One of the closing gates split a weird pig-man clean in half. The sign over the line he was in said, "Tusklings only. No toys."

  I stood, looking around in confusion. I'd assumed it was a trap, but I thought I'd be able to run away, as I had run from everything so far. Ahead of me, the soil began to churn, which is the first time I, in my obliviousness, realized that the room's floor was rich, dark soil, the sort that farmers would kill for. In addition to the lack of a stone floor, the ceiling was much higher, a jagged dome of stalactites, fifty feet overhead.

  The dirt stilled, then a huge worm burst forth, the ground vibrating. I wondered if it was roaring. It's body ended in a huge maw that was stretched wide, but it was also just a simple earthworm, grown to gargantuan propotions.

  Everything froze. I couldn't move. Silence held. Words appeared in front of me and stayed, unlike the achievements that I'd been so habitually dismissing I never saw them anymore.

  You have discovered the lair of a Borough Boss! Ladies and—

  A voice sounded, inside my head, audible despite my broken sound-processor. Holy shit, you're deaf. Eh, nobody's watching your boring-ass feed anyways. I'll just start over.

  The voice became a deafening announcer voice, with the faint hint of static you get when real loudspeakers were being used, even though this was all obviously in my head.

  B-B-B-Boss Battle!

  You have discovered the lair of a Borough Boss! Ladies and Gentlemen, it is time for the main event! Are you ready? Can you feel it coming? I SAID ARE YOU READY? I want you to put your hands together. Aaaand here. We. Gooooo!

  My mugshot, looking slightly terrified and very confused, shot into my view. Below the picture, it said, "Crawler Madison Pomegranate, Level 1.

  So, I was still level 1. There was probably a way to check that, if I could make sense of the interface.

  The word Versus slammed into the middle of my sight, and then a mugshot showing the exact same angle of the worm I was already looking at appeared opposite myself.

  Glory - Level 21 Regurgitating Worm Burough Boss

  Before this inexperienced idiot gets devoured, let's consider the simple earthworm. It tunnels beneath the fields, enriching the soil so that crops can grow. Then, some idiot spills a bunch of toxic sludge and figures they can just bribe the authorities and never clean it up.

  Glory here was being her peaceful self, digging through the dirt and looking for a partner to mate with. Any partner would do, as earthworms are hermaphroditic. But Glory's hope of shagging the brains out of some other worm were ruined forever by the chemicals dumped into the soul.

  So instead, she devours people. Hey, you're a person. You're about to go down Glory's hole.

  I didn't know what this dungeon meant by a "boss battle", but I was sure I'd messed up by going in there.

  I tensed, ready to flee the instant the world started moving again, but when the world returned, all the worm did was cock its head to the side. I mean, it's a perfectly round front of the worm, with an opening big enough to swallow me whole, but I could see as it twisted slightly, as if considering what it faced.

  Steadying myself, I focused on my breathing, on not panicking while this giant worm prepared to murder me.

  I was on my second steadying breath. Its maw vibrated, a muffled sound getting to even my ears, much milder than the pulse I felt in my feet. Every soldier in the room aimed their spear my way, and the worm turned downwards, diving back into the earth so only a small arc of the whole was visible.

  I ran, the earth rippling beneath my feet. A glance back showed the beast surging into the ground, ridge after ridge of its leathery exterior churning the earth with its passage. Lizard-peeps approached and I prepared to slip past their lunges when the earth pulsed beneath my feet.

  I ran two steps up the wall. Glory burst forth, surging towards me. I thrust a hand back, braced against the leading ridge of her maw, feet scrambling against the wall to keep me steady as she surged towards me. As Glory neared the ceiling, I grabbed onto a stalactite, prepared to whip around it, and went tumbling as Glory shattered the stone with her maw. As I bounced down the ridged hide collecting bruises, her tail finally came out, a stream of purified earth spurting out behind, a giant smear of fertilizer.

  Managing to bounce aside near the bottom, I landed on my back only a few feet from where that tail was rising, groaning at how battered I felt. The thing hadn't even hit me, I'd just slipped and fallen down its back, and I felt half-dead. There were spear-wielders approaching, but I was looking at the maw of Glory, high above.

  She dove. I rolled. The impact tossed me, but I landed on my feet, still running. The spear-wielders were, as usual, so easy to evade I only had to focus on the ones that were right beside me. As I tried to figure out a plan, I kept moving around the chamber. There were five sorts of spear-folk present.

  A little, insane looking dog-man was labeled as, Shiny Kobold. Level 3. Most kobolds are small, angry, and not nearly as scary as they think they are. This one is kinda calm and very shiny.

  A squart, warthog-man with tiny legs was introduced as, Shiny Tuskling. Level 4. Most tusklings have meaningless titles. This tuskling has no title, which is just as meaningful as a tuskling title. He's basically as dangerous as the most skilled tuskling knight alive on this floor.

  There were only two of a weird beast that looked a bit like a donkey riding a donkey, except the rider's legs merged straight into the lower donkey's sides. The upright donkey had hands, holding a spear like a lance. Shiny Double-Donkey. Level 3. The double-donkey has all the complex planning capacity of two dumb animals, and uses this to try to execute two unrelated plans at once. Look at that dumb little guy aim his lance one way while he rides in the other direction!

  Last and probably least, there was a goblin. Shiny Goblin. Level 2. Small, green, and smart. What is this thing doing up here? These were a floor-one mob, but I guess being shiny means something or other.

  Now, you might think I would notice all those "shiny" labels and put some useful thought together. Let me lay out my thought process for you: Okay, maybe I should— Oh no, there's the worm! Whew, not dead. Now to— Ack! Worm again! I just need a moment to— Eep, that's still a giant worm!

  This continued for a bit. Glory would dive down, occasionally devouring one of the shinies, burrow into the earth, and leap out again. It usually had three or four arcs of its body above the soil, tracing the path of its last few dives. I thought about that path too. Maybe I could— Ahh! Worm!

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  Somewhere in there, nobody knows where, the thing submerged entirely. I found myself near a corner of the pentagon, trying to decide if it was time to try and hurt the little guys. I could probably take a spear, but I was worried that touching that shiny layer they all were covered in was dangerous.

  Before I decided to do that, the earth rumbled. I couldn't see anything, but the vibrations felt like they were to my left, so I started running right, sliding under the jabs of a pair of double-donkeys. Two corners of the pentagon back, the worm surfaced, but at a low angle. Maw just below the surface of the soil, it churned along.

  At the corner, it made an instant turn, fitting perfectly along the side of the pentagon. I ran to the center and watched it plow through the double-donkeys, swallowing them right down. It made it around and angled one body-width further inwards. I could see where this was going.

  Hoping boldness would pay off, I set myself in a sprinter's crouch, two paces off the side of its path. As it neared, I took off. I almost matched its pace, and when I leapt onto its back that kept me from tumbling along its ridged back. It was still vibrating worse than the "personal massager" Mom seemed to assume I wanted. Seriously, she ranted about "those devil toys" so much that I started to get interested.

  Anyways, it was jarring, leaving my teeth clattering, but if I kept my feet moving I could stay upright. Reaching the center, it dove back into the soil, and I began sprinting backwards along its length, slowly loosing to it for speed. You might think I should have run sideways, but if I stepped to another length of something moving this fast, I was going to fall over and be ground into dust.

  Instead, I just sprinted faster, finally leaping aside when there was only one band of worm to clear. I came up with rich, moist soil caked up one side. Worm shit, of course, but excellent soil. Weird backstory about toxins aside, this worm was doing an excellent job worming. This little pentagon of space would have been the richest farmland in the world.

  It was then that I noticed the crowd of spear-wielders. They were all exactly where they'd been swallowed. Their gleaming exterior was now goopy and wet, a layer of fine mucus dripping off of them. The nearest, a goblin, rolled his head back, eyes wide, mouth stretching in what looked like an overacted orgasm.

  I scanned the room and saw all the others doing likewise. The top-half of the donkey had it's eyes roll back in its head, tongue lolling out, like some e-girl faking it on a stream. I gagged, and was enormously glad my implant still left me deaf.

  After resisting the urge to vomit, I noticed something even more disturbing— well, no, let's keep things in perspective. A crowd of monsters orgasming from being shat out the back of a giant worm was the worst thing I was seeing right then. That said, I was worried about the numbers, because I hadn't counted all of them, but there had definitely only been two double-donkeys, and now there were three.

  Then the worm rose again, and I lost my ability to plan anything out as I desperately evaded it.

  As it dove at me, or rolled its back to toss the earth beneath my feet, or whipped its tail-end at me, I again fell into that flow-state, just focusing on the next few motions, making sure I never missed a step or took a stab from the many, many spears.

  Fortunately, now that there were so many, Glory regularly crushed them as she dove at me. I found that, by aiming where I landed, I could ensure that would happen.

  This time around, I managed to get a spear. When it went below and I knew it was going to do that filling-the-pentagon thing again, I carefully braced the spear in the soil along its path. It hit it at full tilt, shattering the haft and sending a deformed spearhead ricocheting off the wall and into the temple of one of the un-crushed kobolds.

  While I ran along its back, I snagged my water bottle for another drink. When the worm dove again, I devoured an energy bar and tried not to stare as the now-four double-donkeys flopped about in overdone orgasms. I had never been so glad to be deaf.

  This time around, I got a spear early and kept stabbing its side as it went past. Not a scratch. I hurled the spear directly down its throat and heard it break. I tossed six more down, just on the off-chance it would work. It did not.

  After two more loops around, the press of extra orgasming beasts was so thick I ended up balanced on the head of a shiny lizard-peep after Glory submerged. That broke him out of his post-vore euphoria much quicker, and I had to dance around on the heads of beasties as they stabbed at me.

  If this was a game, I was feeling like it had glitched. From that point on, it just continued. More of the mobs appeared, packed tighter and tighter, until soon they were flopping about in layers. Glory would crush and devour most of them in a few leaps, and I'd run around on her back while I finished my water bottle and had some more to eat.

  I had given up on finding a plan, and was just focused on running. Sometimes, I'd wonder if Lacie was okay. During the sprint along Glory's back, I had a moment to daydream once the food was gone, and I imagined Lacie had found some badass weapons, way better than those murderers. Maybe she had a spear that turned into a lightning bolt and she used it as a lance while riding some pimped-out version of my bike. My gut said horrible things had happened, but I liked to imagine everything went magically well for her.

  I have no idea how long that continued. Eventually, I noticed that the exits were half-buried by new soil, but that didn't seem important; the metal grates blocked those anyways, and I was never killing this beast.

  It was about there, as had been the case one floor up, that I realized chugging down the last of my water had been a mistake. I had none left, and now I had to pee. Whatever. I was running along the back of a giant worm as it devoured a hoard of orgasming, slime-coated slaves. Who was gonna care if I took a piss?

  As Glory neared the end of the pentagon-filling rush, I sighed out a stream of warm piss into my own leggings.

  Now, I will mention that I did hear some announcements during this whole time, but Glory was jumping and the shinies were so dense by then that I couldn't roll anywhere on account of all the spears, so I'd ignored them. I had good reason to not know what the hell was going on.

  Anyone else would have known exactly what to expect.

  First, a hot pain sizzled on my leg. I glanced down to see my leggings burning, smoke rushing aside, a hot jet between my legs. I kicked up the other leg getting it out of that searing, purple-and-black smoke, and leapt away. As I sailed through the air, a beast of sizzling smoke and obsidian claws seemed to roll out of my crotch.

  I barely stayed upright as I hit the next coil of Glory, then got tossed as the beast dug its claw into the worm and Glory's whole body spasmed. By the time I bounced off the wall and landed atop Glory on my hands and knees, the smoke-beast was fully formed, its six, obsidian-clawed legs knotted in Glory's corpse. A horned badger skull looked at me, glowing red eyes locking my gaze.

  Rage Elemental – Level 93

  The first recorded summoning of a Rage Elemental, blah, blah, blah. If you are reading this, you likely don't give a shit about the monster's (rather interesting and tragic) history. You're probably running. It's not going to matter. The almost-indestructible Rage Elemental is said to only dissipate after it has claimed 666 souls.

  In other words, you are fucked. Absolutely, bite-the-pillow, fucked.

  The world froze.

  And the winner is, a Rage Elemental!

  Its terrifying face appeared in a ring, dead-center of my vision, with "Winner!" stamped across it.

  I was about to die. I knew, on some deep level, that this thing didn't have storm-trooper aim like all those spearmen. I couldn't just traipse around and pretend I'd be fine. I was going to die.

  Then, as the world started moving, Glory and all the bodies inside her crumbled into soil, pouring into a gap at the center of the room. Those were stairs. There had been something about monsters not moving between levels. I didn't have to dodge it long, I didn't have to run forever, I just had to make it past this beast and down those stairs.

  For an instant, I thought about what came after that, about the inevitable hell down just one floor. Next ten steps, I reminded myself.

  As it rushed me like an oncoming train, I rushed it as well. One clean dodge. That's all I needed.

  It swiped at me, and I dove high, over that leading claw, into a low roll under a swipe from the last claw. Just being near it sent agony through my body, like I was being cooked by its mere presence. Pain didn't keep me from coming up sprinting, diving headfirst into the stairwell, and bouncing agonizingly down the seemingly-endless stone steps.

  At the bottom, I slammed my shoulder against the door, broken arm screaming in agony, and stumbled through, never once looking back to see if the rage elemental was behind me.