“Guys, hey, guys, I think he’s waking up,” said a familiar voice, though for some reason I couldn’t quite place it. My thoughts were hazy and heavy. Clouded by pain. My head pounded like a drum and every inch of my body hurt. Even my hair hurt. It felt like I’d spent a night sleeping in a churning cement mixer filled with rusty nails and rebar. “Yep, he’s definitely alive. I told you guys he’d make it. Nothing can kill my best friend. Not Funtime Frank, not a giant floor overseer made of corpses and houses, not even aggressive hemorrhoids.”

  “He might still be brain-dead,” someone else said. This voice was female. Temperance? That had to be her—though the last time I’d seen her, she’d been stranded inside the chest cavity of a kaiju.

  Things were starting to come back to me, but slowly. A flash of ice cream. The rancid scent of burning skin. A whirlwind of monstrous body parts wheeling around me. But there were gaps in my memory big enough to drive a tractor trailer through.

  “I’m not sure how much of a brain he had to begin with,” came a new voice, this one gruff and coated with a bit of a twang. Ed. “That was easily the stupidest thing I’ve ever seen.” He paused. “It was the ballsiest thing I’ve ever seen, too.”

  Woodstock squawked and chirped in agreement. “Ballsy. Ballsy.”

  “I already told you,” I grumbled through gritted teeth, “it’s only stupid if it doesn’t work. And, for the record, I’m not brain-dead… Though I sort of wish I were.”

  Begrudgingly, I cracked one eye open and immediately regretted the decision. The weak light coming from overhead stabbed into my eyeballs. I was sprawled out on the sofa inside my private hotel suite. Croc was looking down at me in evident concern while Ed and Temperance sat at the dining room table. Woodstock was there, too, eating bits of crackers from a bowl.

  “Can someone please turn down the lights in here?” I asked, before swinging my legs out over the edge of the couch then pushing myself into a sitting position. Even doing that much felt like running a marathon with cinder blocks tied to my feet.

  “Sure thing, Dan,” Croc replied. The dog moved over to the wall and carefully adjusted a dimmer switch, until the room was just shy of dark.

  “Is Jakob okay?” I asked, glancing bleary-eyed around the room. There was no sign of the Cendral and after the shitshow with the titan, I was worried that something bad might’ve happened.

  “I am fine,” Jakob replied a moment later, striding into view from the bathroom. “Though, as you say, it was a bit touch and go there, toward the end.”

  Temperance scoffed. “Don’t listen to him, he’s just being dramatic—”

  “I’m being dramatic? When the titan toppled there was so much blood we almost drowned inside its torso,” Jakob said flatly, folding his arms across his chest in clear disagreement. I squinted, my vision still blurry, and got my first real good look at the Cendral. His clothes were red as crimson and peppered with muddy brown splotches and jet-black streaks. He’d managed to clean off his face, but chunks of gore were still stuck in his hair. “We literally had to cut our way free using my plasma shield,” he said, sounding completely unamused.

  Temperance dismissed the remark with a derisive sniff. “A small price to pay, considering the magnitude of our achievement.” She offered me an unnerving smile—broad and sharp, like the edge of a blade. “We did it. The beast is dead. Vanquished. Slain by our hand. You should have seen the carnage!” She cackled in glee. “I killed so many of those Zoning Leukocytes that not even Croc could eat them all. And the Experience points?”

  Her demented grin grew even wider.

  “I am level thirty,” she said with a hint of awe, “which officially makes me five levels stronger than Jackson and the most powerful Roomkeeper in the Hold. As the people of Salem often used to say, the wheel of fortune turns, and none may stay its course. I believe the modern equivalent is Karma is a bitch, and I fully intend to be Queen of such bitches. Needless to say, Jackson and his ilk shall be met with quite the rude awakening upon my return.” She sighed, her expression softening into an almost wistful contentment. “Truly, these past few days have been the best of my life.”

  “God you’re weird,” I mumbled, “and you definitely need to see a therapist. I’ve never put much stock in therapy, but I think it would do you some good. Still, I’m glad you’re okay. You and Jakob, both. Now, for the love of sweet baby Jesus, can someone please get me a Zima?” I asked, closing my eyes and leaning back against the plush sofa cushions. “I haven’t felt this shitty since… maybe ever. I think this might be some kind of personal record.”

  “Unfortunately, that won’t help,” Jakob said, his voice drilling into my skull like an auger. “We’ve already given you two, along with several other experimental elixirs of my own design which have had no obvious effect. Your health is maxed out and you don’t appear to have any visible injuries—though, perhaps, there is some deeper trauma we are unable to see?” He frowned and shook his head. “It seems you have contracted some kind of temporary affliction that is directly affecting your stats.”

  I groaned as realization dawned on me.

  “The Potion of YOLO,” I grunted weakly. “I used it to boost my stats during the battle with the HOA. I guess it worked since he’s dead and I’m not, but the aftereffects are rough.”

  Aside from knocking me unconscious for twenty minutes, it also cut all my stats by 75% for one hour. That meant my Athleticism had dropped all the way from 16 to 4 while my Toughness was only minutely better at 5. Those numbers were even lower than my original base stats, prior to Noclipping. No wonder I felt so terrible. I had all the vigor and vitality of a ninety-seven-year-old man with severe COPD.

  “It’ll wear off in less than an hour,” I said, “though I won’t be much use until it does. Hopefully nothing tries to murder us in the next forty minutes or so.”

  “I doubt that’ll be a problem,” Ed said with a reassuring nod. He seemed different than before. Oddly at peace. Like he’d finally put down a heavy weight he’d been holding onto for far too long. “We’re back in the store, and that security golem of yours is guarding the doors to this room, so no one should bother us.”

  “That reminds me, how’d we get back here, anyway?” I asked, rubbing at the back of my head. The details were beyond me. I couldn’t remember anything after striking the killing blow against the kaiju.

  “The doorway anchor you gave me,” Ed said in explanation.

  “After you killed the HOA,” Croc added, “I helped Ed find your body before the Kannibal Kids could get to you.”

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  “And by the time they recovered you,” Jakob said, “we’d managed to cut our way free from the titan’s corpse. From there it was just a matter of getting out of the cornfields and finding a suitable house to use the placard on.”

  “Normally, escaping the cornfields is next to impossible,” Ed added, “but the Kannibal Kids were so busy devouring the HOA, they didn’t even seem to notice us.” He grimaced. “Honestly, it was hard to watch. Like seeing a pack of hungry piranha eat a school bus full of corpses.”

  “As someone who personally witnessed several Delvers get devoured by a pack of land piranha down on the twelfth floor,” Croc said, “I’d say that is an extremely accurate description. There was a truly shocking amount of gore.”

  I did my best to ignore Croc and the idea that there was an entire level filled with magical land piranhas. I already had enough things to worry about. “Don’t suppose anyone manage to loot the Relics off the HOA?” I asked, fearing the worst.

  It would’ve been a crime to go through all that and not be rewarded for all our efforts.

  “Of course we managed to loot the body,” Jakob replied, sounding mildly scandalized by the accusation. “We are not amateurs. It was the very first thing I did after the monster fell.” He upended a backpack stuffed with Relics, dumping its contents onto the table. A bizarre assortment of items tumbled out, including an antique meat grinder and a CPAP machine. “This is everything we recovered from the HOA. There are some other Relics we can divvy up later, once you’re feeling better, but we have collectively decided that these all belong to you.” He faltered for a beat. “Well, you and Ed, since his disruptor did much of the heavy lifting, but he declined to claim any of them.”

  “Just a small way of saying thank you,” Ed added, glancing away without meeting my eye. “And as a way of apologizing for lying to you—about the disruptor, I mean. I almost got you all killed, and you saved our asses. The way I figure it, you earned these and then some. And speaking of, I also managed to loot some Relics from a couple of those Kannibal Kids you blew up.” He pulled out a handful of additional items and tossed them unceremoniously onto the table. “It’s not much, considering all you’ve done, but it’s the least I can do.”

  “Appreciate it,” I said, suddenly feeling exhausted to my core. “Now, as much as I want to pick through these, I think I need a shower and a beer first—though not necessarily in that order. Maybe a nap, too.”

  “Of course,” Ed said, rapping on the table with his knuckles then giving me a thin smile. “We’ll get out of your hair and give you some time to recover in peace.” He patted a walkie-talkie affixed to his hip. “Just give us a holler and let us know if you need anything.”

  After a few more short goodbyes, Jakob, Ed, and Temperance filed out of the room, though Croc remained.

  “I know you need some time alone,” the dog said, “but can I stay anyway? I promise I won’t bother you, Dan. I just… After everything that happened, I don’t want to leave. Is that okay?”

  I smiled and patted the dog on its head. “Sure thing, bud. Stay as long as you want. I even have a surprise for you. Come check this out.” With a wince, I padded over to the enormous flat-screen and dropped down onto one knee. Beside the TV sat an old DVD player and a stack of flimsy plastic cases, which one of the Howlers had traded in. The top case featured a brooding Robert Pattinson clutching Kristen Stewart, with the word Twilight gleaming in sleek silver letters across the top.

  “Wanna watch it?” I asked, flashing the DVD at Croc.

  “Oh yes, Dan, yes. A thousand times yes. This might be the best gift you’ve ever given me,” the mimic said, its googly eyes welling up with tears. “Even better than the Froyo or the corpse pile of toddlers.”

  “Glad you like it,” I replied, turning on the TV and popping in the disk. “You start it while I go get cleaned up.”

  I left the dog on the couch and took a quick, blistering hot shower, then changed into PJs and grabbed a beer. By the time I was done, the movie was still in the first act and Edward had just saved Bella from being turned into a meat patty by a skidding van. With a beer in one hand, I grabbed the bag of Relics from the table and joined Croc on the sofa, before pulling the ottoman over so I could prop my feet up.

  Croc curled up beside me and rested its head on my thigh, though its attention remained firmly fixed on the screen.

  I let the movie play in the background as I took a few minutes to scroll through my notifications—and I had a ton of ’em. Between defeating the HOA and blowing up the Kannibal Kids, I’d jumped another eight levels, bringing me to 42. Temperance had just reached level 30, which put me a full twelve levels above her. Jakob was probably a little higher, but my teammates had some serious grinding to do if they hoped to catch up—and I really needed them to catch up.

  As strong as I was becoming, there was no way I could solo the Franchisor, and I’d need powerful allies when the time came to finally duke it out with the Monarch.

  I’d also earned a bunch of new achievements from my antics during the kaiju battle.

  Highway Surfer for riding on top of the ice cream truck during a floor overseer battle. Neapolitan Napalm for firing ice cream from an artillery cannon and transforming it into a weapon of mass evisceration. I earned the Divide and Conquer achievement for effectively turning hundreds of hostile Dwellers against each other all at once and received a particularly nasty one called Friendly Fire for dealing more than five hundred points of damage with my Discount Dan Clones. That particular achievement came with a Gold EOD Loot Token and a new title.

  Friendly Fire – Explosion damage increases by 25% if it kills a friendly minion or ally in the process. “With friends like me, who needs enemies?”

  There were even more, though most of them only came with minor experience bumps or simple low-grade Loot Tokens. The achievement that really mattered was the one I earned for taking down the HOA.

  Research Achievement Unlocked!

  Kaiju Slayer

  Hol-ee shit. That was crazy. You just did the unthinkable and took down a kaiju floor overseer—a three-story nightmare cobbled together from hell’s spare parts—despite it being twenty levels higher than you. Twenty. Levels. Higher. Just… How, though? Was it skill? Luck? Divine providence from a higher power that no one truly understands? I have questions, but no answers.

  Who knows, maybe God really does look after drunks and idiots.

  You certainly qualify as both.

  No matter how you explain it, you managed to pull it off. Against all the odds and what is—statistically speaking—a truly profound mystery, you survived and now here you are, covered in victory goo and way too self-assured for someone who spent half the fight launching ice cream from the top of a moving truck. But don’t let me shit all over your victory. You earned it, so enjoy the moment… Just don’t expect this kind of miracle to happen twice.

  Reward: 5,000 Experience Points, 1 x Diamond Brawler Loot Token, 1 x Topaz Arcanist Loot Token

  Title: Kaiju Slayer – Increase all base stats by 5% for every kaiju-class threat defeated in battle (stacks indefinitely); +10 to all stats (onetime bonus, permanent)

  I whistled through my teeth.

  Not only had I received a metric ass load of Experience, which probably accounted for all the new levels, but I’d also earned both Diamond and Topaz Loot Tokens. I’d never even seen a Topaz Loot Token before, and I couldn’t even begin to imagine what kind of reward I’d get for something like that. The title was the real prize, though. A permanent onetime +10 increase to all my stats, plus a 5% stat increase across the board? Even if I never saw another kaiju-class Dweller, that was one helluva boost—though, with my luck, I figured I’d run across another one sooner or later.

  On the downside, I was more than a little annoyed to see that my Barracuda in a Barrel title had evolved once again.

  Title: Great White in a Barrel (E) – You exude an aura of pure carnage. Dwellers more than ten levels below you will actively avoid you, and slaying any Dweller below Level 25 grants no Experience.

  This is an (E)volving title. This title cannot be unequipped. Is the little wah-baby sad because they can’t murder Dwellers too weak to fight back? Well cry me a river, you murder hobo, because I don’t give a shit.

  I’d known this was coming eventually, so I wasn’t all that surprised, but it did mean I wouldn’t be able to grind out easy experience on any of the lower floors. Even the Jungle Gym Jamboree would likely be useless to me now—at least for experience. But I was starting to suspect that was the point. The Researcher wanted me to delve deeper and this was his way of making sure I did.

  The Experience points and Loot Tokens were the carrot, and this title was the stick.

  If I wanted to get stronger, the only way forward was down.