Chapter Text
Time until Level Collapse: Two days, seventeen hours
Ohhh God, was all Kian could think as the whiplike blades rushed for his face. He fell back on his right foot, tips of the rusty swords converging right where his eyes had been. What is that thing?
The collectorfish wielding the bizarre weapon didn’t seem to have much skill with it, even if Kian couldn’t tell what it was. The three ribbon blades–which all stemmed back into the same hilt–clattered to the cobblestone ground and the fish grunted in something like frustration. Kian planted his boot firmly on one of the blades and lunged at the fish. He could feel his enhanced dexterity rushing through his muscles as he moved. Victria had said something about stats a while ago, when members of Kian’s old party started getting items that enhanced them:
“Even the strongest and smartest people out there won’t have core stats naturally higher than seven,” she’d said, too busy drawing with a quill to look at the group. “Anything higher than four is quite good.”
Kian’s dexterity was an eight. He was probably faster than Usain goddamned Bolt. Even before the dungeon, he’d been slippery and fast. If there was a skill for ‘fleeing the cops at a house party by leaping out the window and not breaking anything on the way down’, his score had to be impressive. Mr. Prentiss, his sophomore year Spanish teacher and coach of the track team, kept insisting he needed him on the team. Kian had refused. Even if he wouldn’t be forced to run for the girls’ team, sports were too much work. Weed did weird things to his lungs, anyways. With the Fleet Scarf of the Midnight Weaver it was hard to put into words. He was faster, of course, but his body also felt somehow smarter. He hadn’t reacted to the blades in time, but his feet had known to get out of the way. And even though he was looking at the monster’s ugly face as he rushed it, he knew right where to thrust his knife.
With a horrible but now familiar squelch, Kian’s filet knife sunk right into the fish’s flank. The fish gurgled and stepped back. Keeping his foot firmly on the limp blade, Kian caused the mob to stumble and fall as it staggered back. He pulled the knife loose and spun it in his hand–yet another thing he couldn’t do before–then bore down on it and stabbed it right in the eye. The collectorfish died under Kian with the impact.
Your party member, Asher 7, has leveled up!
The haptic buzz and flashing notification startled Kian out of his focus. He looked at the dead fish that he was half-straddling and half-collapsed on top of and let out a sigh of relief. He was getting better at this.
Kian: You can come out now.
He got himself off the fish just in time for Asher to round the corner. The kid looked at the scene, two collectorfish dead against the wall and Kian standing over the third. “Are you okay?” he asked, gingerly passing the bodies.
Kian turned to face him. “Not a scratch this time. How’s that new level treating you?”
“I’m level five now,” Asher said, before his eyes caught onto the weapon in the dead fish’s hand. “What’s that?”
“I was wondering the same thing. Nearly took out one of my eyes,” Kian said, looting the body and pulling the strange sword into his inventory. It popped into his hand and both crawlers examined its properties:
Old Urumi–Weapon.
Hailing from India, this weapon is part of one of Earth’s oldest fighting styles. For every master of the Urumi, there’s a hundred schmucks who lost a limb messing around with it. This one is quite decrepit. Hope you got your tetanus shot.
“I think that’s the weirdest one yet,” Kian said, stowing it in his inventory. Over the last hour they’d spent pushing deeper into the neighborhood, the weapons wielded by the collectorfish were getting more and more obscure. First it had been clubs and spears, then claymores and morningstars, now hook swords and apparently, urumis.
“Are you gonna use it?” asked Asher. Kian shook his head.
“I think I'm more likely to hurt myself with it than anything else. I'm better with ol’ reliable,” he said, walking over to another dead collectorfish and yanking the cold cutter out of its chest. It had just finished sucking the mob dry.
Kian could feel Asher watching him as he looted the two fish. They only had a few coins and fancy but decrepit-looking spears called ‘halberds’. “Where did you get all those knives?”
“From the last boss; it was this butcher guy.” Kian explained, deciding to spare him some of the gorier details. His jeans bore a large cut on his right thigh, where the skin had long healed but the fabric didn’t. “I killed it by turning its weapon against it.” He’d been checking the cold cutter’s status obsessively after each fight, but the dot was still white. He wasn’t very good at ‘showing it who’s in charge’, whatever Victria had meant by that. Another idea was forming in his head, though. An idea that Victria would probably call him a suicidal idiot for, but he was already in a lot of trouble next time he saw her. Oh well. What his guide didn’t know couldn’t hurt her, anyways.
“C’mon, let’s go,” Kian said, starting off down the hall again. “I’m pretty sure we’re close.”
–
It only took another 30 minutes of walking and a couple more skirmishes to get there. ‘There’, was incredibly strange, though. Asher held his torch towards the thick darkness. The lighting from the cobblestone hallway seemed to die along with the corridor itself. In front of them was a new, hallway that had been pasted onto the old one. It reminded Asher of a clay project he’d done in school that involved sticking pieces together.
Kian was standing by the wall, inspecting the seam. “It’s a few inches off,” he pointed out. Upon inspection, Asher saw that he was right. The new hall was bigger, and there were a few inches of allowance where the cutoff part of the old hall ended. It was perfectly smooth to the touch. The older crawler took the cold cutter out of its makeshift sheath. “Stay behind me,” he said.
The new area was in stark contrast to the old one. The floors were made of cream-colored tile and the walls were painted pale. Kian took out a torch of his own and held it out, revealing the hall ahead was lined with some kind of tables topped with glass boxes. Were those display cases? Kian suddenly stopped dead in his tracks.
Asher peered out from behind him. “What’s wrong?”
“Nothing. This place just seems…familiar,” Kian said. “Vaguely.”
“I think it’s a museum.” Asher said.
Kian gasped. “That’s it! Oh my god, we’re at the Met,” he said, not sounding overly enthusiastic.
“What?”
“This art museum in New York City. My parents took me here once.” Kian continued down the hall, Asher close behind.
Despite everything, the idea kind of excited Asher. Back in Iowa there was an art museum a few towns over that his mom took him to sometimes. It was their little treat whenever they had some extra money. This one had to be massive if it was in New York City. To his dismay, though, the paintings had been taken off the wall. Their plaques still hung.
“It was cool and all, but my mom and Eli spent the whole time looking at the European section,” Kian sighed. “There were like, a bajillion other wings I wanted to see. They both freaked out and called security when I snuck off.”
“Who’s Eli?”
Kian sighed. “My stepdad.”
Asher’s eyes lingered on a display case as they passed it. Old arrowheads sat inside, propped up on velvet. “Was he mean to you?”
“Worse. He thought he was my best friend. Kept trying to take me golfing with his ‘boys’.” Kian made a face.
“So he was nice to you?” Asher’s question seemed to give Kian pause. He stayed quiet for several seconds.
“Yeah, I guess he was.” He couldn’t tell for sure, but Asher thought he heard Kian’s voice break a little. “My mom made enough money for him to stay home, and he spent all his time cooking. He perfected all my favorites.”
“My dad didn’t cook,” Asher said. “He was sick a lot.”
The hallway gave way to a small exhibit. Torchlight glinted off of a statue of a horse that stood in the middle of the room. It must have been bolted down, because everything else had been pilfered.
Kian led the way, inspecting the new room. Another doorway lay on the other side. “I’m sorry,” he said.
“I don’t think he liked me very much.” Kian said nothing in response. Asher suddenly felt like he had said something very wrong. “Because he yelled, and he threw things even when he couldn’t walk anymore,” he explained.
Kian turned around to face him, and he finally saw the look on the older crawler’s face. There was so much tension in his features, it was hard to see much else. His mouth hung open slightly, like he wanted to say something but had no idea what.
Horror. The word came to Asher. He’s horrified.
Because he’d turned away, Kian didn’t see what happened next. Asher saw the sickly grey tentacle shooting out of the dark towards him, but he couldn’t react in time. It grabbed Kian by the waist. One arm was pinned down to his side, the other dropped the torch. His eyes went wide and he let out the start of a surprised yelp.
The world froze.