SonnetNSunbeam

Hello there

Welcome to the guild! I used to rp there a long time ago. Its a good community here in my experience so far!!

Dungeon Crawler Carl: Twin Suns

Updated the monster compendium with the two monsters I've been playing with. Had a freaking blast with this one!

Dungeon Crawler Carl: Twin Suns

L O R A L I E & S H A R O D

7 days and counting to floor collapse Floor 1 Viewers: 0 | Followers: 0 | Favorites: 0

---

The skittering increases volume as Sharod equips his weapon from his inventory. Loralie's heart beat is pounding in her ears, tunnel vision is the only thing that moves her forward. Through a grimace she 'shows' her shield in the menu and finds her arm weighed down by its heft. She'll need to increase her strength if she wants to become more useful with this thing.

"I'm gonna try to take them out like bowling pins." Loralie waits until the spiders get closer, and then she slams the shield down in front of them. Four rollerskating spiders hit the front of her shield, and fly over to the top. Inexplicably, the Scooby Doo scrambling sound accompanies their ascent and descent to the hard ground. At that point, Sharod is on top of one, stabbing down through its head with the brass knuckles. The knife of the weapon cleaves open the skin in a slash after the initial impact. ‘

Breath rushes into Loralie’s lungs as she lifts the machete into the air with her right hand. At the height, a shout escapes her. It carries her through the slash. Blood spurts out of two cleaved limbs. The head of the beast leans forward taking a chunk out of her forearm.

Red stains her skin and her jeans are completely the color of wine at this point. A strangled noise leaves her throat, and she kicks the spider against the wall. As it comes down, she slices it in two.

Her pained outburst causes Sharod to swivel in her direction, fist raised in her defense. The spider jumps on his back, mouth digging into his neck. He swears, throwing himself back into the wall in an attempt to knock the spider off. ‘Crunch’. Pressure relieves from the bite at his neck, his blood dripping down the front of him.

The last spider approaches his front, spitting a blue-green substance. Its ass-end shakes back and forth like it’s about to leap. Loralie pivots, bringing down her machete- cleaving its body at the natural break in anatomy.

Lightly crushed against the wall, the spider hisses. Sharod doesn’t waste any time spinning and punching it in the face a few times.

”That-” wheeze “was a really good strat. Rinse and repeat.” Sharods chest is heaving, the tops of his cheeks turn a maroon that looks like it would be hot to the touch. His toothy smile lights up the room.

Loralie’s eyes are deadly as she rolls her shoulder. The shield is heavy, and her joint feels loose from the stress of bowl-striking the spiders. She casts a heal spell on both of them. ”If I cry out again like that, make sure to take care of your own surroundings first.” The venom is truly unheard of from her. ”I need to be able to do it myself.” Each word carries a bite.

Jaw dropped- Sharod’s eyes are dinner plates. ”Woah- okay fine- no friendly fire dude.” He raises his hands in defense. This kind of lashing out is new for her, he’s used to her brutal looks and accompanying silence.

A heavy sigh wracks her frame, and the dungeon pipes up around them- awarding them both a level, and Loralie with a bowling joke.

LEVEL UP! Level 2 You get 3 stat points! You must reach floor 3, and choose a race and class before placing them.

NEW ACHIEVEMENT!! Trailblazer Movin on up Among the first 1000 Crawlers to level up! That’s pretty good, maybe you’re gonna go somewhere with that. REWARD!!! Bronze Number Goes Up Box

NEW ACHIEVEMENT!! SPARE Bet you played a lot of Wii Sports with a move like that one. We don’t have a bowling mechanic yet. REWARD!!! Silver 10 Pins Down Box

Sharod hides a tiny smile from his friend, knowing that this has likely been the worst day of her life. Probably his too- but he’s had to be able to joke about things like this for a very long time. He rumages through the rollerskates, and finds a spool of thread, a few gold pieces, and a simple gold ring.

Not thinking twice, he slips the ring on his finger. A popup alert in his HUD appears. “It’s probably just loot scaling.”

Ring of Negative Space:
Item: Gold Ring, Red Jewel
Rarity: Unknown
Description: “Occupies less.”
+5% Evasion Chance
-10% Enemy Target Priority.

Loralie leans over to him in question, and when she sees the ring on his finger she shakes her head at him. Her shield hangs at her side, her shoulders slumped, as she begins walking away from him and down the hall.

He’s making mistakes, and it’s not like him at all.

Loralie can’t fathom why Sharod isn’t taking this more seriously. Someone is dead. Wait no, everyone is dead.. They’re not even really on Earth anymore. As she reaches the end of the hall, she starts to smell something acrid. Blue, green sludge smeared down the hall to the right.

Sharod is a few feet behind her when she stops. Ramrod still. Her machete hand lifts slowly and freezes in the air. His steps get lighter as he approaches her.

Careful to avoid the sludge, they creep along the hall the right. Each step they take, the worse it smells. At a certain point, Sharod covers his nose with the neck of his shirt. He breathes slowly, and that’s when they see it.

A creature is leaning against the wall of the hall, rivulets of blue ooze creep down the brick. In the center, another creature, its figure more clearly defined as humanoid, drags itself forward on what are presumably its arms.

The smell is so horrendous that their eyes start to water. For a moment, the ooze drips away from the side of the creature on the floor, and a matted bloody mess of hair is visible underneath for a moment. Loralie turns and hurls. Sharod takes a step back and prompts the creatures. ”Are you alive?”

The creatures stop, and the one leaning against the wall turns their head over their shoulder. Black holes where their eyes might’ve been stare back at them. It’s mouth falls open and a horrible creaking sound builds. It starts low, and its rattle increases until it’s above speaking volume.

Sharod stumbles backward, his close range weapon completely out of the question. He pulls Loralie up by the shoulders, ignoring the dribble of puke on her chin. ”Time to go.” Wet squishing sounds begin. The edges of the slime pile begin to creep toward them. ”Now.” The upright mob turns slowly, and falls into the sludge beneath it. When it impacts, the sludge reacts like cornstarch mixed with water- hard at first, and then it melts around it.

Unfortunately- the impact squishes red blood out of the rotten corpse. That’s enough. Is this the dungeon cleaning crew?

Loralie pulls him forward by the arm, just as the edge is about to touch his shoe. Then they’re running down the left hall. She supposes they should have gone left and skipped the spectacle entirely. A vision filters through her thoughts of this same creature devouring her friend, and for a small moment, she wonders if one of them was Diane.

Mid run, she stumbles to a stop. ”What? Why are you stopping?” Sharod slows to a stop, dancing back and forth sideways- towards and away from her. He’s on his toes as he does.

All lefts lead to Diane.

Maybe it’s a warning. Yeah- she can work with that. Trust left, first. Okay. Yeah.

All lefts lead to Diane.

She doesn’t notice, but with the thought, an invisible pen etches ‘Diane’ into the face of her shield. On the inside arm band- “All Lefts Lead to Diane” carves itself into the leather. It’s ornate, created with a precise hand.

Dead ahead- is a group of 5 spiders, skating in perfect formation. “I’ve been searching for an answer, but I ain’t found one. I’ve been known to tear shit up and go off like a gun.” One of the spiders is excellent at beat boxing. They leave that one last.

It seems like what they witnessed down the hall increased their stakes and they both are immediately down to business.

NEW ACHIEVEMENT! - Sharod Impulse Control is for Cowards You equipped an unidentified item In an active dungeon hallway. Bold. Stupid. We love to see it. REWARD!!! Bronze Mystery Regret Box

NEW ACHIEVEMENT!! - Loralie All Lefts Lead to Diane You assigned meaning to randomness and Survived because of it. REWARD!!! Bronze Pathfinder Box

NEW ACHIEVEMENT!! - Both Smells Like Floor One You identified advanced decay before physical contact.We’d prefer you keep it that way. REWARD!!! Consumable Nose Plugs (Single Use – Resist Stench Debuff)

Dungeon Crawler Carl: Twin Suns

I think the soulbounds should be permanent, but I think something interesting on later floors would be a forced separation after they think they're past that. It'd really challenge them as far as builds go when they start choosing stuff that is more dependent on each other? I think there could be floor separated for rewards, and then ^ above after a stretch where they are together by default?

Yes yes yes. On the sponsor time being something OP and that is used at once. I really want them to get cut off and something bad happen at a

---

PVP on the second floor would be interesting!- But if we don't find the opportunity for it maybe it can be something that affects them later (like how the parents who are chasing Carl do and it comes back)

---

No worries at all! - It's been busy for me too!

Dispatch: Heroes of Claremont

S P L I T O P E N

SDN Locker Room 12:53

_{Mentions-
| Madcap & Eclipse (@Auragreedia) | Blackstar (@cosmiccowgirl) | Lightning Girl (@FourtyTwo) |
Open interaction in the locker room for a set of peering eyes.}

---

Jet’s head was still pounding when he made it to his locker- two nights in a row of drinking might have been too much. His skull felt like it was overstuffed with cotton. There was a lot on his mind. His mask felt a bit greasy on his face, and he knew that he’d need to have it cleaned before his next shift. Laundry. Ducky’s food. Calling Rey to get the refrigerator door fixed for good, four months of suffering was enough before calling him. Groceries. It was nearly time to call his mom- which was always a fiasco. Madcap was kind of out of line for that stunt at karaoke. Also- Eclipse and Lightning Girl? Could Blackstar be a good business partner for a bungee jumping business?

He set his lunch bag on the bench behind him. Pushing up on the mechanism to open his locker, he catches the seam of his uniform in the latch.

As it goes up, Jet swears and watches as the seam at his wrist is split about four inches up. His hands roughly drop to his sides, and he looks up to the ceiling in a huff. “It’s fine. It’s fine.” He mumbles it behind clenched teeth before refocusing his gaze on his locker. Inside, in front of his sewing kit, is a bottle of fish food.

For the first time since he woke up with a splitting headache that morning, he actually thought about how he got home after the bar. Flying- the chill of the wind reaching his bones. The blue-light pollution-green sky. The stars. Blackstar. Oh. Oh that’s.

His pulse races, his neck heats. Okay. So Blackstar flew him home. She knows where he lives. That’s- that can be okay. An itch crawls up his spine and he checks behind him for the eyes of someone else. Nobody else seems to be looking at him, there are a few people changing shifts, but everyone seems to be minding their business. In the fuzziness on the sides of his vision, memories of stars creep in.

Her silhouette among the stars is burned into his memory- and by how well he remembers the details, he knows drunk him was fixated on this moment. Through his glove he bites the thumbnail on his right hand.

He wants to know if her eyes would’ve sparkled the same way as the stars. Jet can almost picture her smiling, and he wonders if she’s seen the northern lights before.

Fuck. He had to call Rey for two reasons now.

This thought finally kicks him into motion again. Drawstring work bag in, sewing kit out. He closes his locker and puts his earpiece in.

Did Blackstar drop him food for Ducky? He ran through the list of coworkers, and couldn’t think of a single one who liked him enough to make this happen. Except maybe Lightning Girl. But, leaving it in his locker didn’t seem like her style.

Lightning Girl seemed like the type to hand it to him in person. Eclipse would do something like this- for somebody he liked. At least- that’s what Jet assumes. But he didn’t know Eclipse yet, so that was off the table. It had to be her.

Goosebumps jump up his forearms.

He saddles up to a computer that he shares with the other heroes in the office. In Slack he finds a message from James- in it, he’s asked to fill out his timesheet. Which- fair. So he quickly fills that out and then he checks his email. In it, he’s got some notes from credit collectors, a note from the last prison he’d been in before SDN picked him up. Finally- a note from his mother- from one of her sewing friends. Details on what number to call and what time for next week.

He picks a printout of the information after logging out.

Then he’s walking into the breakroom. Madcap is in front of the tv. The outfit change warrants a stare- so he does from the door. With Madcap’s focus, Jet almost expects a fly to buzz around behind his pupils like a cartoon. Blackstar and Lightning girl are seated. With James outlining today’s dispatch he shoves his lunch box in the fridge. When he reaches the table he wastes no time busting open his sewing kit to fix the seam he ripped at his locker. “Anyone else even got the ability to be hung over?” He shoves the needle and thread into the fabric with a quick and practiced hand.

Once he’s all sewn in, he folds up the printer page into his sewing kit, and shoves it into one of the high up cabinets for retrieval after shift.

"Asteroid, you want a lift to the carnival? I ain't pooled with you yet."

When she offers her hand, he keeps his glove on and nods. “Yeah- it’ll probably take four times as long to jump there based on recent experience.” He laughs a bit, and tilts his head in Blackstar’s direction. The motion is jerky, like someone who is used to the weight of a helmet.

Dungeon Crawler Carl: Twin Suns

L O R A L I E & S H A R O D

7 days and counting to floor collapse Floor 1 Viewers: 0 | Followers: 0 | Favorites: 0

---

"You first, and we are gonna do this one at a time as a class. Once we get the basics situated, you all have a quest. Your gonna have to find a saferoom."

Loralie blinked, still relatively shell shocked from the entire experience. But there was a hopelessness in resistance that felt even more depressing. So she moved, opening her menus and popping boxes. She’d neglected to check previously, but she was nearly level 2. Probably kicking an enemy would put her over the edge.

Gold Asshole Box - - 1 x Oathkeeper’s Pall - Passive - Records names of the fallen. +1% Damage Resistance, +1% Healing per Name Max 20%. Active Ability hidden until Class Selection. Binding.

Igva clapped once and pointed at the item. “It’s a shield. That’s gonna be the best thing you get until floor three. Unfortunately- after you put it on, it’s not coming off. Like, you can ‘hide’ it, but you will only be able to attach this to that slot for the rest of your time in the dungeon. Unless you find something else of course- but the chances of that are close to 1%.”

Loralie reads the ‘Records names of the fallen’ line 10 solid times before she opens the next two boxes. The wet knees of her pants heat her blood. Through a grimace she asks Igva- “And you’re sure I’m not going to regret it?”

Silver Killstreak Box - 2x Healing Potions, 1 x machete

Bronze Spider Box - 2x Glue trap, 1x mana potion

She closes her eyes and leans back for a moment, considering her options. She equips the machete, gives it a slash, and puts it away again. “Lets see what everybody else gets, but you better equip that shield before you go into the dungeon. You’ll regret it if you don’t, I can’t say if you’ll regret equipping that eventually.

The goblin then shifts her attention away from the shell-shocked blonde and to her soulbound crawler. Hannah was interesting. She was slight, and looked like she didn’t get a lot of sun. Probably someone who was very busy in the rat race of the outside world. Or, the world before this one. “So- we’re going to travel together then?”

Igva snorts- “that’d be something- huh? No, you'll be separated until later floors. That’s when things will get interesting. Until then though? Focus on now. You don’t have the energy to be doing anything else.”

Loralie couldn’t understand it. Why would she be bound to someone that she couldn’t team up with. If Hannah got into a bad spot, what would she do? Glancing at the taller woman and then at Sharod, she felt at least a small bit of relief. Zoe looked like she’d been through a lot, and someone like that would always keep moving. No matter what life took out of them.

Sharod had a chance.

Glancing at Hannah, she wasn’t so sure that they did. Between Loralie’s heart condition, and a lack of brawn between them. Loralie had to admit that she was scared. She catches Hannah’s eye- embarrassed of her own train of thought, she looks away. Her blood rushes in her ears. Igva helps Hannah next, then Sharod, then Zoe.

Sharod’s boxes were next.

Silver Killstreak Box - - 1x Brass Knuckles w/ Blades

Bronze Spider Box - 1x Glue trap, 1x health potion

Bronze Asshole Box - - 2x throwing knives

“Those brass knuckles are pretty good- but you gotta get out there and get some more boxes. This isn’t setting you up for success.” Igva flips thru his menus and becomes still. She investigates a flag he’s got in his stats menus:

Passive Flag Applied: Unseen Liability

“That’s- not ideal.” Sharod looks like he’s stressed about her comment, but just nods. He’ll ask her about it later. The broader audience shouldn’t know what his weaknesses are. Something about the word ‘unseen’ stresses him out, but he doesn’t know what to do about it.

In the meantime, Loralie has shifted to sit closer to Hannah. “So - where are you from?” She waits for her answer, and introduces herself in turn. “I’m from Pennsylvania- I’m a mechanic and a late night radio dj.” Her eyes are a bit hollow while she communicates, but she forces herself anyways. She’d hate for the person she’s relying on to stay alive to be a stranger.

“What did you get in your boxes?” Loralie pulls the machete out in the meantime. Giving it a turn over in her hand, she shows Hannah. “Never even held one of these, but it kind of feels like a big wrench.”

Once Igva has finished with everyone’s loot boxes- she turns to the broader group. “Alright. Are you all familiar with the concept of ‘grinding’ in a video game?” Loralie grimaces but Sharod hums in affirmation. He leans over to Loralie whispers- ‘complete tasks to level up.’

The action is kind. Just like Sharod always is to her. Too kind.

“I need you all to get out there and start. Stay alive, kill monsters, and come back here with loot. You can open them as you go through, but whatever you do- do not equip something without reading the description and talking with me first.” Loralie looks unconvinced but Igva stalks up to her and points a finger in her face.

“I mean it. If you can’t even follow those directions you’re as good as dead.” Igva projects a big aura as she moves through her space. Loralie swallows- and nods. Their game guide stalks away to a bookshelf where she pulls down a notebook and begins rifling through it. “For now- you should stick to smaller mobs. Bigger ‘neighborhood bosses and above that are going to wipe any of you out at this point.”

The more Igva talks, the less Loralie feels she can pay attention. Luckily, this is where the guide stops for today. “Okay- like I said before. Get out there, and find a safe room, I’m sick of looking at your faces.” And from there on- Igva does her best to ignore them.

Sharod is immediately on his feet, taking Igva’s earlier comment about his loot to heart. If those spiders were the easiest- flashes of horrible creatures from common media scare him into action. Loralie doesn’t move, so he grips the back of her shirt, and pulls her up to her feet. “Come on dude, we gotta get going.” She rolls her shoulders back, and looks at Hannah one more time before she moves to leave.

When they step into the dungeon- Loralie feels the weight of the situation gravely. An echo of her earlier thoughts comes back Sharod leads the way. ‘All lefts lead back to Diane.’ Her heart squeezes, tears sneaking out the sides of her eyes silently. Wiping them on the back of her hand, she follows closely behind Sharod.

Sharod continues to follow her previous rule- he’s doing it for her sanity- every turn he makes is left. Two lefts away and the familiar skittering of spiders sounds from up ahead.

Pines Holler [Not Accepting]

Shady Hills Trailer Park -> Smokers Paradise Smoke Shop -> Clark's General Store
Mentioned: Mollie | @Moon Child

---

“Dad- come on. I’m gonna be late.” It was way too early in the morning to be awake, but Sandy had goals that he’d do anything to support. Lee stood in front of their stained yellow and white coffee maker stirring sugar into the bottom of an ancient porcelain cup. Sandy pulls on his arm toward the door. He stumbles nearly tossing the entire thing onto the floor.

“Shit Sandy- careful. Alright alright, let’s go.” Grabbing both his keys and the cup, they find themselves walking out to a mostly quiet park around them. They hop into Pop’s old pickup, the old engine taking two attempts to turn over.

Sandy begins rolling mascara onto her lashes in the visor mirror. “Careful with that, heard it attracts sharks.”

“What does that even mean?” Her hands fall to her lap forcefully and the annoyed look he gets is some sort of trophy for his memories.

“Just watch out for the guys, they bite.” She’s silent after that. There really isn’t a reason for him to remind her over and over of his own mistakes. Her brown eyes opposed to his blue ones is reminder enough he supposes.

The truck pulls out of the drive slowly, Lee cutting the wheel left and then right. There hasn’t been a radio in this truck for at least a decade. He’s pretty sure one of the kids in the park stole it, but he’d been too busy taking care of Sandy as a baby to track them down.

That’s what he tells himself at least.

When Sandy jumps out of the truck, she shuts the door and takes a few steps away. But she stops, and slowly turns back. Through the glass she mouths “love you pop.”

He chest squeezes- and he blows her a kiss. “Love you too kid.”

And that’s it, she’s headed into the school. She’s got two early morning Summer classes in the school library. It hadn’t even been his idea, she’d reached out to the counsellor herself. She could probably have done it at home, but they didn’t have a computer. One was an ASL class, he supposed she was inspired by Lucas. The other was a career prep course, which was designed for her to explore options to study in the future. She never wanted to talk about it. Lee didn’t push it. He just worried how he was going to afford putting her through the school she deserved.

Sandy could read him like a book- probably why she avoided talking to him about it. He only hoped that she could open up to his Ma about it.

A block away, his thoughts spinning he slams his hands on the steering wheel. “Fuck!” He could definitely use a smoke- but he was out of papers and some asshole at the last show five fingered his lighter. Guess it was time to check in on Mollie.

The air is humid when he hops down from his truck, shuts and locks the door. When he walks in, there’s the familiar scent of nicotine smoke on the front stoop. The door is barely open before he’s greeting his friend, “Hey bitch! How’s it been?”

---

Lee achieves his mission of visiting his friend, picking up papers and two lighters. On his drive over to the school, at some point, the power had gone out.

The ice machine has a line by the time he makes it over to the gas station. He grabs four bags, one for Mollie, one for Ma, two for Clarks. When he reaches the counter, he leafs through his wallet for a twenty while the clerk gives him a dirty look for grabbing more than one bag of ice. “People are gonna complain we’re out, ya know?” Their words have bite.
Lee doesn’t respond, taking his change unceremoniously and heading back to the smoke shop.

He drops it off to Mollie, grabs Sandy from school, and quickly returns home. Sandy’s bummed the entire car ride. There isn’t much to do around here for a girl her age, so he can’t blame her sour mood.

When he reaches Ma in the backyard, she’s already filling the plastic kiddie pool from when Sandy was a baby in the backyard. “Ma- got you some ice.” He moves quickly, sticking the bag in the cooler they keep in Ma’s room generally. She likes to chew ice, so she should be set for a couple of days hopefully. When he gets back outside, the white plastic chair is sitting in the six inch deep water. “Love you Ma.” He hands her an old faded cup of ice, and she plasters a noisy kiss onto his cheek. When he turns back toward the front, Sandy’s on her way out with a blanket and a wired pair of headphones. Her feet are bare, and she’s nearly jogging over to the pool. In just a few seconds she has her blanket laid out and her knees flung over the side.

His keys smack against his hip as he jogs back out to his truck. When he gets to Clark’s, James Clark is already flipping the sign to closed. “Get in here Lee, we’ve gotta get stuff packed up. And without another word, Lee is consumed by the task of saving Clark’s inventory.

Saving something, at least.

Dungeon Crawler Carl: Twin Suns

Agree on the roster of crawlers! Gotta come up with how best to organize our refs haha

No worries about missing my question- I tend to ask a lot of them haha.

Thanks for circling back tho!! It's appreciated!

Absolutely love Zoe so far, and I think opposite Sharod that'd be a really good dynamic. Plus with Hannah and Loralie, Sharod and Zoe feel like a balance to their more, feral? energy lol.

I think they should be able to summon each other, and have it work like a chess clock. They get 60 minutes between now and the 3rd floor, and anytime they spend (outside of saferooms) together eats the clock?

This idea is absolutely killer, what if on the later floors they're on, they can spend something to extend the clock, but the price is brutal?

I also really dig the classes/skills/boons/curses affecting this^ mechanic would be really really fun. I think Sponsors would really kick it up a notch too- what if in later levels all time is sponsored. Your sponsor can buy time for you to use, or not to use (bidding war?). That could cause a huge amount of interesting conflict.

Dungeon Crawler Carl: Twin Suns

Did some reading on the corporations that run it.

dungeon-crawler-carl.fandom.com/wiki/… Looks like the Squim one has done them before, but they don't make a lot of money. This seems like something they'd want to fix. You cool with having the Corp run the crawl? Or would you like Borant? Does much matter to me!

We never really defined the rules to the Soulbound thing other than being disconnected from each other on some floors/earlier floors, but then coming together. And also dying when you die. Anything else we want to add? XP share (busted?)? Once a floor you can channel the other's powers? I don't know most of the ideas I've come up with just seem maybe a little too busted.

If you want your other character to pop into the guild hall here or after that makes sense! Or we can have Sharod and her meet over the IM system. Just lmk what you're thinkin!

Dungeon Crawler Carl: Twin Suns

L O R A L I E & S H A R O D

7 days and counting to floor collapse Floor 1 Viewers: 0 | Followers: 0 | Favorites: 0

---

Loralie stays bent over the corpse of her friend for several minutes. Sharod didn’t know Jack or Diane well. Sure, they’d been at a party or two together, but he had always just kind of orbited Loralie, and they always did their own thing.

Between the static in her ears, she hears the mysterious dungeon voice providing instructions on a ‘tutorial guild’.

The gory lower half of Diane’s body nearly curdles Sharods stomach, so he takes a few steps away from Loralie and moves down the hall. Just far enough to peek into the next room. He finds that the hallway comes to an end and splits into a left and right path.

It’s with this knowledge that he returns to his friend. “Lor- I get the feeling we need to get moving.” He grits his teeth, and moves to help her up by her elbow.

She tears her arm away from him and nearly snarls at him. “We can’t just leave her here!”

Sharod closes his eyes and pinches the bridge of his nose. “I know- I know- but I’m most concerned with keeping us alive at the moment. If we get to safety, we can try to come back for her.” He knew he was lying, but they had to keep moving.

Loralie finally lifts herself from the ground.The knees of her pants are stained a deep burgundy, and her eyes aren’t far behind. He turns and without another word, they walk side-by-side into the dungeon. Each turn leads to another hallway, and each time, they choose the left path.

All right turns lead to Diane. She repeats that over and over, trying to sear it into her brain.

It starts to get musty as they continue. The air is a lot like the dampness of a leaking basement. She thinks she can taste mold in the air. A skittering sound echoes off the walls from up ahead and Sharod’s arm shoots out to block her from walking further.

“Sharod if you don’t knock this off-” the skittering gets louder, and that’s when the black forms of three golden retriever sized spiders come out of the darkness. They’re heading right for them. One of them rears back, and jumps at Sharod. Without thinking he forms a fist and punches the incoming spider in an uppercut fashion.

The beast flies upwards, hitting the ceiling with a crack.

The other two slip past his guard, low and fast- attacking Loralie. She kicks hard, following through until the spider crunches against the wall to her left.

Both injured spiders make a sort of squealing sound, and the last one takes the opening to latch its fangs around Loralie’s wrist. The pointed ends pierce into her wrist, and spray of blood pumps out onto her shirt. “Oh- fuck- you!” She swings the beast against the opposing wall, dislodging it.

She makes a sort of screech as she stomps down on top of it. Its exoskeleton crunches.

Sharod made a discovery in the meantime, his spider has 4 red boots glued to the ends of 4 of its feet. Grabbing hold of one, he uses his foot to hold down another. In one swift motion he tears the thing in half. Blue-green ichor slips out of its carcass. Both halves fall to the floor.

The last spider moves to pounce on his back, but Loralie catches the shoe of this one before it hits its target. She hauls it over her shoulder smashing it onto the ground.

Three carcasses with red boots glued to their legs lay at the crawlers feet. Sharod’s silent. Loralie bursts into laughter- sharp and a little too loud “can you believe this?” Both of her hands extend to point, palms open at the boots.

New ACHIEVEMENT! Hello my baby- hello my honey- hello my ragtime gal- You’ve killed the red shoed tap dancing spider team. Did you kill them before or after they started singing? Was it their shoes that put you off? Rewards: The entry fee to the tap dancing recital, this team was unranked. I wonder what you’ll think of the other teams.	New ACHIEVEMENT! Yabba Dabba Doo! Be one of the first 1000 duos in the dungeon to kill 3 mobs with your bare hands. Rewards: Silver Killstreak Box

“Do they understand our pop culture? This stuff is dated- but Yabba Dabba Doo?” Sharod says while sounding exasperated.

Loralie’s wrist is mildly damaged, two puncture holes in her wrist flow freely with her blood. 85%... 84%... the slow bleed is causing her to lose health, but not at a particularly alarming rate. “This feels like quite the cosmic practical joke.” She grits her teeth as she rips the bottom seam off her shirt, wrapping it around her wrist.

Once it’s in place, she flips her arm over to show Sharod. “All fixed up.” A glance to her health bar and it’s frozen at 83% and is no longer going down.

Proceeding further into the dungeon, still following Diane’s principle as she began to call it, they take every left. Several lefts later, and they hear the rolling of several sets of wheels. They dip into an opposing hall, as they grow louder, and louder.

Part singing, part squealing voices filter down the hallway from them. “The Way You Move” by Outkast in acapella fashion slowly getting louder in the distance “Boom, boom, boom” one of the voices is doing the percussion high hat in the background.

That’s when a synchronized group of four spiders, each on eight rollerskates, nearly overblows the turn, and then corrects to come straight for them. All four coordinate their skating, down to the lean of their bodies, and which skates they have down at a given time

“Rollerskates??” Loralie is hysterical, her eyes wide and bulging out of her head.

Sharod sneaks out a toe from their position pressed against the wall. He catches the edges of the wheels on the left two spiders as the spiders overshoot them. Both spiders hit the ground and their performance stops abruptly. The other two screech as Loralie and Sharod each take a spider, dismantling them with the same tearing motion that worked on the first set.

The other two are on them then. Sharod takes a hold of one of their legs and uses the skates momentum to slam it into the wall. Its leg comes off and it crumples to the ground in front of him. Blue-green slime sprays him all over his front. Loralie dodges the spider, anticipating the lack of precision in their skating. It hits the wall and she starts kicking at it furiously.

Wiping the sweat from his brow, he turns around, and is greeted by the welcome warm glow of a sign in the distance. It’s message reading- "Crawlers Welcome! The tutorial guild".

Upon hitting the floor change fell out of their skates- quickly they stuff their pockets with the small amount of money.They are opening and shutting themselves into guild without any caution at all.

“Oh great, now there are three of you.” Both of HUDs pop up with information on the characters in the room, Igva- level 85, and another crawler! Hannah. She looked a bit pale, and like she’d been roughed up a bit. Not that they looked any better. “And what flavor of green goo is that you’re covered in?”

“Spider blood?” Sharod’s left eyebrow rises and his right eye shuts. If they’re the tutorial guild master, shouldn’t she know everything about the dungeon.

“Not a real question there pal.”

It’s at this moment that the voice controlling the dungeon pops in again.

---

SPECIALLLL ANNOUNCEMENT!!

---

Alright crawlers! Hold on to your seats because this one is a doozy. Some of you may have been wondering about this as some of your companions have seemingly dropped dead out of nowhere!

That’s because the Squim Conglomerate are trying something new this season! They’ve pivoted to what they’re calling a ‘Soulbound Crawl’. What does this mean you ask?

_{Well, let me tell you.}

---