Rebirth: Crawler

The fiery portal looked somehow more ominous than the last time. It glowed the same shade of deep purple, casting eerie light onto the gothic arch that contained it. The Dungeon entrance never changed, but what lay beyond was a different matter entirely.

This time, Ayn didn’t hesitate. She plunged first into the portal, gritting her teeth as the flames left an icy-hot trail over her skin.

QUESTS UPDATED

QUEST ONE: COLLECT TEN FISH STEAKS

QUEST TWO: KILL EIGHT LAMPREY GOATS

QUEST THREE: COLLECT TWENTY SOGGY FEATHERS

The system rattled off the updates as the level loaded in. Ayn had just enough time to wonder what a Lamprey Goat was before a wave of water enveloped her. She gasped on reflex. The water rushed in to fill the space where air should have been—warm, but not heavy. The rest of her body’s weight lightened, contrasting with the tension in her muscles and the panicked gibbering growing in her mind, until she floated, weightless, in blue-tinged liquid.

A silt-covered floor spread out in all directions. Seaweed swayed in a light current and gas vents created columns of bubbles which floated up into a pitch-black abyss of a ceiling. Jagged rocks, coral, multi-colored plants, and little fish made up the dungeon floor’s walls, creating distant, asymmetrical borders.

Ayn forced her breath—or whatever she was supposed to call it underwater—out and willed her muscles to relax. While the illusion of water felt like the real thing, Crawlers could breathe in underwater levels, a truth only found in the Dungeon as she’d found out during her last character’s life.

A tight-knit school of silver fish the size of Ayn’s palm swam by, followed by an orange and white fish twice as big, and with far more teeth. Thier passage made small ripples in the water, along with a light woosh. Ayn smiled. It was serene, in a way.

Kayara popped in beside her. Her eyes went wide for a second before realization hit, her rainbow ponytail fanning out behind her in a fin-like shape Ayn was sure could rival the brightest fish in the level. Bren and Sheyric appeared soon after. Sheyric took the surprise as usual, with no discernible reaction, while Bren writhed and held his throat.

“Relax, Choir Boy,” Kayara said with a smirk. “The Dungeon’s not going to kill us off that fast.”

Bren’s writhing stuttered, then stalled, the dusky skin of his face darkening in a blush. “I know that. It was simply surprising, is all.”

“Uh huh. Sure.”

The striped fish caught up with its prey a short distance away from the party. One of the silver fish disappeared into its maw in a burst of crimson. The others broke away, diving into a large carpet of seaweed. As silver fish went in, something else came out squawking. Something with a curled, pink shrimp tail big enough to rival a lobster’s and white-feathered wings.

“Wha—” Ayn said.

“The hell?” Kayara finished for her.

The creature hurtled towards them, clearly deciding they were preferable to whatever had disturbed its rest. Its front half came into clear view. The creature had a chicken’s front half. Sort of. With a resounding ba-kowk, it angled toward Ayn, beady, gelatinous shrimp eyes wobbling in its avian skull.

Bren squealed like a little girl. Ayn was about to join him, but her reflexes had other ideas. Her sabers lashed out almost on their own, separating the nightmarish thing’s head from its body. Instead of puffing into glitter, as all decent things did, the shrimp-chicken convulsed, darting every which way as a cloud of blue blood grew around it. Bren yelled again, and this time, Ayn joined him.

Kayara surged forward with a kick of her legs. She worked her daggers across the spasming shrimp-chicken until it mercifully exploded into glitter. The cloud of blood remained.

TWO SOGGY FEATHERS OBTAINED

The entire party jerked at Aisha’s proclamation.

“Does…anybody…know what that was?” Bren asked. To his credit, his voice barely wavered.

“The unholy offspring of a chicken and a shrimp?” Kayara said. She returned to Ayn’s side, a sly grin on her face. “A…chicken-of-the-sea, if you will.”

“I won’t,” Bren said.

“Randomization,” Ayn said, her brain kicking back into gear. “After the first floor, every floor in the Dungeon is randomly generated using a tile set, and a mob set selected separately.”

Bren stared at her as if she’d been the one running around headless.

Kayara nodded sagely. “The Crawler’s Handbook. Word for word. I’m impressed.”

“And what does that mean?” Bren asked.

“For this floor,” Ayn said, “it means we got the aquatic tile set, but the mob set—”

A muffled howl passed through the water. Ayn didn’t have the time to consider how the sound worked underwater before a new abomination closed in on them.

A shark’s tail and fin sliced through the water, its sleek form punctuated by random patches of thin gray fur. The patches became more plentiful as they moved up the wolfish front of the creature. It had two paws tucked close to its body, and if it had been farther away, Ayn would have thought it a normal wolf by the head.

The mob grew in size as it closed in until it looked large enough to swallow Ayn whole. It snarled, revealing three rows of shark teeth in an impossibly large mouth.

Bren yelled and threw a fireball. Ayn had just enough time to realize he hadn’t sung a verse before the fireball hit the wolf-shark right in the face. The creature yelped and recoiled, the water around its head popping as its fur sizzled. While the aquatic dungeon floor didn’t seem to prevent fire magic, it seemed to blunt it, and within a couple of seconds, all signs of the fireball had vanished.

A few seconds was all Ayn needed to close the rest of the gap. Ayn went head-on, her sabers slashing toward the wolf-shark’s singed nose. The mob arced away in a smooth motion, sliding beside Ayn with far more speed than she expected. The wolf-shark twisted behind her.

Its torso collided with her back and sent her careening through the water in near weightlessness. Her mind scrabbled with the feeling as her muscles tensed in anticipation of hitting the ground or a wall. Instead, her momentum continued, and she came to a stop dozens of feet away from where she started.

In some ways, the aquatic floor was the same as a dry one. Despite not knowing how to swim, Ayn’s body moved and reacted how she wanted. In others, it was clearly different, and she had a feeling she’d need to adapt and use those differences if her party was going to get through the level.

Ayn writhed in the water, trying to mimic the smooth movements she’d seen the wolf-shark do. It felt far less graceful, but she ended up pointed in the right direction.

The wolf-shark was hurtling toward Bren. Bren’s hands were up, but no fireballs came out, and she couldn’t see Kayara. Ayn pushed forward with every bit of speed she could muster. She had to catch up to the mob before it ate their mage.

She almost made it.

The mob’s horribly large mouth clamped down on Bren’s arm just as Ayn got within striking distance. His cry cut through Ayn. Bren’s arm separated at the elbow in a cloud of red. His piercing screams faded from Ayn’s mind as she focused in on her prey. Nothing else mattered other than destroying the abomination that had dared to hurt one of her party members.

The wolf-shark slipped around her strike once more, Bren’s arm disappearing down its gullet. Her blades followed. A thin line of blood bloomed across its side from flank to shoulder. She got her blades up in time to block a tail-swipe, but the strength of the hit still sent her careening through the water.

HEALTH AT 313

Well, at least she blocked some of it. She snarled and reversed course back to her target. She needed to be faster.

The wolf-shark saw her coming and fled, torpedoing through the water quicker than she had any chance of matching. It raced past Kayara, just slightly out of striking range, leaving the ranger with a sour look on her face. She mumbled something that didn’t sound nice as Ayn shot past in pursuit.

The mob came to a stop a long distance away, in front of a craggy, mountainous border. It tilted its head toward the ink-black above them, and howled. Ayn’s momentum faltered as a sense of dread settled in her stomach.

The tips of her sabers pierced the wolf-shark’s throat right as the howl reached a crescendo. A gurgle cut the hateful sound off. Predatory eyes locked onto Ayn. The wolf-shark’s mouth opened wide, giving Ayn a clear view of its many rows of serrated teeth still coated in Bren’s blood. The sabers in the mob’s throat seemed little more than a nuisance, even as they cut deeper with every inch the maw opened.

Ayn withdrew. Her weapons pulled free, but the action left her no time to dodge. She watched in detached horror as serrated teeth closed in on her torso. A watery whistling sound came from Ayn’s right. An arrow appeared as if by magic, its thin, wooden shaft half-buried in the wolf-shark’s eye. The mob howled, this one full of despair. It flailed, trying to escape the arrow lodged in its skull.

“Ha! Dodge that, you bastard!” Kayara yelled from nearby.

Ayn grinned and took the advantage.

A fireball sizzled into the dazed wolf-shark’s face before she hit. Ayn looked back at a whole Bren, his lost arm magically re-grown by healing spells. A sense of warmth welled up. Sheyric was already making good on his word, so it was up to her to make good on hers.

With all of them working together, plus the loss of an eye, the wolf-shark didn’t last more than a couple of minutes more. It fizzled away, the silver glitter like bubbles floating toward the dark ceiling. A single object stayed where the wolf-shark had been, shining slightly and holding still as it waited to be picked up. A red and white steak, shaped like a T-bone, and easily the size of a dinner plate.

Kayara darted forward and snatched it with a grin. “Looks like I got the first material drop.”

Ayn item that couldn’t be used as it was, was called a material. Basic materials, such as simple vegetables and wool, could be farmed outside the Dungeon. Such materials also never offered more than the most basic of nourishment and tastes. Although Ayn had no problem with the taste of veggies and eggs from her mother’s farm, she knew the value in Dungeon materials, not only for their stat-boosting potential in recipes but also for their unique looks and tastes.

“What’s it called?” Ayn asked, her mouth already watering at the thought of a new food.

“Wark steak,” Kayara said with a deadpan expression.

Ayn stared at her for a second before her veneer cracked, and she giggled. Kayara joined her, gaining a bewildered stare from Bren as he and Sheyric came up beside them.

“What’s so funny?” Bren asked.

“Kayara’s going to cook some Wark for us,” Ayn said with a broad grin. She was beginning to wonder if the adrenaline from the fight hadn’t worn off yet, and that was why the idea sounded a bit more funny than it should have.

“Wark?”

Kayara burst into laughter and smacked Bren between the shoulder blades. “Yep. It’s ‘wild meat’, which means I have a bonus to preparing a meal with it.”

Bren paled, his eyes darting between Kayara and the spot the wolf-shark, or Wark, had died. “We’re going to eat…that?”

“That’s right. We’ll need another ingredient or two. Oh! What about a shrimp-chicken tail?”

Bren’s dusky skin grew paler and slightly green.

Ayn cocked her head. “Do you think it’s a shrimp-chicken or a shricken?”

They both burst into laughter again.

Sheyric shook his head and raised his hands. A light blue glow covered his thin fingers.

HEALTH AT MAXIMUM

“Thanks,” Ayn said. She’d forgotten she was hurt. Sheyric had done an excellent job keeping them topped up, and she was just about to point that fact out when Miit materialized in a Miit-sized bubble a few inches from her head, and maybe a foot from Kayara.

Ayn flinched a second before Kayara screamed. The ranger jumped back, a longbow appearing in her hand with an arrow nocked shortly after. Ayn threw herself in front of Miit.