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This floor’s different from the last one. Still the same basic layout, but there seem to be a lot more intersections and horizontal hallways. The wall opposite us seems to be much further away than it was below. I should have figured this place would have some bullshit non-euclidean geometry going on, but actually seeing it... this place continues to feel more wrong.
Lynn suddenly tenses up. “Someone’s coming, hide!” She draws her pistol and dives for the nearest outer corner, I run to the corner across from her. Sure enough, I can hear the sound of clinking armor approaching from the hallway ahead of us. Making sure nothing’s approaching either of us, I focus on the source of the noise and realize a conversation’s happening.
“Sure beats the hell out of work, doesn’t it?”
“I guess, but I still have to seal this stupid fountain to get my room back, right?”
“RigHt!” The digitized voice is at a notably lower quality than Lynn’s, like it’s coming out of a shitty little speaker.
“And what’s going to happen to my boyfriend if he comes home and falls through my door trying to find me?”
“Your bOyfriend will liKely enD up in the WaIting room, but yOu will not be ablE to reach Him until yoU are cleaRed for DisCharge.”
“Well when will that happen?”
“This is /utg/, faggot. We’re here forever.”
“Not unless we seal the fountain.” The footsteps stop in front of the stairwell entrance. “How many floors before the roof?”
“AcCordIng to my Map, only aNother five Floors remain!” The two anons groan in annoyance. I would too if it wouldn’t blow my cover. “Oh, bRace yourSelves! My sensors iNdicate two pOssible aSSailants jUst up aHead!” Shit.
“NOPE!” I let go of my SackScarf and slowly walk out from behind the wall, hands outstretched and raised. “Nope, we’re not assailing anybody, don’t want any trouble!” I ignore Lynn’s annoyed expression to get a better look at this fellow adventuring party.
Oh my god that’s gotta be a phone darkner. Maybe about double the size of the model it used to be. The back of the phone is its face, with three emotive camera lenses bunched up in one corner for its eyes and the logo replaced with an animated wave form which you assume is a visualization for when it speaks. You can make out cartoony gloves beneath oversized sleeves inexplicably attached to the phone body, but with it perched on its lightner’s shoulder, the matching shoes are obscured by the bottom of the segmented robe.
I’m just gonna assume its on its owners’ shoulder, making this rogue the forest green phoneposter. Pretty stereotypical kit, bandaged wrists, over the shoulder bag, hood down to show his unkempt hair. Not a total manlet, but he’s got a fittingly lanky build for sneaking and ambushing in tight corridors like this.
The indigo-skinned knight’s a different story. He’s got a bit more armor on him than Kris would, but man, the skintight layer underneath is not doing his aging dad physique any favors. Especially the beer gut and double chin, the poor bastard. At least he looks like he’s done a better job taking care of himself underneath the dishevelment. Don’t think I’ve seen any Lightner here with good posture or a noticeable level of consistent hygiene. Myself included.
When I’m fully out of the open, I slowly lower my hands and motion for Lynn to come out too. Glancing at her, she lets out a resigned sigh, holstering her weapon. She shuffles to my side with her arms raised facing the three, vaguely reminiscent of a meme wholly irrelevant to this world. Her lips tighten in mild disdain when she recognizes the type of darkner accompanying them.
It speaks up after processing the both of us. “ThreAt assesment cOmPlete, no danGer deTeCted! GreeTings, fellow HeroeS!” Lynn groans.
I introduce myself, and my obligatory darkner party member when she refuses to do the same. The knight continues to confirm his normie status by introducing himself as Gene, while the rogue simply goes by Anon.
“And yoU may rEfer to mE as AEsoP!” It’s still grating, but I’ve got to admit this thing’s growing on me a little. Lynn is unmoved.
I attempt to continue the small talk. “Well...it sounds like you guys want to seal the fountain too.”
“Absolutely. This place feels like a bad dream, and I’d hate for my partner to have to experience any of it.”
Anon interjects, “You sure he’s not here already?”
“He left for an extended business trip the day I got sucked in the thread. Said he’d be back in a few weeks, and I’ve already been here for two.”
“Bet that fag’s not even halfway through taking all his bosses’ cocks yet.”
“I don’t know how you zoomers can say half this shit offline.”
“Unlike you, I’m actually maintaining-”
“Right?” I interrupt. “You’d expect phoneposters to actually go outside once in a while.”
“Don’t interrupt, n***** .” He turns back to Gene, “I actually want to stay anonymous, unlike this attention whore and your normalfagging ass.”
I ask Gene why he even puts up with this guy.
Anon interjects. “Saved his life, so he owes me.”
Gene sighs. “Wasn’t able to save Oz, though.”
“Oh no,” Lynn finally speaks up. “Your darkner’s taken irreparable damage, hadn’t they?”
He nods, looking away from Anon with his hands on his hips. “The Charderly took his pieces to the ICU, but that was a few days in. Probably gonna need to buy a replacement phone after this.” So this is definitely the phoneposter floor.
Still offer my condolences to Gene for his destroyed phone.
“Thanks, Judge.” He gets a good look at Lynn and I before continuing. “You just got here, didn’t you?”
“Yeah, first woke up like... I dunno, six hours ago?”
“Been here a little longer than Gene,” Anon adds. “You newfags are still LV 1, aren’t you?”
“Yep, our plan is for us to locate some darkner nesting grounds at lights out to farm some early EXP.” Seems like Lynn’s warming up to Aesop a bit with the prolonged exposure.
“An iNsufficient Long-teRm strAtegy duE to decreaseD ExperIencE, bUT effEctive foR shorT TERm gainS at PreliminAry levels! the LoGistics check out.”
“Yes, thank you kindly.” And that’s the end of her goodwill.
“You guys want to join us?”
“Lmao, pass.” Anon’s smirk is looking especially punchable. “We’re both almost at LV 10, we were about to check out the next floor.”
Lynn stands up a bit straighter. “This stairwell isn’t... safe, right now.”
“How come?” Gene asks.
“There was a roving pack of Fatsimiles on our starting floor, and we were unfortunate enough, to...” Lynn trails off, clutching her arm tight enough for her finger joints to squeak.
“There was a possessed floating Dess corpse with an obese pet Spamton where we entered the stairwell,” I finished for her. “Could’ve... gone better.”
Aesop tenses, one of its camera eyes widening and adjusting. “FREN shoulD be coNtained within tHe baseMent floors. Lynn, aLlow me to sCan you for ppposible Infection.” She doesn’t protest, so it goes ahead with.. whatever its procedure is. Gene’s backing up, hand hovering over the hilt of his sword. Probably not a bad idea, if I planned on following his lead.
“Readings... nEgative.” Oh thank god. Lynn relaxes her shoulders, letting out a belated breath.
“Glad we don’t have to put your dog down too, Judgeanon.”
Gene glares at him too. “Kid, shut your damn mouth. We need all the help we can get if we’re gonna seal this Fountain.”
“Speak for yourself, oldfag.” Anon picks Aesop up and holds it like a tablet, smacking it in frustration. “No signal.” He turns to his right and starts walking off. “I’m gonna go pick up some service so we can find more dead anons to loot. Text you when I find something half decent.” I’m tempted to tell him to go to the west cafeteria on the floor below us, but Gene was right.
Wait, text? Do I still got my... oh hell yeah, right in my KEY items. Damn, he was right about the lack of signal, I’m not getting any bars either.
Gene’s turning back to where he came from, so I call him back over to quickly exchange numbers. I can tell he’s got a good head on his shoulders, and it sounds like the feeling’s mutual. Just because I didn’t have much of a life before I got here doesn’t mean I did my damnedest doing everything I could to improve my circumstances. As much as I’ve been getting drunk off of escapist copium lately, I still have a lot of work out there to do, and this place has a level cap.
Doesn’t take long for us to be alone again. With how active the threads have been since the release of Chapters 3 + 4, this place is eerily quiet.
Lynn and I start making our way down the hall, prone for random encounters.
Figure I should address an elephant in the room before I forget. “You don’t care for mobile darkners, do you?”
She scoffs. “They’re so full of themselves, thinking they’re on the same level as us because they’re mass produced and have more built in network coverage. And the entitlement for being an older form of communication is rich coming from networks that haven’t bothered to update their sound quality for decades.”
Her shoulders go slack. “They think they’re iterative, but they’re disposable. Their lightners don’t appreciate them like you appreciate us. You’ve actually replaced my broken parts, keep up with updates, decorated me, tightened my screws, dusted me, kept my air vents clear.”
She clings onto my arm. “Might be a little overdue on thermal paste, but... you do your best. You take care of me, Judge. You take care of me and work around my faults to keep using me-”
Her visor fills with exclamation marks when I hug her. “You’ve been holding onto that for a while, huh?” I feel her nod in my shoulder and pull her in tighter. “Hell, maybe we can reapply your thermal paste while we’re here? Might actually be able to permanently reattach your keys, too.”
“You mean it??”
“Yeah, maybe it’ll be more intuitive he-” I’m interrupted with plastic lips connecting with mine. Lynn parted right when I realized what happened, and she walks away with her hips swaying harder than they have been.
“C’mon, I hear Imposts just up ahead!”
We’re in the middle of another random hallway encounter when the lights go out. We haven’t encountered any Fatsimiles or Undoelesters on this floor, but the Vocaroos have been a pain in the ass. Luckily Lynn got a critical head shot on this one in the first turn, so we were whittling down one of the bulkier IMG.0871_Ns we’d encountered.
“Shit, should we be worried?” I manage to whip in its eye for more crit damage, causing it to drop its club and cover its face, shrieking in pain.
“Nah, staff understands if we’re in the middle of combat.” We have enough TP for her to pull another Clip That, pumping a full rounds worth of ammo into the thing for free. “They can verify we’re still in the building in any empty room. We’re near a couple of vacancies now, you can tell since they keep those rooms’ lights on!”
“Gimme a second.” I had to focus on avoiding the growing spots of quality loss popping up around the battle box. When it fades out of my vision again, sure enough, I can see light from the sliver of window not obscured by this giant pain in the ass. “I see what you mean. God, why won’t this thing die?”
“We can make more Dark Dollars the more accumulated TP you build, and IMG.0871_Ns can take a lot of damage away from the vitals! At this rate we’ll be able to double what we have in a couple turns!”
Even though it’s not a crit, the liver shot brings it to its knees. “I’m tired of minmaxing all these encounters, I need a break.”
Her surprise turns to disappointment, then apologetic. “You’re right. I could go for a full charge too.” She walks up to the image directly and puts a bullet between its eyes, exploding it into the familiar red mist. We gain another $2500. We both get stronger.
This room’s identical to the one where Lynn and I had been introduced. She plugs herself into the outlet, I sprawl out on the bed and check the inventory. Damn, almost empty. After a quick scan of our health, I offer to split one of our two remaining Spaghetti Codes. I have enough leftover TP to top myself off, and recharging to 100% would fully heal her, but goddamnit I’m starving.
She accepts, and we dig in. Luckily for her, she’s able to process digitally-based healing items, which was good whenever I needed another turn to build up tension.
A younger looking Janny backs up when he sees us from the window. Brow furrowed, he cracks the door open, shuts off the lights, and likely takes a moment to log us as present before he moves on. Lynn whites out her visor, increasing the brightness before I can fish my phone flashlight out. We eat the rest of our meal under the warm glow of her Night Light filter.
“You fully charged yet?”
“Just got to 94%.”
“Cool, I could stand to let my food settle. We don’t have to wait until lights on for the cafeterias to open back up, do we?”
“They don’t open until breakfast, actually... but on the bright side, we can sneak into some of the staff lounges and use their vending machines!”
“Tight.” I take the opportunity to rest my eyes, feeling Lynn leaning against my shoulder before too long.
I’ve been through enough to appreciate the quiet moments as they come.