The personal space looked like an aircraft hangar sans aircraft. The roof was curved, held up by steel ribs, and it echoed as we walked in.

"Whoa," Carl said. "This is way bigger than I expected."

Before proceeding further, you must set the entrance to your personal space.

"I thought this was the personal space?" I said.

"It means your personal suite," Mordecai explained. "This is a liminal space, a common area shared between your personal spaces. We'll put the crafting studio and other rooms out here and the personal-use upgrades like the bed, shower, and so on go in your suite. Any upgrades that one of you buys will get duplicated across all personal spaces attached to this common area. If you met up with another party that had a personal space you could pay to conjoin their space on here and their upgrades would suddenly be duplicated into your spaces."

"What if they clash?" I asked. "Like, if we both have good beds, then—"

"Later," Carl said. "Let's get this place set up and worry about the details later." He gestured and a blue door appeared in the wall with 'Carl' above it in a blocky, workmanlike font.

Another door popped into existence next to Carl's, the words Princess Donut above it in very girly purple cursive.

A transparent door shimmered in front of me, the words Select location flashing on it. I looked at the space next to Carl's and mentally clicked. The door shot across the room, slapped itself onto the wall, and faded into solidity with my name above it in my own handwriting.

A translucent 3D schematic of a bathroom appeared in midair, a wireframe toilet and sink inside it. Donut waved a paw and the schematic shot across the room. A moment later there was a tiny room in the corner of the hangar. The sign above the door said Restrooms.

"That's for the common area," Mordecai said. "There's another one in your personal suite. It's bare bones until you buy the upgrades for it, which we did. Donut, you're team leader so you get to place the starting rooms."

More 3D schematics appeared and flew around the room, clicking into place against the walls as Donut assembled our space like a Lego toy. The Enhanced Crafting Studio took up a quarter of the floor space but only half of the vertical space. A bare-bones kitchen with a counter, a sink, cabinets, and a refrigerator appeared. A beige shag carpet, beat-up green couch, and several armchairs popped into existences to my left, with the familiar three screens from the saferooms above them. The center one said Welcome Home, the mockery of which sent a spike of fury through me.

Training Room upgrade available. You may apply this upgrade to this common area. If you disjoin your personal space from this common area then the Training Room upgrade will be returned to your library. See the 'Help' menu in the 'Personal Spaces' tab for more details.

The schematic hovered in front of me, an immense area that was currently clipping through the wall. I moved it into the far left corner and clicked Place. The room snapped into existence, taking up a third of the available space. The hangar was filling up fast.

There was a sharp snap from behind us as another door appeared next to Donut's. The sign over it said Manager.

"Thank the gods," Mordecai sighed. "No more sleeping on a cot. I'll have my own books, my own bed. Gods, I was not expecting that. Now I won't teleport to you when you walk into a saferoom—well, unless I'm outside. If I'm in here then you'll have to actually walk through the saferoom and into here."

"This place is accessible from any saferoom, right?" Carl asked.

"Yes, and also from places that aren't saferooms but give you the option to open loot boxes. You generally won't have trouble getting back here."

"Good."

I wandered over and into my new personal suite, shutting the door behind me and locking it. I put my back against the door with a sigh and felt my muscles relax. I was alone, I was safe, and there was a locked door between me and the rest of the world to ensure my privacy.

My personal suite was a studio apartment; the northwest corner held an Ultra-Stabilized, Size-Adjustable, Race-Adjustable Alleviating Sleep Apparatus, which looked a lot like a queen-sized bed with memory foam mattress and pillow, crisp dark blue sheets and pillowcases, and a shining white duvet. In the northeast corner a table lamp stood atop a desk and chair, both made from a buttery-yellow wood that I didn't recognize. The carpet was a molten sunset, starting off red by the door and fading to a soft orange at the far end. To my right, the bathroom door blended discreetly into the off-white wall. I slid it back and looked inside. The stand-up Super-Cleansing Bathing and Restoration Device was a shower with heads on three sides and on the ceiling, plus a factory-clean glass surround. The sink was a modern glossy black with chrome finish on the taps and faucet. A small closed-off area in the corner concealed a toilet/bidet combination built with futuristic angles and curves. The floor was heated tiles done in a mosaic of white and shades of grey. It was the sort of place you would see in a high-end hotel in a movie.

I gratefully stepped into the magic shower and turned it on scalding hot, leaning on the wall with one arm and my head down while the water beat down on me. The showerhead on the ceiling was emitting pulses that massaged away the knots across my shoulders and back, while the other two were a finer spray that kept all of me warm and filled the air with steam that cleared and rejuvenated my lungs. I stood there for two solid minutes, letting the water beat over me, and then straightened up with a sigh. As though sensing my desire, the water became soapy. I turned my face up into it, my eyes and mouth tight shut, but I could feel the water moving unnaturally. After a moment I opened them, looking directly into the spray with lips slightly parted. The soapy water refused to enter my mouth or eyes.

The soap stopped and the water shifted back to pulsing. With a thought I ejected the magical jerkin and other clothes that I had absorbed into my body's mass. The water promptly shifted again, getting all the dirt and stains out of them as I held them up and slowly turned them back and forth.

Once again, the shower sensed my desires. Once the clothes were clean the water shut off and warm air jets came on, pulling the water off of me in solid sheets that disappeared the moment they touched the walls. The jets shut off after a few seconds, leaving me and my clothes bone dry. I reequipped the clothes and they vanished back into me.

I stepped out of the shower onto the warm tiles and was promptly greeted with a system announcement.

New Achievement: Good Hygiene!

You are properly bathed and ready to be taken to the quarters of the Evil Overlord!

Reward: You now receive the Squeaky Clean bonus every time you use this shower. This buff adds 10% to your base stats for 30 hours.

I waved it away, paced back into the bedroom, flopped down on the bed, and was asleep almost before I pulled the sheet and duvet over me.

o-o-o-o

New achievement! Well-Rested!

You managed to sleep so well that you woke up feeling refreshed and full of energy. You are ready to take on the world and make some monster's mother cry because her only child was ruthlessly slaughtered by a bright-eyed and bushy-tailed Crawler.

Reward: You now receive the Good Rest bonus every time you sleep in this bed.

Good Rest buff applied! Physicality and psychology rebalanced, +10% to base stats for 30 hours! +10% bonus to experience and skill training for 30 hours!

I smiled and hopped out of bed. The AI was right; I was rested, restored, and feeling ready for anything. The dungeon wasn't going to keep me down!

The common area was empty, everyone else still in their rooms. I glanced into the empty, bare-walled Training Room and Enhanced Crafting Studio, then checked the kitchen for supplies. The cupboards were as bare as the cupboard from the nursery rhyme.

I went outside; I had plenty of food in my inventory but it was always good to stock up when you met a Bopca.

"Lady!" Wendita said, her face lighting up the moment I walked into the room. "Wendita has food for you!"

Stolen novel; please report.

Okay, didn't expect that.

"Thank you, Wendita," I said, walking over to the counter that she was busily covering in serving dishes produced from thin air.

"Was not sure what Princess Donut and her friends would like, so made a little of everything. This is for Grulke manager." She indicated several bowls of fried insects. "Wendita know his kind can't eat regular food. The rest is for others. You like?"

It was an amazing spread, including everything from hamburgers to rare ribeye steak with melted blue cheese to bountiful salads with nuts and cheeses and dried fruit to fish to noodles with various mixins to half a dozen soups.

"This looks amazing," I said sincerely. "Thank you, Wendita. This is very thoughtful."

The hairy little gnome woman made a dismissive gesture. "Wendita is rich because of Princess Donut and her friends. Made as much from you as normally makes in an entire season. Food is only way to show gratitude. Is there anything else you prefer? Wendita can get anything from Earth, make anything."

I thought about that. "Actually...this is a little odd, but can you make food that is not from Earth? Things that we could eat but that are traditional for other planets?"

She looked surprised. "Sure. There are many humans in the galaxy and many of the non-humans have compatible biology. Anything in particular you want?"

I gave her a smile and a shrug. "I don't know what's out there, so you pick. Just...nothing too spicy or weird, all right? No eyeballs, no tentacles. I get uncomfortable eating calamari."

She smiled back. "Wendita can do this. How long will you be here?"

"I'm not actually sure. Probably only another couple of hours...the others should wake up soon, we'll watch the recap show, and then we'll head out again."

She nodded. "Okay. No time to get new ingredients but Wendita can make you Bopca food and some Earth ingredients done in other planet's styles."

"Thank you very much, Wendita. You're a peach."

She hurried off into the kitchen, leaving me to stuff all the various dishes into my inventory.

Back in the personal space, no one was up yet so I stretched out on the couch and chatted with Hekla until Mordecai finally emerged. I signed off with Hekla and moved to the kitchen to lay out the food. Mordecai turned even greener when he saw what he was expected to eat.

Carl and Donut emerged, showered and groomed, from Donut's room just as I finished laying things out. Carl seemed surprised when I told him that Wendita had given it to us for free.

The recap show came on moments later, so we collected our plates and moved out to the sitting area to watch.

"The Iron Tangle!" the announcer said over a black screen. A point of light appeared in the center and zoomed towards us, enlarging and shifting to show a montage of trains and trainyards. The montage was strange, a mix of old and new, real and animated. It included both the TGV and Thomas the Tank Engine, as well as seesaw-pumped railcars from the 1800s. The montage played for several minutes, then shifted into a history of trains and subways. Once again it only showed the negatives—muggings, people urinating or masturbating, the Auschwitz death-camp trains and their terrified cargo, and so on.

"We need to set up a schedule," Mordecai said firmly, as soon as it became clear that the show was useless to us. "From now on you will sleep for two hours in the beds, apply your buffs—Carl, that means working on your feet. Katia, you'll need to brush Donut; she gets two points on her Constitution if she gets brushed for ten minutes, and she needs every point."

And of course I should be the one to do that, instead of her actual manager...No. Stop. Mordecai's body wasn't well suited for using a cat brush. He was being sensible, not presumptuous.

"After the buffs are up, you'll all use the Training Hall for an hour on a specified skill. You can only train one skill per day so I made a schedule." He leaned over and pulled a dry-erase board out from under the couch, turning it to show us a neat grid of columns that had our names, rows that had the day number, and cells that defined skills to work on. Mine said Catcher, Catcher, Axe.

Above us, the recap show stopped showing train information and froze on the word [Redacted].

"They're explaining it for the audience but not for us," Mordecai said. "That means it's a puzzle level instead of a straight combat level like you've had until now. Obviously, the first puzzle is how to get from here back down to the stairwell stations. There will be at least one more puzzle, perhaps something about the train lines moving around or some sort of progressive environmental hazard."

"It wasn't that far between stations," I said. "We could jog it pretty quickly if we could find a way to avoid the trains." It likely wouldn't be an issue for me; with a bit of practice I should be able to flatten out so thin that I'd be below the level of the tracks and I could simply let the train pass overhead. Donut was a cat so she probably wouldn't have trouble either. Mongo wouldn't be an issue; Donut had a magic cage that let her stuff Mongo into extradimensional space and she could put the cage into her inventory. Carl...Carl would have trouble.

"Trains come every 12-15 minutes according to the sign," he said. "We couldn't make it to the next station in that time."

"More importantly, Bor—the showrunners would never let it be that easy," Mordecai said with confidence. "If you try it, some other shoe will drop and you'll end up dead. No, you're going to have to beat this level on its own terms."

"Okay. Well, if it helps, Hekla and the Daughters had the same experience that we did, except they got here six hours earlier. They started off on the purple line, on a train filled with monsters, and they started right before station 81. Now they're on the indigo line heading up to 127. They haven't seen any sign of the red, yellow, or Nightmare lines."

"That's interesting," Carl said. "So different lines will have the same number system, and stop 83 is a transfer station for each of them."

"I bet it's the ones without color names that go down," Donut said. She'd finished her fish, but it'd come with little potato things she didn't like and was pushing them off her plate and into Mongo's waiting mouth. "We should go on the Nightmare line to see where it goes."

Carl grimaced, clearly not keen on the idea, and turned to Mordecai. "What about you? When you first got here, you said you were at a different train station. Do you remember the names?"

"Yeah," Mordecai said. "I wrote it all down. It was station number 317 and the two smaller trains were the yellow and emerald line. The big one was called the Misery."

"Charming," Carl said. "We should probably start charting this out. Do you have another one of those dry erase boards?"

"One more, in my room," he said. "And plenty of paper, including a roll of butcher paper. I'll note it all down and see what I can figure out. So far we have the yellow line in common, so that's something. Talk to your friend Brandon and figure out where he is. As soon as you come across any other crawlers, get all the info you can from them."

"And now it's time for the top-10 list!" the announcer said, reappearing.

He went through one by one, listing off each of the names, explaining their classes and races, and showing a short highlight reel of their time in the dungeon.

Speaking of highlights... I checked my social numbers.

Views: 15 Trillion

Followers: 10 Billion

Favorites: 873 Million

That was an extra five trillion views and double the number of followers from what I'd had when we arrived on this level half a day ago. Why had they jumped so much? I hadn't done anything particularly interesting since arriving on this level. I had fought a few monsters (badly), looted, came here, bought the personal space, took a...

Oh.

Apparently a shower scene was worth five billion followers. I hadn't even been visibly naked. I had still had the same 'tracksuit-wearing' appearance I normally did, it had simply been plastered down to my skin.

Distracted by my social numbers, I had missed the top-10 list after numbers one and two, Lucia Mar and Hekla respectively. Fortunately, I knew that Donut would have every detail memorized.

Hello, Crawlers. Welcome to the fourth floor!

We are so very excited to introduce you to what is being hailed a genius feat of engineering. We call it the Iron Tangle. The trick is to find the stairwells. There are a lot of them out there, but where? Let's see how many of you figure it out.

This is important. This is not a permanent change, but it is a new rule for this level only. You may not go down early this level. The stairwells will open six hours prior to collapse, and that's it. Again, you may not go down early this floor. Now have fun out there. These train things are so nifty. We never had anything like it on our world.

Benefactor bidding is active, and we are very happy with the results so far. You will get a notification when your bidding has concluded. We'll have more info on that later.

You will notice that the leaderboard has finally populated. Congratulations to everybody on the list. As you can see, each member of the top 10 has a bounty after their names. That means hunting season is open! Isn't that exciting? If you kill one, you will receive a loot box containing the reward. If you are on the leaderboard, don't worry, you get to join in on the fun, too. If you survive the floor, you will receive 10% of your own bounty upon floor collapse. The reward goes up each floor.

Finally, we'd like to address the especially high mortality rate of the third floor. This occurred due to a high instance of group quests gone bad. While the number of crawlers are still in the acceptable range, we are all concerned about early extinction. That does not mean we will be letting up. So quit sucking. It's as simple as that.

Now get out there, ride the rails, and kill, kill, kill!

"Quit sucking?" I said. "Is that a joke?"

"Do you really think people are going to hunt us for our bounty?" Donut asked. "I don't like the idea of not being able to trust people. It gives me anxiety."

"That's evil," I said. "They're incentivizing us to kill each other."

Mordecai nodded without looking away from the screen. "They do that. It makes for good TV."

"Oh. Oh no," Carl said. His face went pale and he slid off his seat and onto the floor.

"Carl?" Donut asked.

"Jesus Christ," he said, gasping. His breathing was fast and shallow and his face was crumpling in grief.

Donut jumped down into his lap and rubbed against his chest, butting her head underneath his chin. He clutched onto her but the gesture was purely automatic, his arms moving without his brain telling them to.

"What is it?" Donut asked again.

"Brandon is dead," he said, still staring into the middle distance. "He sent me a message as he died. He wants me to tell Chris that he loves him and he was sorry he never said it. That he's sorry they got in a fight and he drove Chris off."

"Who are Brandon and Chris?" I whispered to Mordecai.

"Members of a party named Meadow Lark," he replied softly. "Carl and Donut met them back on the first floor. They were a handful of staff from an old folks' home plus a couple dozen of the residents. Brandon and Chris were the maintenance guys and Carl bonded with both of them. The staff managed to get the whole group down to the third floor where they chose new races which got rid of their dementia and infirmity. Apparently they all got Legendary boxes for not having killed or even damaged anything on the first two floors, so the group is now badass."

Carl got up, fists clenched so tight that his spiked gauntlet shimmered into existence. He grief was gone, transmuted to anger as he stalked to the training room.

"You need to apply your buffs first," Mordecai called.

"Fuck off, Mordecai," he snarled, slamming the door behind himself.

Donut was perched on the back of the couch, tail wrapped around herself as she stared after her partner. She mewled in wordless feline grief and worry.