It had been several weeks since we had originally reached F73 and everyone had made incredible progress. Guilty Code was ready to face the 70th floor boss, so we built our dream team. Guilty Code seemed more than capable and even attempted to “solo” several battles (using his own spawn as cannon fodder).

You see, G.C. or Gu1ltyC0d3 whatever you wish to call him; He was not of this world. He had been the victim of a childhood disease which required special augmentations. He must have been of a wealthy family, or perhaps just lucky. Because it seemed he was the only one of his people to end up like him.

  He told me his story. About how when the spawning began his world was ravaged. Every organic life form was assimilated by the spores. The plants became incubation chambers for the next dusting, and the insects formed mobile incubation chambers. Frighteningly, the molecule responsible for the metamorphosis would recreate the host organism. Only with the singular purpose of spreading to unfamiliar organic entities.

  His people were lost. Replaced by mindless green skinned twisted versions of their former selves. That’s where his childhood disease came in; The disease ravaged his nervous system. So he had an artificial one installed. (Now, at the time of writing this I have a much greater grasp on the type of technology involved in the creation of this process…. In fact I know much more about his past as well. I don’t know how other people do it but I’d like to keep my autobiography a little interesting for readability anyway so I’m going to tell the story from the point of view of a younger version of myself, thanks.)

  So as I was saying; G.C.’s nervous system was crafted from non-organic material. Therefore, unaffected by the assimilation of the mysterious “spore-pocolypse”. Instead, when his world was decimated, and his flesh changed, his mind was left untouched. He wasn't willing to reveal very much about that step of his journey, but he did fill me in on what happened next.

  Once G.C. had come to terms with the extension of his race he began to see the benefit of having an entire world to himself. Of course there were hoards of mindless humanoid monstrosities swarming the cities. But Guilty’s people had developed miraculous levels of machinery, machines so small that they could not be seen by the naked eye! They had machines that used electricity instead of moving parts. That could actually learn!

  So after many, many…. MANY! Years spent dwelling in his fallen empire, he decided to leave. He built machines and contraptions far beyond my understanding, insistent on his independence of magic. As in: “non-magic”. I never believed him and naturally assumed he depended on yet another unknown form of mana or chi.

  Oh, but it gets better! *rubbing hands together, then cracking knuckles*. Get this; He reached space. He left his world, completely independent from the fucking planet he was born on! And that’s not even all! He was attacked by some kind of inter-galactic? Inter-Dimentional? … “Protectors”? They had sterilised his homeworld and found evidence of his existence. They tracked him down, thinking he was a potential threat to balance in the universe. His.. Space-Boat? … *clears throat* (*wink*) … His “Spacecraft” was so advanced, so overabundant with force-fields, and armour, and redundancy systems with self-repair modules, and counter-measures? And a half-a-dozen other words I can’t remember and/or couldn’t even pronounce when I could… Anyway, what I’m trying to say is: He was a difficult entity to annihilate.

  He managed to establish contact with the attackers, “The Order” I think? And he explained his situation to them. They were quite reasonable and even worked with him to find a way to deactivate his involuntary spore reflex type thing I guess? ((*laughing at my own stupidity* This is fun, I hope you’re not cringing too hard *more laughing*))

A case of literary theft: this tale is not rightfully on Amazon; if you see it, report the violation.

  So I’m not clear on all of the details here but G.C. and The Order had a falling out and he bailed…. Pretty sure he bailed right the fuck out of his god damned home-universe! This motherfucker stuck himself in a bloody… “Time bubble” as an escape pod! And that’s where I found him!

  No wait… He came too close to Denisea and was shot down, and that's where I found him. (I’ve lived a long time, there are a LOT of details to keep track of…. Did I mention this is my 1st draft? *forced laughter*)

  I’m pretty sure he was a slave, and that he was used in gladiator battles or something. But those drinking stories are perhaps for another time.

  So when I say this guy was a “badass”; That’s top tier, elite, bonafide, total badass. His grunts had no regard for their own lives. And they lived only to serve him, in any way possible. So naturally, we chose him for our ultimate team.

  Next was Lucretcia, not only because she refused to let me go without her, or the sheer undeniable strength of her support magic. Not even the fact that she had been wielding the sword that hosted the very palace above the ancient ruined remains of the old kingdom and the dungeon gifted to their forsaken people in ages past. No none of these reasons, but something I’ll come back to shortly.

  Lady Darkrose goes without saying, and Murgil…. Murgil, I was saving this for later but I guess I should cover it eventually. You see… I feel like I’m over using that phrase but I can’t help myself; For Murgil Woulfgang was.. Or.. Is, one of the chosen ones, the same Murgil who I would team up with 400 and something years later. But our relationship goes much deeper than that…

  Murgil was a purebred elf, of royal blood, on both sides. His father had founded the High-Elf kingdom a few hundred years ago. His mother however… Well, she was widowed around the same time. Murgil never filled me in on the details until quite a while later, but I did get the idea that it had something to do with the 4th kingdom. And whatever shot down G.C. when he arrived aeons ago. Murgil’s mother left both the high-elf kingdom, and the elven homelands as well. She found a place to grow old and die so that she could reunite with her husband… But that plan wouldn’t go as expected, because the place she chose to spend the rest of her days was my home village. (Stop me if you see where this is going… Oh, obviously, you can’t do that. Well I’m really sorry to those of you who didn’t need this spelled out for you. But:) She spent hundreds of years alone but after meeting a hundred thousand men she met a man. A man so understanding that he didn’t even care that she wanted to spend her afterlife with another. She bore this man’s child, and became my mother.

  So obviously we had to take my half-brother with us. But we also wanted to take Dash… AND Lilith!

  Finally was, myself. The obvious problem was the limitation of members within the dungeon at one time. Luckily we found several methods of exploiting our unique abilities. We played with entering pocket dimensions, or dropping our soul-home and ejecting people to and from other pocket dimensions. But some ideas are brilliant in their simplicity. As I have previously alluded to; One of these methods involved Lucretcia. Who was able to use her new found powers to disperse her physical body and reinhabit the amulet once known as Luseal. Using this trick we were able to bring in a “6th-man” by simply having her manifest after we’ve entered the first floor (we had to repeat these exploits after entering each lobby floor as well, but that’s almost an unnecessary detail).

  The 7th-man involved Lilith’s newest form. Unfortunately I did have to sacrifice my katana, but it seemed cruel to continue to use her in the way we had… The way I did. She was an empathetic sovereign entity after all. So Guilty Code actually helped her construct the perfect body. I kind of felt like he was stealing one of my girls at first, but it was clear that Lady Darkrose and I were beginning to have eyes for no other, so I guess I was just getting used to the idea of losing a companion… And a sword… But that son-of-a-bitch G.C. pretty much ate my sword and infected himself with Lilith’s presence, Hosting his corporeal form using his own bizarre subsystems. Allowing her to piggyback his slot in on our team.