“All right, we’ve got twenty-seven hours left until the season premier and four days after that until stairwell collapse. Jasper said getting on the premiere is great so we should try to do something that will make us stand out from the other fifteen million people in the dungeon today. Any ideas how to do that?”

  As Cascadia talked she spun her bolas casually in a preposterously complicated pattern.

  “I don’t know…maybe there are bosses or something, do you think there are bosses we could find and fight for more experience? That would be attention getting.”

  “I don’t know Gel, seems like there would be bosses in a game, do you think there will be bosses?”

  “I don’t know, probably. Seems reasonable, right? Do you think we should go look for some?”

  “Yeah, I think we should go look for some. Ok, goal for the rest of the day is to find and kill a boss. How are we going to do that? Is your speeder ready to go yet?”

  “Yeah, it finished repairing just a little bit ago.”

  “Great, we can move quickly then.”

  “I think I can do better. I should be able to scout the surrounding area with my drones. I have a surveyor skill pill I haven't taken that I bet will allow me to create a map or something.”

  “Ok, fantastic. I need an hour to do some limit testing with my new physical abilities and practice my friction manipulation anyways. You can use that hour to scout. Now, about our general schedule; we need to set ourselves up around this dungeon day, which started when we entered and seems to be synced with this show. Jasper mentioned that there were important announcements, so we should stay synced with it if possible. That means we need to extend this first day so that we can establish our sleep schedule to end right when the show begins. That way we can catch any announcements while we prepare for the day and we won’t risk missing the show if we are late getting back. So today we should continue to be active for another fifteen hours. This will take us to twelve hours before the show; we will need extra sleep to make up for the extended day. On future days we will return to a saferoom ten hours before end of day, which gives us two minutes to eat and twenty eight minutes to wash and debrief before getting nine and a half hours of sleep. This is probably not optimal with our altered biology but we will need experience to assess. We can revisit the sleep schedule on future floors. Any questions so far?”

  “Two minutes to eat?”

  “Yes. Didn’t you read the description for the premium ration bars?”

  I pulled one out and inspected it. The bar was about half the size of my hand, packaged in some sort of foil.

  Premium Ration Bar

  These ultra-concentrated food items provide the optimal daily dose of nutrition for a full 30 hour day. The nutrients are reactively released so you can eat anytime and not have to worry about running low on fuel throughout the day. Will support even the largest, most active, carbon based life form. If a crawler consumes only premium ration bars for an entire floor, they will receive a permanent +5 increase to their highest stat. You don’t want to know what goes into these things. Just be grateful for what you have and try to ignore the flavor.

  “I-”

  “We can revisit the approach at the start of the next floor. The plus five stat bonus seems too good to pass up. On to our morning schedule; We will awake promptly at the start of the daily episode. After the episode finishes we have fifteen minutes to formulate our strategy for the day, followed by ninety minutes of training. That leaves us with nearly twenty hours per day to grind. Any questions?”

  “...why do we need to train? It’s not going to level us up or give us loot or anything…”

  “I have reason to believe it will level up our skills. And even if it didn’t, it is still necessary. We both need to understand our abilities, how they work, and what our limits are. The turret fiasco wouldn’t have happened if you had practiced with it beforehand. We also need to work on our combat chemistry and develop set maneuvers. Any objections?”

  I was feeling somewhat overwhelmed, but I knew that there was really only one acceptable response here.

  “No. Let’s get to it.”

  “Good. Let’s eat our first ration bar now or we will start to run out of energy before our first scheduled meal.”

  Cascadia pulled out a bar and wolfed it down, following it with some water from a sink. She then walked to an open section of the room and began performing consecutive backflips. I watched her for about twenty flips. When she showed no signs of slowing I turned back to my ration bar. I peeled open the package and sniffed at the soft, dull red substance. I took a small bite out of the corner.

  The taste of sawdust would have been a vast improvement. The bar had a mushy texture that released a mouth filling, heavy fragrance when bitten. It was sickeningly ripe, equal parts rancid fatiness and spoiled vegetable. A thick, musky film coated the inside of my mouth. I gagged, then vomited out the energy drink and crisps left over from my breakfast.

  “Less chewing, more swallowing!” Cascadia shouted, not pausing her tumbling marathon.

  I found a cup and filled it with cold water. I tried again, taking a small bite and forcing myself to swallow, immediately drinking the entire cup of water, which did depressingly little to wash away the taste which seemed to stick to the inside of my mouth like cling wrap. I clenched my stomach and held down the bite until the nausea subsided. I continued this process until I had finished half the bar and my stomach hurt from being bloated with water. The description said I had to eat only ration bars, not that I had to eat an entire bar per day.

  I inspected my inventory, preparing for my next task. I pulled out my surveyors skill pill.

  Skill Pill

  Consuming this adds one level to the Surveyor skill. Unlocks additional minimap options.

  I swallowed the pill dry and pulled up my minimap. There were two changes immediately apparent; I could now scroll the minimap to any location I had ever seen, and I could make notes directly onto the map. Due to the fog of war this was not a very useful skill under most circumstances. I pulled out my new drone. I had received two range extender modules and a mini-cannon module that were all compatible.

  I installed them all, happy I didn’t have to try to figure out how to make them work with my original drones. I found my newest interface, a remote operator interface, and opened it. The new drone and my turret were the only items available to connect. A few other drones stored in my inventory showed up in greyed out text. I clicked on the available drone and my existive experience transformed. The drone camera feed was delivered straight to my consciousness; my brain struggled to reorganize itself, trying to make sense of the multiple viewpoints. I nearly threw up again.

  The world slowly started to stabilize. Beyond seeing through the cameras, I could feel every circuit in the drone. It had some automated subroutines but I could manually activate every single motor, open or close every single electric gate, sense the status of every sensor. The feeling was incredible. I could be the drone. I lifted into the air and slowly circled around the room, familiarizing myself with this new expansion of my form. I could tell I would never have been able to keep it all straight without my boosted intelligence.

  I inspected Cascadia, who was still flipping in place, observing her with both my biological eyes and the drone camera feed. My stomach lurched, but I kept the drone moving around the room, knowing I needed to get to the point where I could control it subconsciously. I tried to fly gentle circles while I dealt with the rest of my inventory.

  I pulled my repair bay from inventory and extracted the speeder. It looked flawless. Every bit of damage had been repaired and the trident that had been piercing it now laid neatly across the seats. The battery had been charged and even the cosmetic damage had been fixed. I pulled out the vehicle modules I had received and inspected them.

  Rechargeable Boost Cell

  When attached to a suitably large propulsive device, this rechargeable cell allows the operator to greatly increase the speed of the vehicle for a short time.

  I had received two of these but could only figure out how to install a single one onto my speeder. The next item was not a vehicle module but required a vehicle to be used. I had gotten this one from my “vehicular squidslaughter” achievement.

  Transient Vehicle Shield Generating Module

  This wearable arm band grants a level 10 Transient Vehicle Shield ability. User can spend energy points to surround a vehicle they are operating with an impenetrable repulsor shield. 1 energy point will create a shield for 0.5 seconds, with additional points providing exponentially diminishing returns. Cooldown is equal to (time spent shielded) x 50 seconds

  I put on the armband, took the stupid chauffeur's hat and gloves I had received out of inventory and put them in the dashbox, then walked to the saferoom door. I hovered my drone over my shoulder and pressed the control panel, opening the door. The scene outside was unchanged except for a small mass of amoeba like janitor mobs that had converged on the monster corpses we had left earlier. I ignored them and sent the drone out and down the hallway. I resisted the urge to try the cannon out on the janitor mobs. I was pretty sure safe room rules applied as long as I myself was in the saferoom, so I just tested the drone's speed. With all four repulsor jets providing forward momentum I could reach incredible speeds, far too fast for me to control yet. I backed off the speed, maximized my minimap, and got to work. With both range extender modules installed I had a range of about twenty kilometers. I passed groups of monsters, all cephalopod hybrids, and crawlers as I explored, taking notes on the minimap as I did. Occasionally one would attempt to attack the drone but I avoided them easily.

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  Before long I had ascertained the general design of our section of the dungeon. The eight corridors that extended from the first intersection we found, all ended in dead ends except for one. They had varying lengths and different curves and bends, but they never intersected with any other corridors except for the one large intersection with the trap. The end of each corridor seemed to always have some sort of monster nest. The one corridor that did not end in a dead end traveled a longer way before opening into a large chamber with an area that obviously contained a neighborhood boss. Six of the remaining corridors lead to intersections like the first one we had found, with corresponding dead ends and monster dens. The last corridor went too far for me to scout the end of, but I was confident that it would have a borough boss connected to seven neighborhood bosses. And a city boss beyond that. It was the typical type of geometric structure used for tutorial floors; a branching pattern that got more dangerous the further up the branch you went. This particular shape would support the enormous population area we had entered in, funneling groups into boss lairs and ensuring that groups would cross paths with each other.

  I started the drone back to the safe room. I knew what we needed to know and my map was well filled out. Cascadia would be done training soon and we would want to depart right away; I noted that the large group we had directed to the training guild seemed to still be inside and I wanted to get past that area before they came out.

  Cascadia came over to me, sweating and breathing hard. She had taken off the shirt she had worn into the dungeon, now wearing only the vest and pants she had gotten in her style box, which seemed to be stain and damage resistant. She showed no signs that she had survived mortal combat with a squid-wolf just an hour ago.

  “We need to get you some new clothes. These dungeon fits are amazing.”

  “No kidding. You ready to go? I found the bosses.”

  “Yeah let’s do this.”

  Now that we were both fully kitted out and accustomed to the dungeon it quickly became clear how powerful we had become. We had decided we needed to level up our skills before taking on a boss and were zooming around from den to den, clearing out the mobs. I had figured out that I could deploy my turret onto the nose of the speeder, which made the den encounters trivial. In this cluster of the neighborhood each den had some sort of squid-canine hybrid and a few squid-monkey handlers. I would approach the den at maximum speed, using my temporary shield if necessary to fend off any trident throws. If I didn’t have to use my shield on the tridents I would use it in conjunction with a short activation of my boost cell to ram the first enemy I could. At that point I would stop the speeder and Cascadia would tumble out and take care of any survivors while my turret provided support. Though my robotics skill was still too low to program any sophisticated targeting algorithms, using my remote interface I could start and stop the gun at will. I would also provide some support with my drone, but the mini cannon was so weak compared to the turret or Cascadia's melee weapons that it was rarely relevant.

  In less than an hour we had cleared four more corridors and their dens. Our levels had equalized at six and we had several notable skill increases. My combat driving and piloting had raised from their initial rank of one up to three and my drone piloting had gone from three to five. My robotics skill had also ticked up to four. Cascadia now had sixes across the board for cleaving throw, slashing strike, wrist blades, axes, and drop kick, with a four in bolas’. We had received a few achievements and low tier loot boxes but we didn’t want to spend the time to find a safe room and open them just yet.

  While we were feeling good about our skills, we had missed the opportunity to leave the area before the large group of crawlers that had been in the training guild ventured back out into the corridors. The training guild was inconveniently placed on our route to the neighborhood boss and we had to drive past them. Fortunately, they scattered out of the way as we approached, but Cascadia and the young officer she had threatened earlier locked eyes as we passed. It was only a short moment but the tension felt too high.

  “You ok?” I asked as we sped down the corridor.

  “Yeah I’m fine. Just don’t like the way the officer was looking at me.”

  I had nothing to say in response but I hovered the drone and looked back at the receding figures. Part of me hoped they would be allright. Another part of me didn’t care. And another, smaller, part of me thought that it was a waste that mobs were going to kill them and that we should go back and farm the lot of them for easy experience. We drove onward.

  We reached the lair of the first neighborhood boss. It was another intersection with eight attaching corridors but it was much larger, maybe a hundred meters in diameter. The middle of the intersection was a lowered section with a large, futuristic, greenhouse looking structure built into it. The windows were opaque so we couldn’t inspect the boss. I took a deep breath and approached the large, vertically sliding door. We got out of the speeder and I stowed it in the repair bay, tucking it safely into my inventory. There was no control panel so I grasped the bottom of the door and pulled. It didn’t budge.

  “I think this door is locked, there must be another entrance.”

  Cascadia gave me a dull look before reaching down and throwing the door up. The massive, dimly lit room had a downward sloping floor that held a shallow pool of water. In the pool was a large mound of a figure, slowly moving around the center. It was too far away to make out any details in the dim light and no tooltip appeared.

  “So this is the boss?” Cascadia asked.

  “I don’t know, it sure seems like it.”

  “Should we just shoot it from out here?”

  “My turret doesn’t have very long range yet, and it’s a big room.”

  “Yeah, good point. Plus, we’re trying to get on that premiere. Best not to be little bitches about everything.”

  And with that Cascadia stepped into the room. As soon as I stepped into the room after her the door slammed shut. Aggressive electronic music filled the air and a voice blared over an unseen loudspeaker.

  B-B-B-Boss Battle!!!

  It’s the moment we’ve all been waiting for. You’ve discovered the lair of your first neighborhood boss!

  You know what they say about first times! This is bound to be a good one folks so buckle up, because HERE. WE. GOOOO!

  Stadium style lights suddenly lit up the area and the figure in the center of the room exploded out of the water. Everything froze. Cascadia was squinting, hands halfway to her eyes and water hung suspended in the air, spraying off of the shaking monster. It was an enormously oversized hippopotamus with a dozen, three meter long tentacles sprouting from its back. Three round frames with question marks in them appeared in the air with a large Versus in between them. Blue circles appeared on the floor around us then lifted up, scanning us. The circles zipped over to the frames, populating them with our names and faces. The same process repeated with the hippo, whose frame was much larger, and a description appeared.

  The Squidopotamus!

  Level 8 neighborhood boss!

  Created by the lead engineers of Scientists for Cephalopod Supremacy as a front line shock trooper, the squidopotamus combines the best attributes of both squid and hippo. This gluttonous beast prefers to spend all of its time grazing for food, but when its lair is disturbed it will defend it to the death!

  The description ended and the monster crashed down into the shallow water.

  “Who comes up with this shit?” Cascadia asked as she pulled out her axe. “Scientists for Cephalopod Supremacy?”

  I ignored her as I tried to focus, looking for potential weaknesses. I found it difficult to think straight as the twenty ton animal roared and then began charging at us through the water. I threw my turret onto the wall and it started blasting the boss. The boss’ health began to drop, and it even slowed its charge a bit; this turret was far above the standard power curve of the first floor. Still, the squidopotamus had an enormous health bar and it was coming right for us. The health bar had dropped about halfway when it reached the thirty meter mark.

  “See if you can distract it!” I yelled “just lead it around so the turre-“

  Cascadia dashed forward, picking up speed before diving. The water was only half a meter deep but she flew through it like a torpedo. I recognized the subtle blue and orange glows as she manipulated friction to reach incredible speeds. Focused on the turret, the boss monster failed to notice her approach. She raised up out of the water as she passed under the monster, slashing its underbelly with her axe. Its health bar plummeted as its guts spilled into the water. Cascadia grabbed the creature's tail as she passed under it, pulling herself onto its back. She nimbly dodged flailing tentacles and buried her axe in its back, chopping off one cluster. She scrambled up to the neck of the monster and used her plasma blade to stab through its skull.

  The world froze with Cascadia still kneeling on the monster's back and me staring wide eyed at the scene.

  And the winners are…Cascadia and Gellen!

  There was a short musical fanfare and then stadium lights dimmed, the music stopped, and the world unfroze. The monster collapsed and my turret stopped firing. Cascadia retrieved her axe from the monster’s back as I waded through the water to her.

  “Or, you could, you know, charge the boss head on. That works too.”

  “Clearly, it did. Plus, it was faster, and we’re on the clock aren’t we? And you have to admit, it was pretty awesome.”

  I shook my head as I inspected the corpse.

  Lootable corpse. Squidopotamus. Level 8. Killed by Cascadia with an assist by Gellen.

  Neighborhood map

  Uncooked hippo steak x 12

  Choice grade tentacle x 12

  I looted the neighborhood map and opened my minimap. I could now see each of the seven intersections in the neighborhood and each of their seven monster dens. There were two large groups of crawlers in the area that seemed to have figured things out; one was in the middle of clearing out a den.

  “So, should we be looting these corpses?” Cascadia asked as she inspected the dead boss.

  “I don’t know. Seems like a waste of time.”

  “It takes like, one second.”

  “Yeah, but we have limited space, and if we just take everything eventually we are going to have to waste time going through our inventories and deciding what to keep. What are we going to do with hippo steaks anyway? They will probably just rot in our inventories.”

  “Well, I’m taking the tentacles. I bet I can find a cooler for them.”

  “Ok whatever,” I said, distracted. “I don’t think we were the first to kill a neighborhood boss. Dammit. We spent too long grinding first.”

  “Ok Gel,” Cascadia snapped suddenly. “First off, how the fuck do you know that? And second, why does it matter?”

  “It..I just..well, I got achievements for being the first to drive a vehicle into the dungeon so it seemed natural that there would be an achievement for first to kill a neighborhood boss….”

  “I’m trying Gel, I really am. I’ll leave it a while, but you better figure something out before I lose it.”

  She turned and walked towards the exit. I was worried; it was much more difficult to disguise my foreknowledge than I had anticipated. If the AI notifications were any indication, the farce would be over soon. Still, I wanted to avoid a confrontation for as long as possible, and I needed to keep Cascadia in the dark, that way she should be able to avoid any potential consequences if negotiations went poorly. If we could just make it through the first floor, get a few more big achievements….still, four days was a long time. I would do my best.

  I walked outside and joined Cascadia, who was surveying the large intersection. I waited the fifteen seconds for my repair bay to come out of inventory.

  “So what’s next?” she said, “find another boss?”

  The repair bay appeared in my hands and I pulled out the speeder.

  “Let’s go talk to Jasper and open our loot boxes. Then yeah, another boss. Maybe there is something bigger than a “neighborhood boss.” Given how easy that fight was, I think we can handle something a little tougher.”