DAY 119
AFTERNOON
Once upon a midday dreary, while I dungeoned, weak but cheery…
A KINGDOM DUNGEON
SO THERE’S THESE TIGERS, RIGHT—except they’re not really tigers? They’re big kitty cats? But not cute ones—just so we’re all on the same page. Yeah, so there’s these monstrous monster kitties, and they’re not cute at all, not one itty-bitty bit, not by the hair on their chinny-chin-chins—that was, if they had hair. ’Cause they don’t. They’re covered in scales. Now you see why I said they’re not cute. What, pray tell, is the point of a cat you can’t pet?
“Some cats you are! Thanks to your scale suits of mail, you fail to fall on the feline scale!”
These plated pussycats lunged at me with frightening speed. My instincts kicked in with even more frightening speed. Dual-wielding Universe Staffs in their crowbarlike form, I waded into the fray, fending off razor-sharp slash attacks and slamming kitties into the stratosphere with bengquan.
“It’s an outrage! My hulking ‘Panzer Cats, Lv: 42’ cannot have metal covering their cute widdle toe beans. I won’t stand for it!”
Wuxingquan was not meant for dual-wielding, but what other option did I have? I needed to use something if I wanted any hope of getting fighting practice. My hydra, chickenatrice, and lizardisk “back-up” were a little too trigger-happy, and I could barely get a hit in.
Eventually, I turned all three of my auto-defense animals off and slapped copies of the Old Dude Chopper and Old Dude Brutalizer into two of my Magic Hands. Ta-da, quad-wielding! Then off I went again to make moggy meatloaf.
“Don’t mind me copying Vice Rep A. Or is this copying? She uses six swords. Maybe I should stick an additional two swords on my back. She took Lil Stabby from me, so I can only hope she doesn’t take the Old Dude Slayers too. She doesn’t need to octo-wield.”
Jiggle jiggle.
Yeesh! These were some real speedy cats. But my allies were a couple of speedy cats themselves. As I struggled to hold my own, the dungeon emperors pushed the Panzer Cats onto the endangered species list. Sleeping Beauty, who had been gaining levels slowly but surely this whole dungeon, far outstripped me now. She and her fellow dungeon emperors herded the dozens of cats into a confused and yowling huddle. Some foolish kitties attempted to slip out behind the dungeon emperors’ backs or bravely leap out of the press, but every escape attempt was soon thwarted. The dungeon emperors simply had too much reach.
“Miss Armor Rep’s slash attack whizzes through the air. Dancer Girl’s chains can unfurl and stretch large distances. Slimey can stretch like a wad of Silly Putty or divide himself into smaller slimes. ‘Escape’ simply isn’t in the dungeon emperor dictionary.”
And of course we couldn’t forget Sleeping Beauty. The strikingly ephemeral saint dominated the space with her halberd, slicing open kitties and stabbing through their entrails. Her halberd was a descendent of the legendary three-section staff!
“Right, uh…remind me why she’s doing her best impression of a Romance of the Three Kingdoms protagonist? And are we sure ‘strikingly ephemeral’ isn’t a misprint of ‘ephemerally striking’?”
Her delicate, dainty looks were a far cry from the guttural battle cries she produced whenever she swung the three-section staff-halberd into a fresh foe.
Watching her go reminded me that I had to pull my own weight, too. I lurched back into the fray for more bashing and bopping. Zuanquan made quick work of panzer cats lunging at me from above. Bengquan smashed through their more terrestrial cousins. Hengquan carved steaks of filet meowgnon; paoquan mowed down the last of the mousers.
I had only five moves to work with—five moves that encompassed everything. Five ultimate moves. What I lacked in move set variety I made up for in unlimited opportunity for innovation. The only drawback to these moves was their short range, thus increasing the difficulty for dodging enemy attacks. But the godly strength and speed were worth it!
“Ew! I hate petting scales. You’re not a cat, you’re not a cat, and you’re definitely not a cat. Take that mockery of meowing somewhere else!”
Mew?!
The panzer cats boasted tough armor, swift paws, and feral strength. However, their strongest weapons were their elemental-magic-charged Magic Claws. Each claw was colored according to their element (very handy for moi) so I used the opposite element to wipe ’em all out. Easy-peasy. It was, you might say, a clawless victory.
“No claws, no toe beans… Tsk, tsk.”
Wisdom and Hoplology boosted my speed such that, in short-range scenarios, I ran circles around these superspeed beasties. Once I finished mopping the floor with them, I triumphantly trotted down the stairs. On to the 43rd floor!
The 43rd floor had tight, narrow corridors. The dungeon emperors fell into battle formation: a single-file line. Guess who was slow to get with the program and wound up the rear guard?
“Y’know what? I’m bored of flame bullets. Let’s try thunder bullets! …If there was anything to try them on, that is. The dungeon emperors put up such a solid defense there’s not a single monster left to fry… Ugh. Now I’m just bored bored.”
I could fight well enough to defend myself now! Between the Universe Staff’s mutable length and Dimensional Slash, I could even fight from a distance. I simply had to wait for the foes to come to me—and that was the hard part, because the dungeon emperors destroyed all the enemies before the rear guard ever got a chance. Goodbye, sweet chance…
Miss Armor Rep, Slimey, and Dancer Girl formed up in front of Sleeping Beauty and me to protect us from the monsters. It was kinda overkill. Sleeping Beauty was now over level 20, and because the corridor was so narrow and she was standing directly in front of me, nothing made its way to me. Nothing could get past her, not even the most gung-ho of the bats occupying this floor. There was simply no space for a bat to slip by in.
“Dang, those bats are really going for it. Check out those illusion spells. It looks like there’s a whole swarm of bats flying at us. Pity we’re a tiny corridor and not, like, an open hall. They might’ve stood a chance.”
Not here. Not up against close-range Miss Armor Rep, long-range Dancer Girl, and Slimey and Sleeping Beauty handling everything in between.
“Yup, a whole battalion of bats couldn’t get past the dungeon emperors. Sorry, ‘Illusion Bats, Lv: 43.’ This corridor is just too cramped for your tricks to be of any use!”
I dipped and ducked, shooting thunder bullets around flashing swords and whirling arms. Alas, none of the projectiles hit home. There were too many damn dungeon emperors in the way! Suddenly, I understood how the girls must have felt all the time… Frustrated. Worthless. Discontented. Oh yeah, and bored!
“And yet they never gave up… They tried so hard, and grew so strong…sniff sniff.”
Nod nod. Rattle rattle. Mm-hmm!
Did the girls even know? Did they know they were far stronger than me? Did they know they were ridiculously, stupidly strong? (For my own sake, I hoped the answer was no.)
“To be fair, I knew from the jump that I’d never be able to beat their cheat Skills. That’s why I devoted my time to deception, dishonesty, and deceit. I’m a crookery, craftiness, and chicanery cognoscente. A genius of guile! A scholar of skulduggery! An Übermensch of underhandedness!”
Wiggle wiggle?
So I wouldn’t let the girls beat me. Not yet. They could mop the floor with me—they always could’ve—so it was my job to trick ’em and make it look like I won.
“Yup! What’s a teenage boy if not braggadocio incarnate? A walking sex drive?”
For real, though. Teen boys were 90% horniness by weight. Take away the exaggeration, the bluster, the constant dick-measuring, and there was nothing left but pure goonery. Thus, no matter how uncool it was, the only way to look cool was to posture one’s pee-pee off. To bluff. To lie. To swindle and swagger.