Chương 77: CDM 2, Chapter 13: Icebreaker

Later that night, I jumped on the chance for a crawl. The timing of the gate was rough, after 1 a. m. when I had work in the morning, but I wasn't passing up a D-ranked run. The gate was behind an old movie theater. The door was plain wood in a medieval stone frame, and the rest of the cullers were grouped in front of it. I was the last to arrive, which was always awkward, but this was the fastest I could get here, so whatever.

"Carmino?" a tall, lean woman asked, looking up from a list on her phone. Her kit suggested she was a rogue, and I couldn't immediately guess her age. She had a streak of gray in her bangs, but her face didn't look old enough for gray.

"Yes, ma'am." A shorter, stockier man with a barrel chest stood next to her. I had done runs with him before. He was a fighter. He was usually the captain, but for this gate he was the guard and the woman who greeted me was the captain. Then we had another fighter, a brawler, and a ranger. The ranger was not in CDM-issued gear. His head was shaved to blonde stubble, and he looked Beth's age.

"Now that everyone is here," the captain began, "we can get this done. CDM, the ranger joining us today is a level 5 settler." Wait, that was starting already? The legislation was still in the House the last I heard.

"This is his first cull with us, so be patient if he needs time to adapt to our tactics. Ranger, you already know to follow orders and to take this one slow. But I'm repeating it so the rest of them understand how this works." The settler nodded.

"Good," the captain said.

"Okay. We've got a squid dungeon behind door number one here. I'll buy you all a beer if you get me through this run without getting bit by a beaker. I'm so fucking sick of getting bit by beakers." The group laughed, which included me, but internally I was also stomping and cursing. Another squid run? There were so many types of D gates I hadn't seen yet, but I kept drawing vermin, goblins, or squids. I ran a termite dungeon twice, and one of those goblin gates was a variant with hobgoblins.

That second one felt more like a punishment, though, seeing as it put me and Megan in the hospital. I hadn't seen any version of kobolds, slimes, gnolls, undead (as opposed to an undead variant of another dungeon type), or violent vines, not to mention the other couple dozen gates that were either less common or rare. The ranger closed his eyes and said a prayer aloud. None of the other crawlers knew what to do, so they all stood awkwardly stiff until the ranger was finished.

Stepping through the gate reminded me of another reason to hate squid runs: My memory of dragging Larry_High_Gax through the slick while one of the slimes drowned him felt as vibrant as if it were happening right then. Now, you may recall that squid dungeons follow a predictable structure. The first long hallway full of doors is all slimes, and then you reach an iron gate that bars access to a T-shaped intersection.

Opening the gate is always loud and noisy, so you hold position, clear the wave, and then pick right or left. So far, all of that had been exactly the same. Our captain chose right–like they always seemed to, for some reason–so we went through the gate and turned. When the guard stepped through, at the very rear of the party, the gate shut. I had never heard of the gate shutting. Not on its own. The captain turned and raised the visor on her helmet.

"Why'd you do that?" she asked the guard in a harsh whisper. The guard, who stared at the bars dumbfounded, said, "I didn't."

"What are you talking about?"

"I didn't shut the gate," the guard answered. He gripped the bars with both hands and tried to open it.

"It's locked. Since when can it lock?" The captain, grumbling softly under her breath, walked through the party and tried the gate for herself. Then she pushed and yanked with all her might, managing only to make a small rattling noise. She pondered the iron for a long moment before turning. Still whispering, she said, "I've read about this variant. It's really, really rare. That door is bloodlocked. Once we kill everything in the dungeon, including the boss, it will open."

The captain hesitated for a moment before continuing.

"The rest of the dungeon won't be what you remember, so don't count on any of the old patterns. You'll still see squids and beakers, but they will be the pets of snapper tamers." Those were usually found in C-ranked swamp dungeons. Snappers were akin to humanoid snapping turtles, bipedal monsters with shells, in other words. They had nasty bites and necks that could shoot forward with the speed and length of a whip. If you were out of range, they used that momentum to spit wads of something akin to chewed bark.

At their worst, those were like getting hit by fastballs. If the snappers were tamers, which I didn't know was possible in the first place, that likely meant they'd stay in the backrow to pelt us while the inkers, beakers, and slimes surged ahead to attack us. The captain paused to listen for movement. When there was none, she continued, "When we turn left up there, this tunnel will become one side of a canal, kind of like a sewer tunnel.

There's another platform on the opposite side of the canal, and we'll have to cross over and back again a few times. Hear me: Do not, I repeat, do not get dragged into the water. Archer, prioritize anything out of reach of our frontline. Ranger, use your bow. You have the same orders as archer." The ranger nodded and sheathed his sword to equip his bow.

"This is not an XP run anymore," the captain continued.

"This is survival. Play it safe, and play it smart. That means- Ugh, I hate that I'm saying this. That means that you need to take out inkers before beakers. If one is gnawing on your leg but an inker is closing in, kill the inker. Losing your vision with snappers around will mess you up." I breathed slowly. This was like a wild hunt. I wouldn't know the terrain until I was on it, so I needed to be vigilant and suspicious. I was scared, but I was also excited for the adventure I was about to have.

Another rare dungeon variant, and I didn't have my camera to record. Maybe I should start packing one just in case. That wouldn't be hard to do, after all. The ranger knelt and prayed when the captain turned to continue. The awkward seconds felt like hours, but we eventually continued the run. The call to take care of inkers first was a good one, so much so that I was surprised that was the first time I heard a captain describe that strategy.

With how often inkers caused problems for a frontline, that seemed like the way we should always do it, variant or no. The canal path was just like the captain described. We started on the left side but had to cross over small bridges, narrow enough to feel like balance beams, every so often to continue driving deeper into the dungeon. Snappers were assholes. Their spit attack was brutal–I took one to the chest and thought I might never catch my breath again–but the cooldown was at least 20 seconds by my count.

You could hear them gathering the chewed bark like they were hocking loogies and gagging at the same time. Their gags sounded like roosters that had balloons stuck in their throats. If we listened for the windup, the guard could call when spit was coming, giving everyone time to get their shields up or duck, in my case. If you encounter this story on Amazon, note that it's taken without permission from the author. Report it. Headshotting snappers was a pain.

They were fast, and their heads endlessly bobbed and weaved like angry cobras. If no one was in the way, I started aiming for their knees and thighs first. With a stance set, their lower halves were far less mobile, so while they weren't kill shots, they slowed the snappers down big time. When I missed, the arrows either clattered into the distant dungeon or dinged off of hard shells. On one occasion, my arrow went through a snapper shell, and that was the first time I had seen Sharpen activate and ignore armor.

Ever. If it happened before, it was in the middle of chaos, and I didn't notice. Snappers were dangerous, but the canal format of this variant made the slimes more deadly, in my opinion. I'm aware that I might have been more sensitive to slimes after seeing what happened to Larry, but these slimes had an objective advantage. We couldn't see slimes if they were in the water, so they caught us by surprise multiple times, slipping up and out of the canals when our attention was elsewhere.

That was a lesson learned the hard way. Both of my legs felt loose and distant, a sort of disconnected numbness from slimes trying to shimmy up my calves and thighs. That slowed me down a little bit, but if I was focused on fighting, I'd forget about my legs for the moment and get around just fine. It was when I couldn't match the feel of my leg stepping to the command my brain was giving it. That lack of tactile feedback was jarring. The boss was a giant inker ridden by a snapper tamer.

The fight played out pretty similarly to a normal inker boss encounter, but the tamer summoned larger waves of beakers and slimes while spitting at us constantly. Other than me being told to focus the snapper, the strategy for the fight was largely the same as any other inker encounter. Don't get sprayed. Don't get bashed by a giant tentacle. After that, we fought through the reverse of the canal we entered with and found the iron gate to the exit ajar.

"Oh, thank God," the captain exclaimed.

"Yes, Lord, thank you," the settler said. No one visibly rolled their eyes, and I attribute that to the fact that the ranger pulled his weight and followed orders. That run could have been a lot worse if he was an asshole. Snappers were decent experience, thankfully. I came out of that run with another 651 XP. As for how close I was to level 7, I checked that when I got into my car: XP Progress: 1520/3200 Thousands, if not millions, of people were out there lamenting the fact that they'd never get beyond level 1.

I was one of the lucky ones who got to level. I tried remembering that to calm my impatience, but hunting wild monsters made that more difficult. I had dozens of monster kills under my belt that were next to worthless, so I couldn't help but feel like I had put in the work to be at level 7 even if the system disagreed. In keeping with my usual post-run ritual, I gave myself a few minutes of scrolling headlines to let my adrenaline fully subside.

Trolls had been discovered living under Puebla, a Mexican city in the southeast of the country. According to the news article I had up, disappearances had been an ongoing problem for the last two decades, but bodies were never found, nor were any leads. A construction crew stumbled into an underground tunnel system during a dig and were soon set upon by the monsters.

The existence of the Puebla tunnels was considered an urban legend until this point, but locals insisted that their ancestors used the tunnels to escape the religious persecution of the Spanish Inquisition and that the tunnels played a major role in the battle of Cinco de Mayo, the famous victory over the French Army that inspired the popular holiday. Old muskets and bayonets had already been found to confirm that at least that much of the stories was true.

The tunnels themselves were tall enough that someone could ride through them on horseback, but they had filled with mud over the years. The trolls used the masonry as a guide for digging their own tunnels but left a good deal of that mud behind, obscuring the true scope of the architecture. I forwarded the story to Megan. She geeked out pretty hard over the goblins in the Paris Catacombs, and this felt similar.

I wondered how many people the trolls had eaten over the years, and I wondered if they could grow in strength the way goblins did. A knock on my window snapped me out of my phone trance.

"I'm sorry, friend," the ranger said, bending over to speak with me.

"I've got a really bad flat. Could I trouble you for a ride to an autobody shop? I don't mind sitting outside until they open, and I'll figure out a ride back, so you aren't on the hook for the whole journey. Promise." All of the other crawlers had gone, leaving just me and the settler. If I didn't help him, he was truly on his own.

"Sure," I answered.

"Do you need help with the tire?"

"No, sir. I already have it off."

"Oh, great. Yeah, put it in the trunk, and we can get going." A few minutes later, the ranger was in my passenger seat, and we were on our way to the closest mechanic.

"My real name is Isaiah, by the way," the ranger offered.

"Calling you 'archer' when we're not in a dungeon seems weird."

"Dorion."

"How much do you all hate people like me showing up for crawls?" he asked.

"I don't know that I'd describe it as hate for any settler specifically. A lot of people join up with the CDM for the levels, and there are already not enough gates for everyone."

"So me showing up makes it worse." I nodded.

"I would do the same thing if I were in your shoes, though. This is your chance to level, so you're taking it. For what it's worth, I don't hate you.""'No discipline seems pleasant at the time,'" he quoted.

"'However, it produces a harvest of righteousness and peace for those who have been strengthened by it.' All of this will be worth it when my family claims their place in New Eden." That was Hebrews 12: 11. I didn't hate Isaiah, sure, but I sure as fuck hated myself for remembering that.

"What did you think of the fighting between Christians and crawlers?" Isaiah probed.

"I don't know that we should get into that."

"Why? Is it because you used to be a Christian?" I looked at Isaiah. Damn. There I went putting my emotions on full display again. Play it cool, Dor, at least once in your life.

"Why do you think I was a Christian?" I asked in reply.

"The Lord told me. He must have wanted us to have this time together."

"We shouldn't get into that topic because I'm CDM and am supposed to be impartial. They strongly encourage us not to weigh in about stuff like that."

"Then be just a person right now," Isaiah said.

"No one is listening but me, you, and the Lord." I've often felt that one of my lifelong curses was having the intelligence to know when a choice was bad or risky but lacking the self-discipline to not do the bad thing anyway. This was the same feeling I had when Cortez invited me out for drinks and I put off filing manual citations until the next day. I knew I should have stayed but still didn't. I knew I should have kept my mouth shut with Isaiah but still didn't.

"Both sides want dungeon gates for themselves and don't care about anyone beyond their own people."

"Even though the Bible encourages us to share our harvests with the less fortunate and to look out for our fellow man?"

"Which part of that justifies tossing a firebomb into a guildhouse?"

"God's people have had to defend themselves since the days of the Israelites," Isaiah replied.

"Sometimes we must go to great lengths to ensure that our cause can continue."

"We can stop there."

"Humor one more question, please. Why did you stop believing in God?"

"Man, it's 5 a. m., and I'm tired. I don't want to have this conversation."

"Please," Isaiah insisted.

"No."

"Just a few words."

"I said-" I paused to take a breath.

"If God existed, I would have to hate him. I'm angry enough as it is and don't need more hate in my life."

"I don't understand."

"You've heard the Parable of the Good Samaritan," I answered.

"The point of the story is that we shouldn't walk by someone suffering just because they are different from us or because we don't know them."

"Yes. Do you disagree?"

"Nope. I agree with it completely. If you can help, then you should help."

"If we agree on that, what's the issue?"

"How many times has God chosen not to help?"

"It is impossible for us to understand God's plan."

"I don't need to know the plan," I said.

"Have you read what Nazis did to people during the war? I mean really dug into it. The raw evil. The enormity of the suffering. All that shit? God could have stopped it. At any point, he could have stepped in to be the Good Samaritan who helps the people no one else will help. He didn't. Then he let whole continents of people get eaten by monsters right after. Didn't help there either."

"The Lord has cleared the path, but it's up to us to choose if we take it. Evil deeds are the result of people, of Satan. Not God." Seeing the auto body shop up the street was a relief. I wanted out of this conversation so badly.

"Like I said, if he's real and that's actually how he works, I would have to hate him. Now, please, get out of my car."

"I am sad for you, Brother Dorion," Isaiah said as he opened the door.

"I hope you return to the light before it's too late."

"1. 5 million."

"I'm sorry?"

"1. 5 million. That's how many kids died in the Holocaust. You might be okay with that, but I'm not." I drove away with rage boiling in my veins.