After looting everything but the rapper’s self-made rap cd’s, the party followed the llama they managed to befriend. The llama, Solrac, seemed almost eager to take them back to his camp and answer any question they asked.

It was very odd. The moment he stopped being hostile, Solrac had completely changed in demeanour. Even the clear pain that he still felt from his left arm mangled by the cabinet attack didn’t seem to hamper his new helpfulness. Or how chatty the guy was.

The reason he was here, he explained, was because the llamas were moving into the gecko neighbourhood after Darryl killed their boss. They already expected as much, Volos said the monsters showed such migration behaviour during the boss map explanation. The local monsters stopped spawning after the boss died, and the mobs from surrounding neighbourhoods would creep in.

The group that Solrac had been a part of was one such advance party. Swoop in, find the surviving geckos and either sell them dope or kill them. Successfully taking over a neighbourhood like that would apparently improve their gear and living conditions in the next dungeon world, which raised some eyebrows but which the party decided to ignore for now.

They instead questioned the number of llamas and the specifics of their boss, and Solrac completely stonewalled those questions. There was no hostility in it, he just gave cheery but vague responses that told them little to nothing of strategic value.

The game apparently didn’t want them to know too much. They easily got the gang’s name from him, the Alpacolypse, led by one Raging Lil’ Amah. But other than his name and rumour of his legendarily bad mood, they got nothing.

Their territory had been marked in a way that was impossible to miss. The llamas painted crude symbols of a bovine skull on both walls where their domain began. There was also a bad llama lookout loitering there, glaring as they walked past but giving them nothing but a dismissive snort.

They saw a couple more groups of the llamas as they continued going deeper in, all of which appeared as white dots on their minimap.

Eventually they reached what appeared to be the main room of the gang, a large open space with a second large room accessible by only one door. They all knew that second room was going to be a boss room, and quickly agreed in the party chat to not enter it no matter what.

The first room was revealed to be just as dangerous, if not more so, by virtue of sheer numbers. The place was a trailer park of the trashiest kind, with several plumes of oddly coloured smoke suggesting that the llamas were cooking more of the previously looted meth around here. There were about a dozen llamas walking about, and no doubt another dozen hidden in the trailers. Most of them loitering, or skulking in the shadowy corners.

Interesting enough, there were also several geckos here. Most of them appeared dazed, status effect above their head and all, and few were still wearing all their clothes. The few that weren’t dazed were begging and grovelling for another hit.

Solrac ignored them as he took the party to one of the bigger llamas around. This guy was wearing a nondescript tanktop too, but unlike the rapper his was a size too small and showed off his chest muscles. They weren’t that impressive, as he had the unfortunate build that made his pecs poke out like boobs. His thickly furred muscular arms and strong jaw still sufficed to make this guy an intimidating presence.

Bad Llama Dealer, lvl7

Bad llamas are generally considered to be nothing but trashy criminal scum, of the irredeemable kind that is nothing but a burden on society. These guys cause the image, the Dealers see to it that no Llama can leave their neighbourhood without a criminal record or as a footnote on someone else’s. They get mothers addicted to ruin childhoods, and then pick up the kid for a bargain price by being the closest thing to an employer and mentor that they can hope for in these slums. They bully the other llamas into selling the meth for them and then take the lion’s share of the profits while they do nothing but build more muscle themselves.

“Got some new customers, Solrac?” The dealer snorted.

“Yeah!” Solrac said.

Stolen novel; please report.

“No.” Darryl said, inviting an annoyed look from the dealer while Solrac winced.

“First hit is free, kid.” The dealer gravelled, taking out a small bag of meth.

Darryl crossed his arms and shook his head no, but Ben put the bag in his inventory.

Ben: what? free stuff.

Darryl: Ben…

Ben: 2 sell ofc

“If you’re not here for our goods, then why are you crawlers trespassing here?” The dealer growled. “You better not be planning anything stupid.”

“Darryl here is apparently a really good rapper.” Ben said. “But I bet I’m even better.”

Darryl threw a warning glare at Ben and cleared his throat to draw the dealer’s attention back to him. “We heard that you floor mobs seek to take over other neighbourhoods, and we happen to be planning to take out a few of their bosses. What would it be worth to you to know exactly which neighbourhood would be up for grabs and when?”

The dealer smiled, revealing a row of yellow molars with tacky golden plating on some. “You think you can barter rewards from us for doing your job, kid? You’re going to kill those bosses anyway, why would we pay up for getting the scraps?”

“Because we can always go to your competitors.” Thomas said. “It would be a shame if they were to beat you to the punch every time, wouldn’t it?”

The dealer spat to the side, the phlegm of lava melting through a battered floor showing the llamas were used to doing that, and walked right into Thomas’s personal space. “Careful, kid. I’m in no mood to humour some cock-sucking crawlers trying to be witty.”

Thomas took a step back, clearly cowed a bit. “Alright, alright. Guess we’ll just leave, then.”

“No. If you want to deal, then we deal.” The dealer said. “You get me a neighbourhood, a good one that borders ours, and we might talk about putting a price on the next ones.”

“Darryl here killed the Corpora boss, does that one count?” Ben said.

The dealer spat to the side again, the lava impressively enough landing almost precisely on the same spot as the last time, and shook his head no. “You give us a heads up, or send a message that the boss is down within an hour after killing it. Anything short of that, and you’re giving us nothing we aren’t already taking.”

“Alright.” Darryl said. “We’ll be in touch.”

The dealer snorted again and waved them off. Solrac, who had quietly distanced himself from the big llama, returned to escort them out again.

Thomas: Are we really planning to help these guys?

Darryl: Not really. No trust, reward prob low.

Thomas: Yeah, we can probably find another intelligent faction that is more pleasant and deals in goods we can actually use. Don’t know if their chemicals will be of any use to us.

Ben: what if, listen, we give a neighbourhood to draw them away and attack those that stay? LOOT STUFF AND RUN!

Thomas: Perhaps. Not the first one, though, they’re bound to expect something like that from us initially.

Ben looked at one of the geckos, wearing nothing but filthy undies and holding up his hands in a begging gesture. After looking if there were any llamas watching, Ben held his hand above the cupped hands and a few items fell out his inventory.

Thomas: Uhm, Ben? Why did you have a spoon, an ash tray and a lighter?

Ben: TOOK IT!

Ben: cant steal from safe zones, training thieving here.

Thomas sighed heavily, and Darryl carefully glanced back to see if anyone was following them. Solrac fortunately appeared to be unaware of what happened behind him.

Ben: THEYLL THINK THE LIZARD STOLE IT! PERFECT CRIME!!!

Ben: tieving lvl1 now!

Ben: thieving*

Darryl: Don’t do that. We’d die if you were caught.

Ben: I WASNT!

Thomas: Don’t, though.

Ben sighed, but didn’t say anything.

“So, what now? Take down a boss?” Darryl said after a while, breaking the silence.

“We got quite a few boxes since the tutorial, which we should probably open first. Simple ones, but still.” Thomas said. “We can do that in a safe zone now. Actually, we should probably take a rest around. You must be getting tired.”

“Right.” Darryl said. “Safe zone it is.”

They said goodbye to Solrac and wandered back into the former Corpora territory. After returning to the stairwell they found before, the party found the nearest safe zone on the minimap and made a beeline towards it.

This new safe zone was a bar in what was once meant to be a run-down wild west style inn, only for time to bring authenticity to the run-down part. It smelled mouldy, and there was no Bopca behind the bar.

“Don’t worry.” Ben said. “I already checked it out in the other safe room before, the bedrooms don't share the safe room's theme. Those should be clean.”

“Good. I would’ve asked that we go to a different safe zone otherwise.” Thomas said.

“Shame that there won’t be any good food here, though.” Ben said. “That bopca was a great chef, and I sure know I ain’t.”

“Uh, guys?” Darryl said.

“Yeah?” Ben said, looking back as he was picking up the few bottles of booze left behind the bar and adding them to his inventory.

Darryl pointed at one of the screens, which were pristinely clean and immaculate, in sharp contrast with the rest of the place. “Isn’t that supposed to be 10?”

Rental Rooms currently available: 9

Rental Room price: 0 gold.

“I think we found another adventurer, guys.”