One thing that was clear was that everything was getting worse with every passing minute. I wondered if the first two floors had been similar. I'd just been in my own little bit of hell for those, not seeing any floor-wide events. Floor three, well the escalation there seemed to have been Carl's fault, so not like this either.

  Although, it occured to me, this wasn't without causes, either. I'd killed that Krakaren Clone and left a swarm of druggie mobs wandering about. In fact, my first line may have been one of the first to get mobs with DTs.

  Dang. I needed to stop thinking the worst of people I hadn't met.

  Mom: You need to stop listening to all these other crawlers. This place is not a good place. You can't let them convince you this is a safe thing to do.

  As if anyone had recommended this.

  Down on the mirror-black tiles of the Deaths' Head station, I found two guys sitting in lawn chairs drinking beer. "Are you just sitting this out while everyone else fights?"

  One was drinking right that moment, but the other put his beer down and looked my way. Crawler John Smith 24. He was wearing chainmail under an unbuttoned flannel shirt. "Hey, girlie. Damn, the dungeon does good work."

  "I'm eighteen, jackass."

  "Well I'm twenty-one, and Jack here's twenty—"

  Jack finished his sip and said, "Hey, don't drag me into this."

  "—and the boss-man said they wanted someone on watch, in case monsters starting coming through here, as well." He held up his beer. "We came in with eighteen left. We each get one of our original stash each floor, otherwise I'd offer you a drink."

  I suppose the laws against drinking underage didn't exist anymore. "Sorry, not trying to be rude."

  "Least you look good doing it."

  I looked down, finding that my white shirt was mostly gone, and the leggings were again in tatters. I was also dipped in blood, which should have been disgusting. Had these "watchmen" really only had one beer? "This place. I swear, half of everything has acid blood."

  "That's why I always put my shirt in my inventory before a fight." He twitched his shoulders and it disappeared. "If you have a grip on the wrists and your shoulders are out, it's not fully worn and you can make it vanish before it gets ruined."

  Alright, that was kinda clever. The guys chilling with beers on watch weren't the idiots my knee-jerk assumption had implied. "Anyways, does anyone know what this line's like?"

  John looked at Jack, who said, "There were a few messages from a group that tried it, right before they died. You start from the middle car, and something comes at you from both sides, but they didn't seem certain what it was. One of them said, 'Trees!' in his last message, and another said, 'It's just looking at me.'

  "You know," John put it, "Getting on these named lines is real dumb, unless you're one of those leaderboard psychos like Carl and Lucia." His eyes twitched up a bit. "Considering you're still sub-thirty, you're probably not like them.

  "Just trying to judge the risk. I gotta take a few, but I don't like the idea of a day with no grinding. If I just take the rails, I'll be safe, but is that more safe if it means I'm a lower level on the next floor, you know?"

  John lifted a beer. "That is exactly what we were philosophizing about when you arrived. So far, like seven people have died at the barricade during this 'quick stop', while zero have died on watch. On the other hand, there's been zero levels on watch and everyone on the barricade's gained at least one."

  Just then, Mom appeared at the top of the stairs, bow glowing so she was lit like some looming monstrosity. "Madison, don't you dare get on that train! I swear, if you set one foot on that train, I will have your backside."

  From her shoulder, Sandra said, "I'm sorry. I was going to keep it to myself, but she's very aggressive about you."

  As she spoke, I could hear a rhythmic rumbling coming down the tunnel, moments before a hint of light appeared. I looked my mother in the eyes. "Mom, I'm not going to stay here with you when I know Lacie's out there. I brought her down here, and now her party's falling apart and she needs me."

  "You need to worry about you, and about staying safe," she snapped back, as though safe were an option. "This place, how many families are left? Us, we need to be together. It's only right."

  God, she talked so weirdly when she was feeling self-righteous.

  The train whistled, deafening all of us as it slid to a stop. It had a blocky front for the engineer, with the round tank behind that. The whole was painted bright white, although soot in all the cracks doubled the depth of the shadows. They certainly weren't trying to make it look like an enticing place to visit.

  There were five cars, but only the door on the middle one opened.

  Before I could decide what to say—I'm always pausing, being careful about what I say to Mom—she stomped down the stairs and grabbed at my arm. Completely by reflex, I twitched my shoulder out of the way. Some subconscious process had flagged that grab as an attack, where her hug earlier had not been.

  "Look, it's not happening." It was weird, how easy that was to say. Just a few days ago, I had been terrified she might discover I was sneaking out, and I'd thought I'd die if she found out I was gay. Now I didn't hesitate to tell her no.

  "This is not happening, Madison," she declared. "You are my daughter, and you will do as I say."

  "All aboard the Death's Head Line," came from someone in the engine. Behind my Mom, I could see Jack and John sidling up to Sandra, trying to find out what was going on.

  "Last call for the Death's Head Line," the engineer called.

  I was so angry that I almost sprinted through that door before it closed. Priorities. First date with Lacie. I took a slow breath in.

  The train started moving, and so did I. As I grabbed onto a hitch on the caboose, Mom yelled after me, "You run off to that harlot while dressed like a slut and you are dead to me!"

  The station slid away.

  Mom: I'm sorry, I'm so sorry. You know how angry you make me when you do stuff like this. I'm just so worried about you.

  I ignored her, still for some reason not blocking her, to keep my eyes ahead. On the subway cars, I could kill things through the back windows, so there was no reason I couldn't get some XP here, too.

  A case of literary theft: this tale is not rightfully on Amazon; if you see it, report the violation.

  At the moment, it was shiny, clean glass with gold filigree about the edges, nothing but darkness beyond it.

  I closed my hitai-ate, sensing something like writhing worms within. A figure, near the back. Human-shaped, turning towards me.

  "Clever girl," he whispered, like I was an animal in Jurassic park, not the crawler about to kill him.

  Or the crawler about to be surprised when a blast of purple light shattered the window.

  I leapt aside, feeling my skin dry and crackle as a strange chill brushed past me. I skidded a foot along the wall, then leapt back down to the rails. Opening my hitai-ate, I met his eyes. He was humanish, with long silver hair.

  Dershale. War Mage. Level 53.

  Once a common orcish warrior, being repeatedly devoured by fleshers warped him into the mage you now see, which is a human with some wicked tusks. He knows more spells than you will ever know, but considering you still have an intelligence of 3, and that's with enchanted gear, we'll expand that to say he knows more spell than any five typical mages would ever know.

  Don't worry, most of his spells won't matter to you. He'll only need a few to kill you.

  I sent a fastball at him, causing a blue flash as it deflected from some barrier in the air about him.

  He laughed, sending another bolt of purple, this one far more easily dodged. I skidded back, getting distance as constantly-writhing tree roots began to move from the back of the train, a rustling, crackling sound audible even over the train's chugging, screeching progress.

  The reaching branches didn't seem scary, being as they shattered into loose twigs as they hit the walls of the tunnel.

  I kept on hurling my blade, falling further back. I wasn't slowing down, I just wasn't trying to keep pace as the train sped along. I could dodge the purple bolt, but who knew what else he had.

  Six more fastballs, all deflected, and I'd dodged another two blasts. The roots were further out, still harmless.

  He chanted a little differently, lifted both hands, then his eyes flashed. Four thinner bolts, leaping in wild bounces off the walls like he was hurling bouncy-balls, roared towards me. I hockey stopped on the rail, lying almost flat to break my momentum, and the bolts hit where I would have been had I not done so.

  As I straightened, still sliding slowly forward, a shard of shattered tree root dug into my cheek. "Ow."

  It began to twitch, to burrow. "Oh crap."

  I grabbed at it, ripped it out, a chunk of my cheek coming away as well. Holding it up before my eyes, I could see tiny roots starting to infiltrate my fingers.

  Invasive Roots. Damn, you fucked now. Don't worry too much, though. Dershale doesn't just know a lot of spells, he's got 15 skill-levels in Bonsai. He'll make a pretty little potted plant out of you.

  Surviving in the dungeon does a lot to a person. It leaves the mind strained, emotions crushed before the necessity of the present. Another thing it does, something that almost seems good, is that it destroys the part of you that hesitates.

  You are in the moment, living the moment, and the instant you know something is truly going wrong, you act. I grabbed my knife, sliced across my fingertips, and shrieking as the glass ground across the tip of two fingerbones.

  The Invasive Roots debuff vanished, replaced by rupture. I slammed a potion and the rupture resisted. I guess that's what I got for using an enchanted blade on my own finger. Blood fountained from my fingertips, despite my jamming them against my side.

  I was skating backwards now, wondering how bad of an idea this track had been. My potion cooldown was high, so I sped as best I could, raising my constitution until I could drink again. This potion cleared the debuff.

  Standing between the rails, hands on my knees, I stared ahead. I didn't like these enclosed spaces, but more this was just a reminder that, even though many threats seemed minor to me, there were others I was totally unaware off.

  Lacie still awaited, with the promise of our first date.

  Heck with this. I downed a shot of the Rev-Up juice. It healed the same as a potion, and in this case it was enough to remove the rupture.

  Fully healed, I stopped hard, letting the train escape. After a minute of waiting, the engine's roar only grew louder. I closed my hitai-ate, sensing as far as I could. The train was out of my sensory range, but the trees roots digging into the walls of the tunnel were not. Another lunged out, broke through stone, and tightened, dragging the others slightly backwards.

  This guy was pulling the whole train back towards me, entirely overpowering its engine with those roots.

  Even aside from killing me, I'd just provoked him to leave his cabin and he was probably about to head back to that station and kill everyone else. Or, at least kill John and Jack while reinforcements came.

  That wasn't alright. Hitai-ate down, I crept forward and activate Sink Into Shadow. There he was. And another like him, right alongside.

  Vincel. War Mage. Level 51.

  Vincel is an incel. You might think this is because the reskinning removed his cock, but he'd be alone even with proper equipment. Don't worry, though, he doesn't want a date with you. He's gone completely off the deep end and just wants to kill all women for "spurning" him. There's no awareness that he might be the problem.

  "She's hidden by some feminine mystique," Vincel said.

  A crackling noise, coming from all across their bodies. A veritable wall of violet light poured down the tunnel. I fled backwards, barely brushed as it expired. Screw seeing them. They hadn't been trying to move, so I didn't try to get their dots back on my mini-map. I skated slowly backwards, continuing to throw.

  "By what magic does she evade us!" Vincel roared.

  "She's not hidden, you fuckwit," Dershale said. "She's around the corner."

  I really hated intelligent mobs. I kept backing up, kept hurling blades at them, even as I heard their footsteps approaching.

  I was halfway back to the platform when they rounded the corner and I turned to fastballs. I focused entirely on Dershale, getting flash after flash of blue from whatever barrier protected him, but now that I had a clear line and could see properly, I saw a blue bar below his full green bar of health.

  Progress, and from this distance their spells were trivial to evade. Just a few more—

  He vanished. I stopped sharply, reversing and racing forward. My instincts were correct. He had teleported to behind me, darn-near killing me in the process.

  Still, he'd underestimated, and I managed a fastball as I dove. The blue bar vanished, and I threw the simplest, most direct attacks I could. A rupture appeared, blood fountaining forth.

  The purple blasts stopped coming from him—Vincel was still sending some, but I could dodge his distant attacks with half my attention—as the war mage cast spells on himself.

  I didn't know what powers he had, but I did know he was moving his hands across himself and removing ruptures. I darted forward. A quick sliced up-and-down, removed his fingers on both hands. As he screamed, I sliced out his throat, slid past him while tracing the blade about his neck, and then leapt back and threw a fastball from about a eight inches into the back of his head.

  It felt incredibly cool, but that little blade still did almost nothing. It was tiny, making the smallest of cuts, and I had no strength behind it. He fell to his knees, then started to rise again, glowing as he prepared some spell or other.

  New plan. I put on all the speed I could, probably twenty miles an hour in the ten feet between us, dropped my shoulder, and body-checked him into the path of Vincel's next blast.

  Dershale turned to an X on the map.

  Down the line, Vincel stilled, meeting my gaze. He had not been expecting that.

  The blasts redoubled and began to change. A fireball that filled half the tunnel with flames, lightning that leapt to the rails and flared through them, a glob of acid that expanded almost to fill the space.

  The problem for him was that I could send a fastball about a quarter-mile, and his spells didn't have that kind of range. He managed to push me back past the platform, all the way to the next corner, then fled, that blue barrier almost gone.

  As I skated by, Jack yelled, "The fuck is happening?"

  "A war mage is trying to run!" I called, then was gone.

  Maddy: They can go out the back of the train, in case anyone else tries what I did.

  Jack Smith 4: Fuck, girl. I'm glad your scary ass is on our side.

  I grinned at that, then focused on speed. I could hear the train ahead, moving again. I rounded the corner, leapt past the roots—a few were writhing, but they had broken from their source on the train and looked to be dying off—and hurled a fastball after him.

  In the back window of the train, Vincel grinned. "Good luck catching up with me now!"

  I ducked a blast, throwing more and more. His expression changed as I gained on the train. I hurled fastballs, watching his blue bar blip away. He fled deeper into the car, but I had just enough of an eye on him to track him with breaking balls and get those ruptures going. If I threw it just right, the breaking ball would hit him once on the shoulder, immediately loop back for a hit on the other shoulder, and then dive into his leg.

  I could see the rupture stacks rising and falling as he desperately tried to cure them all, but I could throw faster than he could heal, especially since he'd stopped making me dodge his attacks.

  Quest Complete. A Beautiful Garden.

  New Achievement! Wait, What Was I Doing?

  You got credit for completing a quest you never received. This is like winning a marathon on your way to work. Maybe start paying attention instead of gooning all the time.

  Reward: You will receive the Silver Quest Box that was only supposed to go to people on the quest, and you'll thank me for it.

  I hated that AI.