller, and he had a huge broadsword that he swung with apparent ease at the giant poison-spitting lizards they were fighting.  Beside him was a beautiful woman whose name was Helka.  She had twin curved swords and was ripping through the monsters with ease.  Between her and Friedrich, they had killed all but one of the lizards, a small one that dropped onto him from above.  It bit into his shoulder and the scene shifted, this time, their group was smaller.  Only four people remained and Friedrich was the only man, but he wasn’t doing so well.  His complexion was pale and he kept coughing up blood.  Eventually he collapsed and it was clear he couldn’t go on. The wound where the lizard had bitten him earlier was festering.   Helka knelt beside him, crying, desperate to do something to help him, even though there was nothing she could do.  Friedrich pulled one of her swords out of her scabbard and held it out to her weakly.  When she took the grip in her hand, he aimed the tip at his own chest and nodded.  Crying, Helka drove the sword home, with all her weight, then collapsed on the body, crying as the scene shifted again.

Now we were with a group of twenty who had the unfortunate fate of running into a city boss named Zorbos.  The scene lasted maybe a minute as Zorbos, a tall, lanky, and slightly disproportionate man who appeared to be made of rock looked calmly at the group charging him, weapons out.  Then he snapped his fingers and, as if a massive invisible weight had appeared over the crawlers, the ground around them cratered slowly, freezing them in place.  The weaker crawlers collapsed first, under the intense gravity pushing down on them, getting smashed to a pulp as soon as they fell.  The strongest of the group, lasted maybe five seconds at most before he, too, was flattened into the deepening crater. 

“He turned them into paste.” I muttered to myself.

Seeing his opponents dead, Zorbos turned and sat on a huge throne that had risen behind him made of glowing stone.  The scene shifted.

Suddenly, we were standing on a narrow stone bridge suspended over a chasm so deep I couldn't see the bottom.  Four crawlers stood near the middle of it, three men and a woman.  One of the men, a skinny guy with messy brown hair and a shirt that said I Paused My Game to Be Here, was gesturing animatedly toward the edge.  The woman, who wore a bicycle helmet for some reason, kept shaking her head at him.  One of the other men pointed down into the darkness, then made a rather emphatic gesture that I interpreted as Are you out of your fucking mind?

The skinny guy grinned.

“Oh, no,” I muttered, as a gamer I knew exactly what mechanic he was testing.

He backed away from the edge, took a running start, and jumped.  For a moment, he hung in the air with his arms spread wide and a ridiculous smile on his face, then gravity took over.  He plummeted into the darkness, his mouth opening in what I assumed was a scream.

The three remaining crawlers rushed to the edge and peered down.  They stood there for several seconds before the woman threw her hands into the air.  One of the men appeared to say something, earning himself a slap across the face.  Then all three suddenly froze.  Their expressions changed as they focused on something floating in front of them that we couldn't see.  The third crawler began laughing so hard he doubled over.  The woman looked absolutely furious, and the man she'd slapped seemed to be arguing with something in the air.

“What the hell?” I asked.

“Looks like they got a notification,” Matt said.

“For what?” I inquired.  “Watching their friend kill himself?”

“Wouldn't surprise me,” Matt replied.  “After all, we got one for Tommy being an idiot.”

“Did that idiot really think fall damage wouldn’t exist?” I asked shaking my head.

“Maybe he thought he'd respawn,” Mary suggested.

I stared at the empty chasm with the three friends standing above, then the scene shifted.

This time, we were in what looked like a ruined shopping mall.  We got a quick flash of the crawler’s names and portraits followed by VS The Rat Pack.  Several crawlers whose faces matched the portraits were running down a corridor lined with shattered storefronts, pursued by a pack of creatures that resembled giant rats covered in porcupine quills.  One of the crawlers, a heavyset man wearing a bright yellow raincoat, stopped in front of a store whose sign read POTION EMPORIUM.  He pointed excitedly at something inside.  The others kept running, though one woman turned and appeared to shout at him.  He ignored her, smashed the storefront window with a metal pipe, and grabbed a bottle filled with bright green liquid.

“Oh, that's probably a bad idea,” I said.

He pulled out the cork and drank the entire thing.  For a moment, nothing happened then his body began glowing green and his stomach swelled.  The man's eyes bulged as he looked down at his expanding belly.  His raincoat split open, and he inflated like a balloon, then exploded.  Green slime splattered across the storefronts, the floor, and the crawlers who had been running back to help him.

The rat-porcupine creatures skidded to a stop.  One sniffed at a puddle of the stuff, licked it, and immediately dropped dead.  Another followed suit and within seconds, the entire pack was dead.

A large VICTORY! appeared above the surviving crawlers.

They stared at it, then at the green mess covering everything.  One woman slowly wiped a glob of slime off her face.  Her expression suggested she had several things to say about the situation, none of them particularly complimentary.  The scene shifted again.

I wasn't sure whether to laugh or throw up.

In the next scene a group appeared in a long hallway illuminated by flickering blue torches.  There were seven of them, and unlike the previous group, these people looked like they knew exactly what they were doing.  They moved carefully, checking corners and watching one another's backs.  At least, that's what I thought until one of them suddenly drove a dagger into the back of the man walking in front of him.  The victim staggered, turning toward his attacker with a look of disbelief.  The man stabbed him again and again.

By the time the others realized what was happening, their companion was already on the ground.  One of the women raised her weapon, but another member of the group struck her from behind.  The hallway erupted into chaos as two of the crawlers were attacking the others.

The remaining three tried to fight back, but they'd been caught completely by surprise.  One managed to escape down the hallway, while the other two weren't so lucky.  When it was over, the attackers stood among the bodies, breathing heavily.  The first man wiped his dagger on the dead woman's shirt.

That was when I noticed something strange.

Over his head were several black skulls.

I leaned forward.

“What the hell are those?” I asked out loud

“What?” Lynn asked.

“The skulls over his head.” I pointed to them.

Before she could answer, the scene changed.

CLAY: Simbul?

SIMBUL: Yes, Clay?

CLAY: What do the black skulls over a crawler’s head mean?

SIMBUL: Oh! Those indicate player kills.  When a crawler kills another crawler, they get marked with a skull.  There are Gold Skulls too, but you won’t have to worry about them until the leaderboards populate.

“Player kills?” I muttered out loud.  “Wonderful.”

Sal grunted from his chair.  “Some folks don't need much o' an excuse to turn into monsters, lass.”

In the new scene, the familiar BOSS BATTLE! announcement appeared and my stomach dropped because I recognized the surroundings immediately.

“Oh, shit,” I whispered.

We were back in the swamp. Back in Bayou Billy's lair.  There was Billy himself, enormous and hideous, standing in the murky water with the chain in hand that stretched across the room to the giant fan buried in the stone of the wall.  And there we were… Me, Lynn, Mary, Matt, Aaron, and Marv.

I had never seen myself from the outside like this.  It was a strange experience and the version of me standing in the swamp looked ridiculous and absolutely terrified.  Which was fair, considering I remembered exactly how terrified I'd been.

Then the fight began.

The broadcast jumped through the opening exchanges, showing Billy's spinning fan slamming into Marv's armored side.  Sparks flew as Marv stood his ground, his hooves cracking the stone beneath him.  The next shot showed him buried beneath the fan and a tangle of chains, with Mary kneeling beside him.

I remembered how desperately I'd hoped my idea would work.  And there it was, right in front of me.  The silver glow of Strong Foundation holding Marv in place while Billy struggled to retrieve his weapon.

The scene jumped again.

Aaron flew toward Billy, landing a punch against the enormous crocodilian's jaw.  Billy answered by swinging an outboard motor, its spinning propeller catching Aaron as he landed.  Something flew across the chamber.  Aaron's arm.

I felt Lynn stiffen beside me and I couldn't bring myself to look toward the bedroom.

The footage continued, showing Matt's scythe striking Billy's tail, Lynn's saber cutting into his side, and my own Love Blossoming Spiral tearing through his shoulder.

The scene skipped ahead.

Aaron was back on his feet, charging past Matt and knocking him unconscious with a backhand before launching himself onto Billy's back.  I watched him pound the crocodilian's skull against the stone floor, again and again.  Even knowing what happened, I found myself leaning forward.

Billy threw him off, staggered upright, and pulled a mason jar from his overalls.  The next moment, blue flames covered his body and his health bar began climbing.

I remembered the sinking feeling I'd had when I realized he was healing.

Then Aaron went flying into one of the burning shacks and the previous version of me stood alone in front of Billy, my scepter raised in both hands.

I knew what was coming, I knew I'd survived, but watching that enormous bastard charge toward me still made my heart pound.  I could even feel the heat coming off of him again, just like when it happened.

Billy swung his outboard motor as I fired.  Pink light struck the spinning propeller, shattered it, and punched straight through Billy's chest.  He stumbled backward, a smoking hole where most of his chest had been.  Then he fell.

VICTORY!

Our portraits appeared beneath the announcement, and then scene was gone as it shifted.  Just like that.

In total, it was maybe a minute of footage.  That was all it took to show the galaxy one of the most terrifying experiences of my life.

They'd shown the fight. They'd shown Aaron losing his arm, me killing Billy, but they hadn't shown Derrik.  They hadn't shown him shoving me out of the path of that spinning fan or what was left of him afterward.  He'd saved my life and as far as the galaxy was concerned, he might as well never have existed.

I felt something tighten in my chest.

Somewhere out there, people were probably cheering.  Maybe they'd laughed at my costume or thought my attack looked impressive.  From what Simbul had said, someone had probably decided I was worth following, but all I could think about was how close we'd come to losing everyone.

“Clay?” Lynn's hand settled over mine.

I realized I'd been gripping the edge of my chair hard enough that my fingers hurt.

“I'm okay,” I lied.

She squeezed my hand and I squeezed back.

In the next scene, a young man with curly brown hair stood in front of a large stone doorway. He wore a battered jacket and had a backpack that looked much too heavy for him.  Several other crawlers stood behind him and he was holding something that looked suspiciously like a homemade bomb.  A very large homemade bomb.

“Oh, you've got to be kidding me,” Matt said.

The young man grinned at his companions, gesturing excitedly toward the doorway and then at the device in his hands.  Then he approached the entrance.  above it, a glowing sign identified the room as Da Boss Chamber.

The door stood partially open and the young man pulled something from the side of the device, took three quick steps forward, and hurled the bomb through the opening.  Then he turned and ran, waving frantically for his companions to follow.

They scattered.

The explosion was spectacular.  The doorway vanished in a blast of orange fire, followed by a shock wave that tore chunks of stone from the surrounding walls.  The young man hit the floor and covered his head.

A moment later, a massive VICTORY! appeared above him.

He rolled onto his back, threw both fists into the air, and began celebrating.  His companions joined him.

Even I had to admit, it was impressive.

He'd taken one look at an obvious boss arena and decided that fighting the boss wasn't necessary if he could simply blow the bastard up.  Not exactly subtle, but effective.

Then the broadcast shifted perspective.

Instead of showing the celebrating crawlers, it moved through the shattered doorway and into the ruined chamber.  There were broken cribs, scorched tiny blankets and small wooden toys scattered across the floor…  And then there were the bodies.  Little bodies and far too many of them.

I stopped breathing.

“What the fuck?” Mary whispered.

The camera drifted over the destruction and a cracked sign hung crookedly from the wall inside the room.

NURSERY

For several seconds, nobody in Sal’s spoke, then the scene shifted back to the young man.  He was still smiling and celebrating.  He had no idea.

“Oh, God,” Lynn whispered.

I felt sick.  He'd done exactly what any sensible person might have done.  He'd found a boss arena and eliminated the boss without exposing himself or his companions to danger and the Dungeon had put a nursery inside it.

I thought about the man in the yellow raincoat, the idiot jumping off the bridge, and the PKs murdering their companions.  Those people had made choices.  Stupid choices.  Cruel choices.

But this?  How was anyone supposed to know?

I looked toward Sal and his expression was grim.

“That's the kind o' thing they love,” he said quietly.

I didn't ask who they were, I already knew.

The scene shifted again.

For a few moments, the highlights continued in rapid succession.  A woman riding an enormous beetle crashed through a wall and flattened a pack of goblins.  A group of crawlers accidentally set their own barricade on fire while trying to defend it.  A man wielding two frying pans beat a skeletal warrior into a pile of loose bones.  A crawler dressed in a business suit somehow convinced a group of monsters to fight one another while he sat on a rock eating what looked like a sandwich. 

Then the images vanished and the studio returned.

Jack stood behind his desk, looking as cheerful as ever. “And there you have it, folks! Just a few of the many incredible moments from the first thirty hours of Dungeon Crawler World: Earth!”

Cascadia practically bounced into view beside him.

“Wasn't that wonderful? So much creativity! So much excitement! So much BLOOD!” She threw her fins into the air.

I stared at her.

Somewhere in the galaxy, people were probably laughing and applauding and I hated every single one of them.

“That concludes the premier episode of Dungeon Crawler World: Earth!  We’ll see you in the nest episode in thirty hours!”

The studio vanished, leaving us sitting in the Safe Room again.  Before anyone could say anything, a familiar female voice filled the air.

Attention, crawlers!

I jumped slightly.

“Oh, great,” Matt muttered. “What now?”

Congratulations on surviving the first thirty hours!  So far, fifteen borough bosses and more than fifteen hundred neighborhood bosses have been eliminated.  We've also had our first encounters with city bosses, although those didn't end particularly well for the crawlers involved.  Overall, the death toll is progressing according to expectations.  Keep up the good work!

I stared at the empty air. “Did she just congratulate us on dying at the expected rate?”

“Sounds like it,” Lynn said.

You'll receive an update following each episode of Dungeon Crawler World. Along with general announcements, we'll be informing you of any changes made to Dungeon systems.

“Oh, good,” Matt said. “Patch notes for the apocalypse.”

First, several technical problems have been corrected. The Fire Fingers spell should now function properly, without the previously reported complications.

We've also resolved an issue involving the individual bathrooms located throughout the Dungeon. An error in the system responsible for maintaining these private spaces was causing unfortunate results when more than one crawler attempted to enter the same bathroom. This problem has now been corrected, and additional crawlers attempting to enter an occupied bathroom will no longer be violently eliminated.

I went cold.

Jenn.

I could still see her standing in that hallway, her body folding in on itself before exploding because the Dungeon's broken system decided she wasn't supposed to be there.  And Kylie, trapped inside the bathroom, bleeding to death while we stood helplessly outside.

I glanced toward Aaron's bedroom, which was once again, just a blank wall with a door set in it.

Please remember, however, that these facilities are intended for individual use. They remain private, instanced spaces, and sharing them is prohibited.

“That's it?” I whispered as Lynn's hand found mine.

“They fixed it,” I said, my voice sounding strange even to me.  “They just... fixed it.”

As if that somehow made everything okay.  As if Jenn hadn't died because of their mistake.

I remembered the ridiculous achievement the AI had given me.  The one that admitted what happened was its fault before immediately informing me that the admission couldn't be used against Borant.  And now they were announcing the fix like it was some minor inconvenience.

I wanted to scream.

Additionally, we've corrected an issue that allowed crawlers to obtain an unlimited supply of toilet paper.  Each crawler will now receive a single roll per floor.  We recommend using it responsibly.

For a moment, I couldn't quite process the change in subject.  They'd gone from announcing a fix for the bug that killed Jenn to talking about toilet paper, like the two things were somehow equally important.

I looked toward Sal and his expression was grim.

“That's how they do things, lass,” he said quietly.

I hated this place.  I hated the people running it.  And I was beginning to hate the fact that they could make something so horrible sound so ordinary.

Next, inventory adjustments!  We've identified several unintended interactions involving living creatures and stored objects.  Monsters can no longer be placed into personal inventories as a means of eliminating them.

“People figured out how to do that?” I asked.

We've also corrected an issue involving objects retaining their previous velocity while stored.  Items removed from inventory will now emerge without the momentum they possessed when they were placed inside.

“So, somebody figured out how to turn their inventory into a weapon?” I said with a frown.

Why couldn’t I have thought about that?

“Sounds like it,” Lynn said.

Remember, your inventory is provided to assist with carrying equipment and supplies.  It is not intended to function as an offensive ability.  Additional unintended interactions will be corrected as they're discovered, so crawlers are advised against relying on them.

“Translation,” Matt said. “If you find something useful, don't get too attached to it.”

Finally, stairways leading to the second floor are now being made available throughout the Dungeon.

That got everyone's attention.

Crawlers are reminded that descending to a lower floor is permanent.  You will not be permitted to return to the floor above.

This season also introduces a new restriction for crawlers who descend significantly ahead of the scheduled floor collapse.  Anyone entering the second floor more than six hours before the first floor closes will be placed into suspended animation until the collapse occurs.  During this period, affected crawlers will be unable to continue exploring or interacting with the Dungeon.  This may also affect their ability to maintain an audience following.

“Oh, that's just wonderful,” I muttered.

Crawlers descending within the final six hours before the scheduled collapse will not be subjected to this restriction.  They may begin exploring the next floor immediately.

“So going down too early actually puts you at a disadvantage?” Lynn asked.

“Depends on what yer tryin' to accomplish,” Sal replied.  “But aye, that's the general idea.”

That concludes the current system updates.  The next Dungeon Crawler World broadcast will occur in approximately thirty hours.  Until then, remember that your continued survival depends on your ability to adapt, overcome challenges, and provide an entertaining experience for our viewers!

There was a brief pause, then the voice became almost disturbingly cheerful.

Now get out there and kill, kill, kill!

The announcement ended.

For several moments, nobody spoke.

“Well,” Matt said, “that was fucked up.”

I couldn't argue with that.