As I neared the saferoom I brought part of my focus back to my body and got up to stretch. I roused Parson and we met Cascadia and the others, who had just returned. Cascadia remained at level thirteen but professor Carrie had risen to level four and her assistants to level five. Cascadia got right to business.

  “Ok, Gel did you find a full service saferoom we can meet at when the day is over?”

  “Uh…sure. Let me draw a map real quick.”

  “Ok, hurry up. You three should grind on the low level mobs around here as much as possible and meet us at the saferoom at the end of the day. Ready to go Parson?”

  “According to your wishes m’lady.”

  “Fuck you, Parson.”

  Havie: Your feeds are live and I can watch you now. I feel I must remind you that you agreed to use your dungeon codex for 30 minutes per day. Using it now, before you go searching for reward rooms, would be a wise decision. It doesn’t matter as much on future days, but lets not press our luck today.

  “Hey, uh, I got a new item at the end of the floor I’d like to use a bit before we head out if that's ok.”

  “No, that's not ok. You can do it on the way.”

  Gellen: This is the dungeon codex. My lawyer says I need to use it before we leave today.

  “I really think I should. This dungeon codex has tons of useful information and the description says that if I read it it will populate the direction of the nearest reward rooms on this floor. Let me just review it for a quick thirty minutes and then we can leave.”

  Cascadia let out a long sigh.

  “Ok fine. Parson, lets go practice some moves. I want to try to block your spine shooter with my staff. Come find us when you are done, Gel. You three should go find some mobs to fight.”

  Parson complied while I got out my codex. It was a large paper tome that had an automatically extending reading stand. I flipped through to the page on alcohol.

  Alcohol is readily available in the dungeon. Most planetary alcohol collected during the collapse is kept in it’s original form for the crawl but dungeon made alcohol is generally considered to be superior. Production begins with the opening of the second floor. Alcohol can be purchased at commonly available bars and shops, but dungeon made alcohol can typically only be found in the desperado club or club vanquisher.

  There was additional information about the effects of alcohol on different types of creatures and the various crafting uses for alcohol, but I was mostly just going through the motions. I flipped through the pages as I planned out our day. When thirty minutes was up I went outside and pulled out the speeder. Cascadia was trying to block Parson’s spine shooter with mixed success. She took a spine to the shoulder and cursed.

  “I need higher dexterity. And higher staff skills. I should have used my skill card I got from the show while you were reading. Stupid. We can’t forget to use those tonight.”

  “Yeah, or we can use them during lunch or dinner. Me and Parson have to eat, remember.”

  Cascadia grumbled but she hopped onto the back of the speeder.

  “Get in Parson, no time for the squorse today. What did you find Gel? What are we hitting first?”

  I started the speeder forwards as I described what I had seen and laid out my plan. We would avoid any low level mobs and head straight to the alpha orc neighborhood boss. After taking him out, Parson would stay and figure out how to collect as much m’juice as possible while Cascadia and I tried to track down a vehicle reward room. If we had any time left, we would grind.

  “If I’m going to figure out what’s going on we need to keep at least one of the digester orcs alive,” Parson said, looking pointedly at Cascadia.

  “What? I can fight non-lethally. I was literally a professional sport fighter. And I took a prisoner last floor! Two if you count the enforcement officer I tied up with my bolas. And I successfully interrogated one at that.”

  “Ok ok, I just wanted to make sure. Sometimes you get a little intense during the battles.”

  “Yeah I do get intense, we are literally fighting for our lives here. But it brings up a good point. Despite the other objectives Gel has set for us we have one above them all. We need to get on the recap.”

  Cascadia: the hold has been lifted, right?

  Gellen: that’s what my lawyers said

  Parson: I think we should try to avoid the main program.

  Cascadia: What are you talking about? The goal has always been to get on the program.

  Parson: It’s dangerous. I feel like niche programs and niche audiences will reward longevity, technical execution, and consistency. Broad appeal demands high drama. There might be bigger sponsors in it, but I don’t like it.

  No one sent any messages for several seconds.

  Cascadia: I need to get on that program.

  “Well then,” Parson said aloud. “We will support you. We all have our needs. And sometimes danger brings out the best in us. Anyway, I am interested to see what I can get done on the alcohol front. I don’t love alcohol, especially when there are so many similar but better alternatives, but I can’t deny its commercial viability. And this particular variety is going to be an interesting chemical puzzle I’m sure.”

  We drove past the professor and her assistants, who waved at us.

  “Why do people take you so seriously?” I asked Cascadia. “I bet if I had tried to ask them all those weird soul searching questions they would have just ignored me.”

  “It’s because I have a force of personality that comes from conviction and you don’t. It’s why my base charisma is six and yours is three.”

  “Your base charisma is six because you have nice skin and teeth and you’re jacked. What was all that about anyway? Why are you trying to save them?”

  “Well, they aren’t assholes.”

  “Is that the only criteria? Are we going to try to save every non-asshole we find from now on?”

  “I don’t know Gel,” she snapped. “I’m just trying something out. Fuck! Did you guys agree that this ride would be the try to annoy Cascadia ride or something?”

  “No ma’am, absolutely not ma’am, we would never ma’am,” Parson said.

  “You two idiots are lucky we are behind schedule or you would be finding out why charisma isn’t my only base stat that is six or higher.”

  It took us over an hour to reach the boss chamber and we had to dodge several groups of mobs on the way. As we approached our destination we discussed our plan.

  “Maybe I should just do this boss battle solo. I haven’t done a solo boss battle yet, and this guy is just level eleven. I’m two levels higher.” Cascadia proposed.

  “Power and level don’t scale that directly, especially with boss monsters. And we haven’t been able to assign stats yet either, so your level barely means anything.” I said.

  “I’m already under leveled and am going to be spending a lot of time on commercial operations, I don’t think it’s a good idea for me to miss the fights I am available for,” Parson added.

  “Plus, we don’t know what the mobs do. And maybe the big pig will change from white tagged to red when we start fighting.”

  “Fine. So do we have a strategy or are we just going to kick in the doors and start killing things?”

  “We are almost there, let me see what is going on.”

  I pulled up to the barn, preparing to fly down the roof vent again. It turned out to not be necessary as the sounds coming from inside were loud enough to easily hear and left no doubts as to what was happening.

  “This is disgusting,” Cascadia said. “The room is too small for tactics, let’s just run in. I’ll take out the boss while you cover me.”

  Ensure your favorite authors get the support they deserve. Read this novel on Royal Road.

  “It’s not clear to me how that isn’t tactics, but whatever. Just try to keep the building in one piece. I need to go through his office to find the location of the other production centers.”

  “Don’t worry, we are literally catching him with his pants down. This will be easy.”

  With that she yanked open the large double doors. The world froze as the alpha orc turned to face us, mid thrust. A thumping beat began to shake the room and the boss battle intro sequence played out, giving almost the exact same description it had when I scouted earlier. Parson’s face was hidden behind his mask but Cascadia's battle pose was weakened by an expression of revulsion. As soon as the description ended, the room burst into action. All of the smaller orcs detached themselves from the giant pig and started staggering towards us as the alpha orc pulled himself out of the pig and roared at us, enormous dick in hand. I threw down my turret and sent my drones in while Parson started firing at the mobs, who were way sturdier than I had expected. Cascadia had her laser rifle out and was drawing a bead on the boss when he cocked his…cock..and launched a stream of steaming, white goop in our direction. Cascadia dove out of the way but Parson and I took glancing shots. The stuff burned.

  “Oh FUCK no! We are NOT doing this!” Cascadia shouted as she sprung to her feet, leaving the rifle behind. She dashed to the side, trying to find a path around the shambling orcs. Parson and I focused on the orcs on her side, bringing them down. She vectored towards the boss, diving over another blast of goop. The first orc had nearly reached us and started to retch. We dropped it with focused fire but the next two neared and let forth streams of projectile vomit.

  “Run!” I shouted as we scrambled away from the caustic spray. The door was still open and I considered rushing out and letting the auto turret and drones take care of the mobs, but I was worried about Cascadia, who had nearly reached the boss. He had still had his dick out, launching shots at Cascadia, but he had also gotten a chainsaw from somewhere and was using his hands to pull on the start cord so his aim was off. Cascadia had her staff shrunk to a meter long and was wielding it in one hand with her axe in the other. She closed the distance and he swung his chainsaw at her, his huge muscles flexing. Cascadia blocked the attack with her weapons but it sent her flying. She landed lightly on her feet and launched herself at the alpha again, sliding low along the ground. She drew a low swinging attack out from the boss and used her friction jump trick, glowing orange and popping into the air, flying over the chainsaw. She spun in the air striking up with her staff and slashing down with her axe. The staff smashed into the alpha’s chin, stunning him even as the axe swung in a precise attack, severing his oversized genitals.

  Cascadia finished the maneuver by kicking off of the orcs torso to land casually in front of him. He fell to his knees, staring at his mutilated crotch, all fight completely gone from him. He seemed to be literally shrinking, his muscles deflating, and his health bar draining steadily. My drones finished off all but one of the vomiting orcs, who Parson put to sleep with an enhanced spike from his spitter. Cascadia still stood in front of the alpha, holding her staff under his chin. She had let her hair loose and it was blowing in an artificial wind while blue motes of light swirled around her.

  She lowered her staff suddenly, turning to us and deactivating her ambience generator.

  “This isn’t really working is it? The moment just isn’t coming together. And is this a male thing? Cut off one non-essential body part and you just completely crumble? It really makes this kind of fight very anti-climactic.”

  Parson lifted his arm and shot three spikes into the boss monster's head, killing it. Cascadia furrowed her brow as the world froze and the Winner graphic displayed. We unfroze and the boss collapsed to the ground.

  “Dude, what th-“

  Cascadia was interrupted as we were teleported away.

  We appeared in an empty, rectangular, room. The floor and walls were composed of repeating, glowing panels. I jumped back in surprise as the panels began projecting a larger than life, three dimensional hologram depicting the boss battle. It was looping the scene of Cascadia spinning in the air, slicing and striking simultaneously. Bartholomew, the four-armed humanoid turtle host appeared in the room, microphone in hand.

  “Welcome, Cascadia and Gellen, and congratulations on being featured in our first post-battle interview of the season. It wasn’t the first boss battle of the floor, many crawlers don’t insist on the same disciplined approach to training and scheduling as you do, but it was the fastest so far. Do either of you have any initial comments on the fight?”

  Cascadia had shifted to an expression of easy confidence and took the microphone.

  “Well Bartholomew, this was just a tutorial floor neighborhood boss. These are essential building blocks, but I’m not expecting too much from them. We came ready, stayed focused, and took care of business.”

  “Indeed you did,” Bartholomew said, taking back the mic. “And what would you say motivated your specific approach to the battle? Did you identify the boss’s manhood as his weakness? Or do you just not like allowing someone to wave his dick around?”

  “Look Bartholomew, I’ve got nothing against penises, quite the contrary, but analysis and strategy are also not strong points of mine. I didn’t know that the boss had a weakness, I just didn’t appreciate him launching semen blasts at us. I saw an opportunity to remove his main ranged attack and I took it, simple as that. The fact that it also completely debilitated him was an unexpected bonus. One that we didn’t need, I feel compelled to add.”

  “You say you aren’t a strong analyst but our own analytics agrees with your statement, you could have taken down that boss without exploiting its weakness. However, many viewers will appreciate the chance to see an orc getting castrated. Gellen, what are your thoughts on the topic?”

  “I…also don’t appreciate getting attacked with semen. And I also think we could have won without exploiting the boss’s weakness.”

  “Very insightful. What about this moment here?”

  The scene changed to me looking back out the doorway, when I considered leaving the boss chamber.

  “This was not a locked boss chamber, a fact you seemed to be well aware of. Tell us what you were thinking here and why you chose to stay in the boss chamber with a squad of orcs attacking you with weaponized vomit, when you could have moved to a more open area to fight.”

  “I didn’t want to leave Cascadia alone in the room. Bosses are always dangerous, even though we are a higher level, and if the fight hadn’t gone so quickly she could have been flanked by minions.”

  Bartholomew reclaimed the microphone.

  “That’s all the time we have. Thank you Cascadia and Gellen, for both your participation in the interview and for the excellent boss fight.”

  And just like that the interview was over. The microphone disappeared and the lights in the room stopped glowing. Bartholomew remained and he took a step towards us, one hand holding a finger to his mouth, cautioning silence, and two of his other hands holding out a piece of paper. Cascadia reached to take if and he held out his fourth hand, stopping her. He pointed to his eyes, then the paper. We stooped over to read.

  Managed to see portion of race and class lists. Elemental spirit races will be available, seem powerful. Consider trying to get kills with elements to unlock options. Parson trending extremely well in demographics you would traditionally struggle with. Use things he crafts to boost your views. Also consider leveling intimidate skill, may unlock class options

  Bartholomew winked and disappeared. We teleported back to the boss chamber seconds later.

  We had been gone for only a few minutes but Parson already had the operation well underway. The large pig appeared to be sleeping and eleven of the twelve orc bodies had been dragged to a corner. The last one was unconscious and strapped to a table Parson had secured from somewhere. He had also found a storage locker and was rolling out a barrel from it.

  “Oh you’re back, good good. Another show?”

  “Yeah, just a short post fight interview. I guess that’s a thing,” I replied.

  “We’ve got a lot to do, you two can start milking while I figure out how to artificially replicate an orc stomach.”

  “What? Can’t we just collect what they’ve already made? I don’t want to milk that thing!” I had never milked anything in my life and it sounded disgusting.

  “No. The distribution tubes go straight down. Maybe if we could find the collection center we could intercept some, but something tells me that’s not going to happen this floor. Now let’s get going, according to the description we will only be able to get milk for an hour or so unless one of you is able and willing to impregnate her again. If we were near Tobias he would probably build us a milking machine, but he didn’t come in anywhere near us. We are going to have to do this by hand.”

  “Who is Tobias?”

  “The mech warrior guy. Now get milking!”

  Cascadia and I pulled out another barrel and started milking. The pig was laying on its side but the nipples were still at my shoulder height. We stood shoulder to shoulder, pulling on pig teats the size of my shoes. I hated it.

  Cascadia: Why did you kill the boss like that?

  Parson froze for a moment, midway through pushing a tube down the orcs throat.

  Parson: These are people we are fighting.

  Cascadia: People we have killed by the hundreds already. People we will kill thousands, maybe tens of thousands of before we are done. Are you mad because I was taking too long? Because a penis was being disrespected? What if I had been doing something? Setting something up?

  Parson: Were you?

  Cascadia: No. The moment was gone and I wasn’t going to get it back. But I could have been and thats the point.

  Parson: I made a judgement call. Something we are going to have to trust each other to do.

  Cascadia: And what was your judgement? Are you proposing that I need to chill out? That I should take it easy on giant monsters literally trying to kill me with cum? Are you proposing that we not try to kill with style?

  Parson: I’m not proposing anything. I just made a call. I understand the environment we are in; I’m not going to kill tens of thousands, I’m going to kill hundreds of thousands in this dungeon, and I’m not going to lose sleep over it. It’s the only choice we have and it’s the closest thing to a justified mercy killing I’ve ever seen. Killing with style is ok, I’ll be courting sponsors the same as you. Causing pain is ok, I’m about to literally vivisect this orc. But we are going to draw lines. You are going to draw lines. I just drew a line. I made a call. I judged that the fight was over and that there was nothing you or I could gain from not ending things, so I ended it. Trust me to make good calls or don’t party with me. I trust you.

  Gellen: ...I’m in this party too guys

  “You know what?” Parson said aloud. “I think I figured out what the problem is. We didn’t do the dance. We’ll never stay on the same page if we don’t keep doing the dance.”

  Cascadia dropped the teat she had been holding and turned around.

  “By the Gods, you’re right. We forgot to do the dance before the boss fight. Gel, come on. We’re doing it now.”

  “Are you kidding me? We are on the clock, I’m not dancing. We aren’t even about to fight.”

  “Gel. I am not going to squirt out another drop of milk until we have done the dance. Get over here.”

  I groaned as I stopped my milking duties and turned around to join them.