“Alright, let’s see if this works.” Darryl said, holding up the ramshackle attempt at a weapon.

The Toad Cudgel remotely resembled a baseball bat, granting a proper handle to hold but not really feeling balanced or that good at whacking stuff. They had taken the Kobold Flail, a Mad Max looking abomination of chain and spikes with a handle too short even for Ben to hold without the pinky grabbing air, and twisted its long spiked chain around the cudgel before securing it by hammering in the crude darts. The small spiked flail ball itself was somewhat secured at the top of the bat to give it more reach, but he could see it wobble with every movement.

The weapon still looked more dangerous to himself than whomever he’d face with it, but at least it no longer felt terrible. If it didn’t work though, they might as well toss the weapons.

“And… swing!” Darryl said, making a slow baseball player swing to test out the bat. He heard some creaking, but the chains held.

“Decent attack. Again with a bit more force.” Darryl said. He swung harder, about as hard as one might try to swing at a foe, and the bat held. He took out the trophy knife and used its butt to ram one of the darts a bit further in.

“Moment of truth…” Darryl said, swinging at the cubicle with all his might. The cubicle shattered and he felt the darts give way a bit.

New Achievement! Novice Crafter!

You’ve managed to build something that doesn’t immediately fall apart upon use! It’s shit, and grants no special benefits! You do know there’s a deadline to these floors, right?

Reward: You just made something yourself, that’s your ‘reward’ right there.

Darryl looked at the bat, which suddenly felt a bit more stable. The morning star wasn’t wobbling any more, and one of the biggest tears in the wood seemed almost as if it had retracted and pulled taut around the dart.

More noticeably though, it only had one transparent description dot instead of several.

Gabe’s Spiky Whacking Stick

Made by one of the last twenty survivors from a group of eighty, Gabe and friends did better by combining the bronze box weapons of their fallen friends into slightly better weapons. Dubbed as Gabe Frankenstein, he made a bunch of weapons for improved survival including the Spiky Whacking Stick you’re holding now. You whack something, and it pierces instead! For some reason your species thinks this would work great against zombies, which makes no sense at all.

This is a crawler invention, making one yourself results in an appropriate royalty of your funds being retracted and granted to the inventor.

Special notice: Gabe Frankenstein has perished before getting an owner or sponsor, and you have not yet gained access to the gold system. Royalty fee rescinded.

Darryl gave the bat to Thomas, who looked at it but then shook his head no. He didn’t see any added boosts or skills to it either, but held on to it all the same. The quarterstaff appeared rather frail and his mana pool was still shallow, he needed something else for bashing lowly foes with.

Ben was still picking up stacks of paper and putting them in his infinite storage space, and Darryl joined him in the endeavour again. Half the gecko boss room paper was gone now, and they’d scoured the place for useful stuff before starting on that monumental task.

Only the now naked corpses of the boss and interns remained, Ben took even the blood-soaked clothes they wore. They had all agreed to leave the Greek crawlers dressed as a base courtesy, but Ben was wearing the top hat to cover his tiara and Darryl had taken the gloves that the woman was wearing before.

Habrein’s Greedy Gloves were an uncommon item, allowing the wearer to summon the last thing they held back into their hand and adding +1 Dex. Okay by themselves and not enough to save Nephele from getting killed, but a great boon for Darryl’s javelin which lacked the return feat itself.

Uncommon referred to their rarity, a distinction that Thomas could apparently make. It was the lowest rarity, second only to the usually common bronze box loot and ordinary surface stuff. If someone would bring a regular handgun, it would register as an uncommon or rare item.

The Greek crawlers had been carrying a bit more stuff in their inventories, except the old lady whose inventory had never been unlocked. Just some more bronze box starter loot, which they’d taken.

The paper stacks kept disappearing as they slowly worked their way through, lifting about half a metre of stack at a time and carefully balancing it for four seconds before it could be placed in the inventory. Rather than add a stack each piece of paper was added to their inventory individually, so it didn't matter how big the stack they looted was.

The symbols had apparently been Korean, not some alien language, and Thomas told them that it was mostly just a random collection of papers from various Korean companies. They took it all regardless. No reason not to, even after finding out that the cubicles were welded together in groups of eight and thus impossible to lift even without the mass of paper on them. Who knew what tons of paper might be useful for in the foreseeable future?

“Alright, I cleared out another file cabinet!” Thomas shouted over his shoulder.

Darryl grunted and headed over, grabbing the cabinet and lifting it up with a grunt. Walking to a more open spot of the office, he held it above his head and threw it down as hard as he could. The cabinet disappeared into his inventory just before it hit the ground, and he traded it with Ben.

“We’ve got more rats!” Ben shouted from the other side.

The teen made one of the rats disappear into his inventory, and consequently killed it immediately, as Darryl and Thomas rounded the corner. The xp trickle was negligible, but they still saw it appear in their peripheral.

Two more rats snarled and turned to them, and Thomas whacked one with his improvised bat. Darryl picked up the other one, and the furiously snarling rodent disappeared a few moments later.

It was a rather easy and humane way of killing them, an obvious exploit that Volos had mentioned during the tutorial and which Ben immediately tried out after leaving the guild.

It worked quite well against the sheep too, though amongst the three of them only Darryl could lift those up without holding them against his body for support. Their wool made for easy handholds and they turned into their real form somewhere during the four seconds he had to hold them up.

Then he grabbed a Sheedle, which had several razor-sharp needles hidden just underneath the wool to surprise punching and kicking adventurers, and the sheep-carrying stopped.

“Here.” Thomas said, handing Darryl the bat.

“No good?” Darryl asked. The bat was now bloody, but it still seemed functional.

“You get a bronze box for killing something with a self-made item.” Thomas said.

“Ah, right. Ben, save me a rat!” Darryl said, taking the bat. Achievement-repeating was a basic strategy, and they had already discussed how to replicate the boss-related ones that Darryl got before. The duplicating reward was impossible to attain now, but several others were not.

Darryl struck at the last rat and its head caved in easily while the green blip above its head immediately turned grey.

New Achievement! Desperate Duct Tape Artist!

You’ve attacked something with a weapon you made yourself in the dungeon, and the weapon didn’t explode in your face! You’re better than an alarmingly high percentage of your peers!

Reward: You’ve got a Bronze Construction Box, and the fun fact that we find 4.3452% an alarming rate for a supposedly intelligent and cautious race!

New Achievement! Novice battle-smith!

You’ve killed something with a weapon you made yourself in the dungeon! While that’s just basic Crawler skill 101 right there, you still deserve something for it. Just to get you to stop using junk in our dungeon.

Reward: You gained a Bronze Construction Box! It might’ve been a silver box if you killed something worthwhile with it, but bronze is already too good for a rat. A fucking rat. We should’ve given you nothing at all, you wuss.

“I got two bronze boxes for killing something with an improvised weapon I made myself.” Darryl said, unperturbed by the accompanying text of his new achievements. He had gotten used to them by now. “And the hint that we get better stuff for killing serious foes with the first kill.”

“In that case you shouldn’t get those achievements yet, Ben. We’re not sure if you can get the achievements of your own weapon if you already got the one I just got.” Thomas said.

Ben nodded, and stepped out to see if there were more rats coming. He then returned inside and started looting paper stacks again.

A few minutes later, the boss room was reduced to an empty husk of cubicles and blood, everything else looted. Even the broken coffee machine.

With that taken care of, they turned their attention to the revealed area they gained after looting the lady gecko’s neighbourhood map. The party wandered over to nearest gathering of red dots and took them out.

Well, Ben and Thomas took them out while Darryl mostly drew fire. As he was already level 6 the moment he stepped into the tutorial guild, the other two needed to level to catch up. Ben had leeched some experience from Darryl by being in the same party during the boss fight, so he started at lvl2 halfway to three. And Thomas hadn’t encountered much besides rats before finding a guild, putting him at lvl1 when he joined them.

Both were third level now, and Ben levelled up again when they took out the group of strange floating squid-brains that Darryl had given a wide berth before. They screeched incorporeal arrows that ignored Darryl’s kite shield to deal mental damage and Stun, which allowed three or more of them to continuously barrage someone into an endless combo of perma-stun, but they were too squishy to prove much of a threat against more than one foe.

Not when Ben stealth-killed one in a single strike, despite there being no backstabbing proc against creatures without a back. While Thomas and Darryl distracted and dispatched two more, Ben jumped at the last one as if he was dunking an invisible basketball. The cabinet Darryl gave him appeared in his hands and rammed itself straight into the brain squid’s head with all the momentum Darryl put on it before. The squid pretty much exploded into goo.

After a short breather Darryl picked up the cabinet, now slick with brain goo, and threw it at the floor again before once again pocketing it and sending it into Ben’s inventory. That items maintained their momentum after being stored sure had some great uses.

Darryl paced to quickly catch up with the other two that advanced while he did that. Beyond the encounter was the reason they chose to go this direction first: A large circular room in the web of otherwise straight corridors that the neighbourhood map revealed, which turned out to be a large spiral staircase.

Staircases to the second level have not yet been activated, and will remain dormant until the premiering of Dungeon World in 21 hours and 49 minutes.

“It has only been nine hours, then? Feels longer.” Thomas said.

“I feel the opposite. Can’t believe it’s been less than half a day.” Darryl said.

“I get that. You did a lot more than Ben and me combined before we even met.” Thomas immediately conceded. “Given that, would you like to go to sleep? I’m not tired yet, but I can definitely understand if you are.”

Ben looked at Darryl with a similar worried and supportive look, and Darryl smiled. “Thanks guys, but I’m fine. I’m not doing any of the fighting, anyhow. Let’s grind a bit more before we tuck in.”

“Right, then we should probably clear the hallways between here and the nearest safe rooms from mobs.” Thomas said.

“Not sure if that will help.” Ben said. “Seems like the rats spawn endlessly, and mobs are appearing from beyond the fog of war every once in a while.”

“Ah, perceptive. Hadn’t noticed that yet.” Thomas said, studying his minimap. “A few seem to be wandering in this general direction, though I’m not too worried. Bad Llamas don’t sound like a very big deal.”

“Yeah, probably just a different form of those sheep. Kinda lame if you ask me.” Ben said. “But they’re right around the corner, so we might as well.”

“Ben, follow the plan.” Darryl said as Ben started to wander in the llamas’ direction.

“Really?” Ben sighed, but he complied and got behind Darryl before fading into the shadows.

New enemies, new caution. They’d decide whether the enemies were negligible after fighting them, but before that they’d take things slow and cautious. That meant Ben didn’t stealth ahead or split from the group to flank the mob.

Being both the tank and the highest level amongst them, Darryl would take the mob’s aggression headfirst with his shield. It hadn’t worked that well against the squid things, which ignored his defences, but it would work most of the time and it would avoid Ben getting wrecked by stealth-immune foes or traps.

Not to mention, Volos told them crawler-mob diplomacy was possible, which was a lot easier when introducing oneself behind a shield than with a knife to the back.

“If you can understand me, we mean you no harm.” Darryl said when they neared the corner. The red dots were just around it, and stopped briefly when he spoke up.

Then they picked up the pace, and the next moment Darryl found himself face to face with lava flung straight at his face.