CWD: OE ~ Twenty

Nacho watched nervously as Jennifer choked down her first real sample of his cooking. For some reason, the fact that she had eaten a peanut butter ball first made it even worse for her when she tried to bite down on the fried millet circle. The cook could only wince as her expression went from excited, to confused, to grim and determined.

“I guess I now understand why you all called it the ‘donut disaster’.” She eyed the tube of strawberry life-hack yogurt suspiciously as she worked to force her molars through the dense bread-like substance. “Is everything-”

“No, it’s not all that bad.” Nacho flung out his hands in annoyance. “Just wait, I can explain. As it turns out, millet doesn’t work like normal wheat, so the recipe was practically guaranteed to fail. Even so, ten percent off any damage you take is pretty good, right? Also, think about the Stat bonuses?”

“Yeah, yeah, yeah.” Jennifer couldn’t stop grimacing. “I get it. Stats good. Donuts bad. But… Nacho, how do you mess up a donut? Fried bread has been around in every civilization since they figured out how to fry things!”

“If I knew how to do it right, it obviously wouldn’t have come out like this.” Nacho wasn’t going to be using Mana or doing any cooking, so he upped his Fitness as usual and relaxed into the moment. He shook off the criticism; the results were undeniably positive, and that was all that mattered to him. In all other things, practice makes better. So long as he lived long enough to get there, he’d eventually become a gourmet chef.

Reuben stepped toward the door. “Let me go first; I can soak up the worst of the damage if it’s a trap. Everyone else, get back. Can I borrow your Mr. Lacrosse Stick, babe?”

“Um… can you?” Brie handed it over apprehensively, and released a small sigh of relief as neither her husband nor her weapon exploded. “I guess you can? Huh. Maybe because we’re married? Wait… does this mean that our fates are tied together?”

“I mean…? That’s what marriage means, right? Odd way to put it, but I guess it’s a neat trick that you can use magic that was meant for her, but I’m in no rush to join you in marital ‘bliss’, even if I could expand my list of weapons.” Nacho pulled his Skillet of Turtling off his back, then moved to stand in front of Brie and Jennifer; decidedly not looking at the latter.

Reuben braced the lacrosse stick under the bar and shoved, leaping back as the door dissolved into a viscous fluid and exploded toward them as though someone had tossed an ice cube into a deep fryer. An unbelievable wave of heat washed over Nacho, and the scent in the air confirmed that the door had disintegrated into boiling oil. Specifically, rancid oil that stank of three days of non-stop fish frying.

The Healer had managed to leap back, but given the fact that the room now smelled like rank cheese, he’d been coated pretty heavily by the deadly trap. “Bleh! I guess… I’m a cheese curd now?”

Most of the expelled oil had splashed against Nacho’s skillet shield, but the trap was designed to slosh over everything; it did its job far too well.

Damage mitigated: 17!

Look at your fancy Tier one-ness keeping you safe. That would have really hurt you back at Tier zero. But no~o, you had to stay on yo~our side of the portal.

Brie and Jennifer were completely unhurt, which Nacho took as a win. The door itself was now a slick puddle on the floor, and the oil swiftly cooled and began to congeal into a pungent yellow slime. A long hallway of doors was revealed, a classic dungeon if Nacho had ever seen one. Before anyone could react, one of the nearest doors in the corridor opened, and a hand grasped the doorframe.

Welcome to Active Combat! Nice job surviving our oil door trap! This is the big leagues; you’re running an alien dungeon. Who knows what you might find? Actually… we do know, we just aren’t telling!

Nacho didn’t like the sound of that, but he couldn’t spare any attention to parse the message. A shambling humanoid staggered out of the dungeon cell, slopping through the congealing oil on the floor.

The man-shaped thing was wearing rags, as expected from a dungeon denizen, but the clothing wasn’t the odd thing. At first, the humanoid appeared to be covered in scabs, but the texture was too well-formed for that. Only after Nacho inspected the creature did the strange skin make sense.

Lightly Breaded Prisoner

Effective Tier/Level:?

HP:?

“There’s a layer of, what, breading covering him? He looks like a person turned into a walking chicken tender.” Jen gagged as her stomach growled. “Ew, ew. I knew I should have eaten more before we came down here.”

Every inch of the strange monster had been covered in batter, then fried. At the end of the drumstick-shaped arms and legs dangled chains, explaining the clanking they’d heard before the door had opened.

Brie stormed forward, one hand held out to Reuben. “Toss me my stick. I’ll take care of this thing.”

He threw his wife Mr. Lacrosse Stick without hesitation, which was perfect, as Brie was already sprinting. She grabbed the hilt of her weapon and half-turned to maximize her impact, striking the ghoulish monster square in the chest with devastating effect. The Lightly Breaded Prisoner was torn in half upon contact. Breading went flying, revealing diseased skin and congealed-grease-filled organs.

As the top half of the humanoid went flying, the other cell doors creaked open and a dozen more of the prisoners came limping toward them. Reuben was ready, slamming his fists together as he charged in. “Finally! I’ve been going crazy waiting for a chance to get some combat in!”

Brie didn’t slow down to let him catch up, “These things are going to be easy to take care of. They only have thirty points a pop. I’ll get their attention, and you hit them from behind.”

The Berserker Combat Dashed right through the middle of the crispy combatants. When they tried to lash her to death with their chains, she didn’t even bother to block, trusting her Tier one mana to take care of the attacks. Two of the fried monsters hissed with pure fury as the chains bounced off her without a hint of damage. She reached the other end of the hallway, where another spiral staircase dropped down to the next level, just as Reuben bowled into them.

He almost casually slugged prisoners in passing, each punch popping their bodies like he was fighting particularly nasty water balloons. Reuben howled with laughter as he worked his way through them like a professional boxer fighting younglings. “Ha, they count as food! Not sure who would eat tall, dark, and breaded here, but-”

The Healer drove his fist through the crispy face of another prisoner with a delighted peal escaping his lips, “who cares? Is this what it’s like to fight Tier zeros as a mid-Tier one?”

“Exactly correct, buddy. This right here is why it’s supposed to be a terrible idea to fight up Tiers. Remember this feeling; I don’t think our experiences up to this point really drove that point home well enough.” Nacho maintained his position behind Reuben, staying relaxed but wary.

It was good that he did, as a second prisoner leapt out of the nearest door—one that had already released a monster—and tried to tackle him. His blades flashed out, the cleaver stopping the momentum entirely as the chef's knife opened up a trio of lacerations at almost the same instant. The body dropped to the ground, neatly sliced into four chunks.

Congratulations! You have killed a Lightly Breaded Prisoner!

Tier 0 Standard Creature = 0 Credits

Good job!

“Celestial feces! Why aren’t you on the front line?” Jennifer gaped at him as Nacho casually strolled after the natural disaster that was Brie and Reuben fighting as one.

“Careful guys, they’re getting slightly stronger with each kill, I think! Why am I not…? Oh, you know. Gotta let them get some experience with just… slaughtering enemies.” The cook could only shrug at the Brewer’s baffled frown. “What do you expect? At a certain level of strength, you’re not hitting above your weight class all the time. If you don’t keep your edge, you get dead real fast. Wanna kill a few?”

“I’m good, I think.” Jennifer swallowed hard, her eyes clouded with confusion. She watched the battle for a minute, and her face firmed up and she went into full cheerleader mode. “Get ‘em, guys. Show them no mercy! I bet they’re sorry they crawled out of the oil this morning!”

In the end, it wasn’t much of a fight. After a quick ten minutes of combat, the hallway was littered with monster parts and fried debris, and the only resources it had cost were a few Hunger Points from Brie dashing into them during her initial test. Unfortunately, just as they thought combat was ending, another prisoner lumbered up the stairs near the Berserker. She casually whipped her stick around with a single hand and splattered the monster across the wall without even looking. “Everyone ready to move on, or… Nacho, wanna process those things?”

He considered it for a moment, but ended up shaking his head. “Too close to human for comfort. Let's hope things get a little more beastly as we move on. What did she call it? Non-Euclidean monsters?”

“Processing them…?” Jennifer stood at the doorway of a cell, staring at the crispy, severed parts with a strange look on her face. “They count as food. That’s just wrong. Also… this.”

Nacho joined her, peeking curiously into the small cell. It seemed to be a complicated cooking area. A bubbling pit of oil lay on one side of the small room, which could have been mistaken for a hot tub, if it weren’t for the smell. The other half of the room was dominated by a table covered in mashed apples and flour. Connecting the two areas was a dipping contraption that could lift the prisoners by their chains from the table and drop them into the boiling oil hot spring.

Jennifer looked puzzled. “Was this a torture area? Or were they re-animated and then fried?”

“It’s best not to think about it all too much,” Nacho admitted, his voice full of exhaustion. “The Patrons created this whole setup. Most of the time, the Juxtaposition just throws us a weird amalgamation of animals corrupted by Putrid Mana. But sometimes, they like to include a little bizzaro-bonkers action to mess with our heads. None of these were real; they were animated meat puppets controlled and created by the dungeon.”

“I think I figured out the trick to this place.” Brie was still at the entrance, killing each prisoner or two as they shuffled up from below. “The Patrons are going to keep us in Active Combat by poking us to death with these low-level monsters.”

Reuben went to give his wife a long hug. “Thanks for sharing with us! I’d likely have gotten there soon, but I love when I get to skip steps in my mental processing.”

Jennifer pointed at them with her spoon. “Do they do that a lot?”

“It’s part love, part healing,” Nacho explained with only minor discomfort. “He’s very into the whole love and affirmation thing. He really gets into it. Great way to break the ice with him if you ever need a conversation starter. Everyone, let’s get down to the next level while we can.”

Brie surged forward, smiling and ready to go. Reuben was ready to back her up, and Jennifer hustled to get to her position in front of Nacho, inspecting the others critically. “You okay on Mana, Reuben?”

Brie barely paused to reply before she crushed two more breaded skulls.

Reuben bobbed his head cheerfully. “Yeah, I’ve only used about four Mana points. I’m good. If we run into something really bad, I can use Positive Vibes. That takes five percent, but we can manage.”

“Let me help out?” Jennifer pulled out a red and yellow bottle, Store colors, and offered it to Reuben. “If you get low, drink some of that. It’ll go down a bit more smoothly than Major Millet’s donut recipe.”

“Pretty sure if he had ever earned a rank, it would have been stripped after the last two debacles.” Reuben chuckled as he took the bottle, looking at Nacho expectantly. The cook didn’t react, resulting in a mild shrug and moving on. The staircase took them down to another long hallway of frying cells, organized in the same setup as the floor above, though each of these held more prisoners, with some still on the table, others being lifted out of the boiling grease as the doors opened. The freshly dipped prisoners slipped forward on slimy feet, breading still sizzling.

Still, the quantities didn’t matter. No matter how many of the fried monsters there were, only three of the prisoners could attack Brie at a time without hampering each other significantly. She’d put down the first one, then bop the other two to force them back. From there, the first one to surge forward again was crushed with an overhead blow, and the momentum of the rebound was used to bash the other, spreading their internal organs across the walls and floor.

It was kind of messed up, but the dungeon was starting to smell… not good, but perhaps appetizing? Nacho found himself thinking fondly of french fries on more than one occasion. These crispy critters didn’t deal much damage at first, but their attacks were growing slightly more dangerous the further the Dinner Party descended. The chains hitting the humans directly wasn’t a big deal, yet. But when a blow did land, it applied a burning damage-over-time effect from the hot oil that splattered out. Strangely enough, that minor damage was able to bypass their protective mana, but only when enough had accumulated in one spot over a short enough time.

“It must be like environmental damage,” Reuben hypothesized as he bounded forward to relieve Brie. “The damage is accounted for differently than a direct attack. Makes sense, but it’s something to watch out for—ow! That’s not the kind of fast food chain I’m into!”

“Which is why you don’t get hit!” Brie grumpily fired back, unable to hide her concern for his safety. She kept her stick ready to bash anything that came near him, but she also made sure that she didn’t get in his way enough to stifle him.

Jennifer joined combat for the first time, hurling her spoon into the forehead of one of the monsters. Apparently her Brewmeister ability had kicked in, and the spoon went through its body. “Why did I even do that? Now I’m going to need to scrub and sanitize the spoon before I can do any brewing with it.”

Brie and Reuben both paused their fighting to stare pointedly at Nacho and his knives.

“Yeah, yeah! Sure, it makes sense when you think about it. I just didn’t know it mattered,” Nacho huffed as he was relegated to the back of the pack until the hallway was clear. Killing every single creature they encountered wasn’t really worth the effort, given the stakes of this particular dungeon run. They’d eliminated nearly fifty of the things already, earning twenty credits each. Two entire floors of combat had only generated one thousand credits.

Since he wasn’t taking kills unless they needed him to intervene, Nacho spent his time considering the newest addition to their team. If Jennifer decided that she was going to join them more permanently, they should also start investing in and leveling up her Skills and Tier. Nacho and his friends were already at level fifteen, and the party information indicated that she was still stuck at level eleven.

The cook slowed slightly and pulled his Aria out of his Storage Slot. He slapped it open, flicking rapidly through the pages. “What could I possibly cook using what I have on hand? Hmm… Colonel White Beard has a chicken tender salad I might be able to make. I’d need lettuce, tomatoes… and maybe a nice ranch dressing? Wait a second… I already decided I can’t cook these things. Ugh. I think the grease in the air is making my thoughts think on their own or something.”

He left his cookbook open and looked up, only to come face to face with another walking cafeteria reject. The prisoner, still crackling from boiling grease, whipped the surprised cook directly across the face with its chain.

Critical hit! Stealth attack!

Health Remaining: 90/156!

Wow! You pulled out a book mid-combat? You’re bored?!! We can help! Increasing difficulty!

“Son of a biscuit!” He cleaved the prisoner to death in under a single second, then hurried to catch up—after bending to scoop his cookbook up from where he had dropped it, stashing it safely back into a Storage Slot. Straightening, he noticed that wasn’t the only monster near him, and a loud clanking from the stairwell revealed that increasing numbers were swarming down the stairs behind them. “Coming from behind! Beat your feet; let’s get moving!”

He started trotting backward and utilizing his knife skills to protect their rear from the prisoners as Brie, Reuben, and Jennifer slashed their way along the corridor, only to find another spiral staircase at the end of the hallway. Reuben called out, “Seems like the jail cells are some kind of monster generator, yeah? We got the breaded dudes coming at us from all directions. That’s a… pain.”

“Ha!” Jennifer laughed as she recognized the French wordplay. The others only rolled their eyes, as he had already used that joke recently.

“I’m so happy we took on another person,” Reuben enthused conversationally as another fried prisoner came running down the hallway, hobbling faster than any other before. Nacho dodged the whipping chain, then cut it into flat chunks like a country-fried steak as Brie took a moment to reload with a slurp of Life Hack.

Jennifer had retrieved her hurled spoon, but she was still trying ineffectually to shake the yuck off it. “I’m so sorry… that you have to keep eating his food, Brie.”

“Nice.” Nacho hustled them down the next stairs, knowing that if they weren’t careful, they might get overwhelmed, no matter how weak the monsters were. “Try to do a sweet thing for people, and all they do is whine! That’s it. Bug-based meals for everyone, for the next three days after I get back to my kitchen!”