While Croc finished its grisly meal, Ed pulled out a small notebook and consulted with a small hastily scrawled map and some chicken-scratch notes, before ushering us down a long hallway filled with thick strands of spider webbing.
We stepped lightly, avoiding a pitfall trap filled with dozens of sharpened rebar spikes at the bottom of a large hole. More traps waited for the unwary, including a particularly nasty temporal distortion pocket, which wasn’t so different from the one that had trapped Temperance hundreds of years before. In the same way that the Backrooms regularly screwed around spatial reality—making spaces impossibly big or small—the temporal distortion pockets altered the flow of time.
They were incredibly dangerous, in part because they were so wildly unpredictable.
Some accelerated time, forcing those unlucky few to waste away to dust and bones inside the span of seconds or minutes. Others stopped time completely. That’s what had happened to Temperance. She’d stumbled into a pocket not long after noclipping and found herself frozen in time for the better part of two centuries. She’d been awake and aware, the entire time, driven mad one day at a time. Other versions did both simultaneously. It was entirely possible to go into a temporal pocket and emerge with the head of a baby and the body of a ninety-year-old man.
I badly wanted to stop and examine that particular trap.
Time magic was dangerous, but if I could find a way to master it, the possibilities would be damned near endless. I could trap my enemies in an eternal time loop or use it to quickly ferment beer. My buddy Chad was super into craft brewing, but I’d never had the patience for it. Having access to my own time pocket would help substantially.
In a twist of true poetic irony, however, there just wasn’t time.
As fast as we were moving, Mr. Wiggles was gaining on us, the sound of his meaty grunts and the clacking of his legs drawing progressively nearer by the minute. He was close enough now that we could all hear the unfortunate sound he made while “cleaning up” the carnage we’d left behind. It was a thousand times worse than Croc’s earlier feeding frenzy—an endless symphony of slurping and glurping and crunching. It sounded like Jabba the Hut eating a thousand oysters all at once, then getting pitched face first into an industrial meatgrinder.
I decided then and there that I wanted no part of Mr. Wiggles.
Begrudgingly, I left the tantalizing time trap behind and picked up my pace.
True to his word, Ed shortly guided us to a stairwell marked with a black and yellow sign that read Caution: Do Not Open, Alarm Will Sound. Ed ignored the posted sign and attempted to shoulder his way through the door. Unfortunately, the door was locked and didn’t budge so much as an inch, but his efforts did set off a blaring klaxon. Red lights strobed frantically overhead as the warning alarm issued a shrill beep, beep, beep that reminded me of Jakob’s Faulty Smoke Detector—a taunt Relic, specifically designed to enrage enemies and draw their ire.
“Perhaps I am mistaken, but I feel as though that alarm is something we should be concerned about” Jakob said, stealing uneasily looks between the locked stairwell door and the hallway we’d just come from.
“It should be fine as long as we move quickly enough,” Ed replied, though he sounded rattled. “The sound’ll draw Mr. Wiggles to our location, but we’ll be long gone before he gets here, and he won’t leave the Preschool.” Ed pulled a little tool from his coat, dropped to a knee and began fidgeting at a small hole inset into the metal push bar. “Just keep an eye out while I work,” he muttered, not looking up.
I had a sudden flashback to my battle against the toilet-headed stairwell guardian in the Lobby. The same guardian who’d come damned close to murdering me while I was messing around with a lock just like this one.
“Most Overseers are extremely powerful, but the tradeoff is that they can’t easily leave their territory.” Ed paused, jiggling his tool around in the locking mechanism. “Although the basement is still technically a part of the preschool, the vestigial tunnels that connect to the radio station are sort of like a demilitarized no-man’s land. In theory, Mr. Wiggles shouldn’t go there. Probably,” he added quietly, “though, full disclosure, I’ve never actually made it this far.”
“So what you’re really saying is you have no idea if this will work?” I said, more statement than question.
“There’s a reason I saved you,” Ed grumbled, “and it’s because I couldn’t make it this far on my own. But I think our odds are good.”
The words had no sooner left his mouth than a deep, guttural roar erupted through the air, and a creature dragged itself into our corridor. Ed had described Mr. Wiggles as an Eldritch worm the size of a city bus, but he’d significantly undersold just how horrifying the Overseer really was. Mr. Wiggles was indeed tubular and worm-shaped, though he had the head and face of an enormous baby with cute dimples and the black, dead eyes of a hungry shark. Its circular, funnel-shaped mouth was large enough to swallow me whole, and ringed with descending rows of jagged teeth.
Its vast bulk filled the entirety of the hallway from floor to ceiling and wall to wall, and it crept toward us on hundreds, or even thousands, of arachnoid legs all working in tandem. In addition to the insectoid legs protruding from the creature’s stomach, a writhing mass of baby- arms also sprouted from its elongated torso. Tiny hands helped pull the Dweller forward—grabbing onto the walls or lighting fixtures for additional leverage.
Dweller 0.240340A – Mr. Wiggles – Preschool Administrator [Level 40]
Aw, kids grow up so fast, don’t they?
One minute they’re precious, adorable little bundles of joy—just cooing and giggling and vomiting all over themselves—and then you blink and they’re sixty feet long, covered in ten-thousand limbs, and defy human understanding or comprehension. While most of the Itsy-Bitsy Swarmlings who inhabit this place either meet grisly fates or survive long enough to evolve into the Timmys and Tammys that roam Sunnyside’s streets, Mr. Wiggles represents a rare alternative evolutionary path.
When an especially gluttonous Swarmling is a little too successful in murdering its kin, it grows so large that it can no longer physically leave the hatchery, and thus Mr. Wiggles is born! As successive generations of Swarmlings hatch, Mr. Wiggles continues to EAT and grow, accumulating both physical mass and levels at a sickening rate. Interesting fact, if you chop one of these guys open, you can tell how old they are by counting the rings of accumulated toddler gristle—just like trees, but grosser!
Fuck me sideways. A level 40 Overseer.
Aside from the Flayed Monarch and the Boundless Wanderer—who were both basically deities—Mr. Wiggles was officially the most powerful creature I’d had the misfortune of stumbling across. We had some seriously nasty spells in our arsenal, but I doubted that all of us combined would be able to put a dent in this thing. Still, it was worth a shot. As my dad had often said, “you never know what you’re capable of until you try.”
True, he’d been talking about starting another get rich quick scheme—one that involved flipping power tools from the flea market—but the point was still valid.
I triggered Hydro Blast, unleashing a geyser of water that slammed directly into the monster’s stupid fat baby face. It was impossible to miss, since Mr. Wiggles’ ugly mug was as big as a barn door and took up the entirety of the hallway. The beam drilled through the monster’s smooth, porcelain white skin and a health bar briefly flickered above his head. The health bar was three or four times longer even than the freakish adult Sunnysiders and it seemed Mr. Wiggles shared some of their impressive regenerative abilities.
Still, my attack was slowly whittling the creature’s HP down. Then Mr. Wiggles opened its mouth and started bawling, the sound high-pitched and frantic, tears flowing down its fat cheeks.
You’ve been afflicted with the Water Works Aura! Holy shit, you monster. How can you even think about hurting an innocent baby? You should feel ashamed of yourself. Hydro Fracking Blast cannot be cast against this target for five minutes.
What the hell? How was that even remotely fair?
Ed was right, there really was no fighting this thing.
The best we could do was run and hope Mr. Wiggles didn’t continue to chase us, but the problem was running wasn’t much of an option. We were in dead-end corridor, hemmed in by walls, and now that Mr. Wiggles filled the entirely of the hallway, backtracking wasn’t a viable option. There was a classroom door, positioned about halfway between us and the slowly encroaching Dweller, but at best that would only buy us a few extra minutes. The only way forward was through the still locked door that Ed was fucking around with.
“We need to stall it!” I yelled at the others. “Buy us some time and see if you can’t slow it down. This thing has a way of neutralizing offensive abilities, but maybe crowd control spells will work.”
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“With pleasure,” Temperance said, already grinning.
She squared her shoulders, thrust both hands forward and activated Puritanical Chains. Ghostly blue chains exploded from the floors and walls, their huge ethereal hooks sinking deep into the blubbery rolls of Mr. Wiggles’ flesh. Those hooks would hold the monster in place, but they didn’t deal any direct damage—not by themselves. Jakob had a similar crowd control ability called Quantum Entanglement, which likewise conjured a field of dancing quantum strings, capable of temporarily rooting an enemy target in place.
Mr. Wiggles let out a mewling noise as he fought against the dual spells.
For a long moment, I thought the magic would hold… then, jagged cracks appeared in the spectral links of Temperance’s chains. Those cracks grew and spread, forming large zigzagging fissures then, all at once, Temp’s chains and Jakob’s quantum strings just vanished. Dispelled as another message flashed in the corner of my eye.
Mr. Wiggles has activated Hall Pass, dispelling all movement inhibiting ability and effects for the next five minutes. You should know better than to pick a fight with an Overseer inside its own lair, doofus.
Damnit. Not only could we not slow this pale turd down, Mr. Wiggles was actually picking up steam—moving faster and faster like a locomotive coming up to full speed. He was less than fifty feet away now and we were quickly running out of time.
“What the hell is taking so long,” I shouted at Ed, still keeping one eye on the encroaching Mr. Wiggles. “Picking one of those locks isn’t exactly rocket science.”
“It’s stuck,” he growled in reply. “I’ve picked locks just like this one a dozen times and I’ve never had this kind of issue. It might be magically reinforced,” he admitted after a moment.
A magic lock. That gave me an idea.
“Move.” I shoved him aside and took his place in front of the door. “You pick locks like old people screw.”
I pulled free an Artifact from my personal storage—one I’d picked up at the prize counter in the Jungle Gym Jamboree called the Quantum Skeleton Key. The key only had three charges and though I was reluctant to burn one here, I was even more reluctant to discover what the inside of Mr. Wiggles digestive track looked like. The Artifact was any locksmith’s wet dream since it could open almost any lock, with only a handful of exceptions. Assuming the door wasn’t rigged with an Arcane Seal, the Skeleton Key should do the trick.
It worked by shifting between possible realities until it found one where the lock in questions was already open, then it would duplicate that status.
The Artifact resembled an old timey skeleton key and though the head was too big, it promptly shrunk to fit inside the tiny hole that served as an access point to the locking mechanism. The moment I slipped the key into place it buzzed in my hand, growing uncomfortably warm, then the lock clicked open. It was the work of seconds. I yanked the key free and stashed it in my toolbelt, then stole a look over one shoulder. The creature was less than twenty feet away and lumbering toward us like the Juggernaut.
Ed thrust both hands forward and conjured an illusionary wall of solid brick, forged from hardened light. Mr. Wiggles crashed through it like the Kool-Aid man. It didn’t slow him down even for a second—though Ed dropped to the ground with a cry of pain, grabbing at his head with both hands. Ed’s health bar dipped sharply, and blood flowed from both nostrils in twin streams while more leaked from the corner of his eyes. I’d experienced a similar effect several times when pushing my psychic abilities too far.
Jakob rushed forward and scooped the Delver up as though he weighed nothing at all and unceremoniously tossed Ed over his shoulder like a bag of concrete.
Mr. Wiggles continued to advance, undeterred.
Less than ten feet…
We needed more time.
I sent Drumbo charging forward, knowing there was an extremely good chance the Horror wouldn’t survive the encounter. Without hesitation, Drumbo attacked, his angle grinder hand thrust forward like a lance. The Horror leapt into the air and slammed into Mr. Wiggles with the force of a wrecking ball. For the first time, the unstoppable Eldritch worm slowed. Drumbo hacked at Mr. Wiggles’ face, aiming for the eyes while desperately attempting to avoid the monstrosity’s enormous, sucking maw.
That was a lost cause.
A pale fleshy tongue, capped by a large hand, extended from the worm’s mouth.
The hand struck lightning fast like a coiled viper, wrapping around one of Drumbo’s legs before slowly reeling him inward. Drumbo slashed at the grasping arm-tongue with the angle grinder, but the blade just wasn’t strong enough to cut through the limb. Drumbo’s legs disappeared into the maw and his health bar began to drop. The Horror never stopped fighting, though, not for a minute.
I took a deep breath and slammed my weight against the door handle praying the Quantum Key had worked. For one terrifying moment, the door resisted. Stuck. Then it groaned and swung outward, dumping me into a nondescript concrete stairwell.
“Move your asses!” I screamed, holding the door open.
There was an enormous slurping noise and when I glanced back up the hall, most of Drumbo had vanished into the worm’s mouth. Only the Horror’s head and shoulders were still visible. Drumbo’s health bar was strobing an angry red—warning, warning, warning—and he didn’t have long for this world. My faithful minion was badly damaged, but so long as I didn’t let his HP bottom out completely, I could still salvage him once I got back to the store.
As the others barreled into the stairwell with Mr. Wiggles only a few feet behind, I recalled what remained of Drumbo and bolted in last, pulling the door shut behind me.
Well… I tried to pull the door shut behind me.
Several flailing arms snaked into the hallway before the door could properly close and latch.
“Help me!” I screamed, even as I threw my bodyweight against the door, fruitlessly attempting to keep Mr. Wiggles from following us into the stairwell. Croc and Synthia joined me, but even with the combined strength of all three of us, we weren’t a match for the sheer bulk of Mr. Wiggles. Temp, who was light enough to be carried off by a strong gust of wind, didn’t bother with the door at all. Instead, she immediately began hacking at the waggling arms with her cleaver.
Her weapon bit deep into the Dweller’s skin and black gore flowed out, splashing against the ground and walls. It wasn’t enough, though. Not even her Butcher’s Cleave ability gave her enough raw power to carve all the way through the reinforced bones running through the flailing arms.
“Kleiner Hase,” Jakob thundered, “use this!”
A glimmering blue sapphire the size of my fist arced gracefully through the air, catching the ambient florescent lights from the stairwell as it flipped end over end.
Temp stashed her cleaver and snagged the gem with dexterous fingers, attaching the jewel to her wrist in a single fluid motion. She slapped her palm against the stone and summoned Jakob’s trademark plasma shield, then slammed the bottom edge down sharply against the arms blocking the door. There was a sharp sizzle followed by the aroma of burning meat. Unlike her cleaver, the shield sheered through the grasping limbs like a hot knife through a pad of butter.
A pair of grasping toddler arms hit the floor with wet, meaty thumps and the door finally slammed closed, clicking in place. The problem was, the door didn’t lock from this side and without access to the metal push bar, there was no way to properly secure it. Not long term. It was possible we could jam the thing, but I had my doubts.
Mr. Wiggles was screeching bloody murder from the other side and already the metal door was bowing inward. It wasn’t going to hold for long, and though I found it hard to believe Mr. Wiggles could actually squeeze his bulk through the doorway itself, hope was a terrible strategy. Clearly, there was no way we could beat the powerful Dweller in a fair fight which left me with only a single option—though one I was loathed to use.
I’d leveled up several times since arriving on the twenty-fourth floor, and even though I hadn’t yet visited a Progenitor Monolith to upgrade my Stats, there were a few additional benefits that came from my rapid progress.
Most notably, my Blanket Fort ability was partially tied to my Variant Assimilation Level. I earned an additional 2,500 square feet of Blanket Fort space for each new level and I also gained an additional Doorway Anchor for every two levels. I accessed my Subspace Storage System, via the “On-the-Go” Portal, and quickly scanned through my inventory until I found what I was looking for: a whole mess of shiny, new Doorway Anchor Plates.
The thought of connecting this god-forsaken floor to my storefront in any way was mortifying, but right now the need to survive outweighed my revulsion.
I pulled free one of the newly minted anchors—it looked like a simple black rectangle of plastic with the words Discount Dan’s Backroom Bargains scrawled across the front in white lettering—and slapped it against the door. There was a brief flash of light followed by a pulse of mana, and then everything went silent. I could no longer hear Mr. Wiggles, and the fervent banging had ceased altogether.
That was because the stairwell door no longer existed.
These doors only worked one way. With the anchor plate in place, we could now access the door from our side, but there would be nothing on the other side. From Mr. Wiggles’ perspective, the stairwell entry would’ve simply vanished. Here one moment, gone the next like some sort of magician’s trick. His prospective meal forever out of reach—at least so long as the doorway anchor stayed in place. Eventually, I planned to come back here and reclaim the anchor, but I wouldn’t be able to do that for at least twenty-four hours.
I was hoping Mr. Wiggles would be long gone by the time that happened. As powerful as the Dweller was, the enormous worm didn’t seem particularly intelligent, and I doubted he would mill around in an empty hallway indefinitely. Eventually, Mr. Wiggles would move on to find his next meal.
“Well, that was an epic shitshow,” I said, running a hand through my hair, which I immediately regretted since it was still covered in gore.
God, I needed a shower. And a chance to run a load of laundry.
“What the hell just happened?” Ed said, approaching the door with obvious trepidation. He licked his lips and squinted his eyes as he studied the plaque. His fingers brushed against the door, and he froze in obvious shock. “You’ve got to be shitting me,” he said as he read over the message that everyone saw when they touched one of my doors for the first time.
It was my welcome message, followed by a list of store rules.
Even though I couldn’t see the words myself, I knew exactly what they said.
Welcome to Discount Dan’s Backroom Bargains. Need supplies, food, Artifacts, Relics, or just a safe place to lay your head for a few hours? You’ve come to the right place. We’ve got a little bit of everything and offer all of it for a fair price.
But—and read this part carefully—if you Fuck Around with me, my employees, or my store I guarantee you will Find Out. Or as my grandad would say, “sow the wind, reap the whirlwind.” This is a neutral space, so whatever problems you have with other Delvers or Dwellers, that shit stays outside my store. Follow the rules and you’ll be fine. Don’t and you’re gonna regret it.
1. Don’t STEAL, or I’ll dropkick your ass into the sun.
2. Don’t harass store Employees. Seriously. They will END you.
3. Don’t damage store property or I will personally feed you to the Mobile Murder Muncher in the Loot Arcade.
4. DON’T BE A DICK. You might be surprised how far not being a dick will take you in life.
5. Discount Dan’s is Neutral Territory. All are welcome here, EXCEPT for the Aspirants of the Skinless Court.
6. All Aspirants of the Skinless Court can go suck an entire bag of dicks.
— Discount Dan
Well shit. Despite my best efforts to keep the store a secret, it seemed the cat was officially out of the bag.