Discount Dan

As eager as I was to immediately head down to the nineteenth floor and turn some Dwellers into meat paste with my new abilities, Jakob was still hard at work in the lab, and I had a few more provisions to prepare.

I only had a handful of Health Grenades left and I’d burned through all of my offensive spell Grenades during the showdown against the Shart-Stain Golem on the fifth floor. Although the store’s tennis ball selection had naturally regenerated over the past few days, I opted to go in a slightly different direction this time around. The tennis balls were great for physically throwing, but carrying around so many was awkward took up too much space in my toolbelt.

Besides, with my newly upgraded telekinetic abilities, I didn’t really need to throw ’em at all. Hell, I could have several orbiting me like small moons, ready to unleash whenever something looked at me the wrong way.

With a new plan in mind, I raided what remained of the game aisle, snagging several packs of plain ol’ Bicycle playing cards. They weren’t fancy, but each individual card was large enough to contain a single rune and each pack came with fifty-four cards. Again, trying to toss ’em at my enemies was a terrible idea, but utilizing my telekinetic powers made it a walk in the park. A single deck of cards also took up way less space than a sleeve of tennis balls and gave me substantially more bang for my buck.

With enough time and patience, I could transform a deck into a self-contained arsenal, with a single type of spell assigned to each card. Croc had doubts, but as far as I was concerned, the move was a stroke of genius. I’d finally be able to live out my fantasy of turning into Gambit from the X-Men. Well, Discount Gambit, since I had a bathrobe instead of a badass trench coat, but maybe I could add some fingerless gloves to complete the look.

Picking which spells to use was a bit tricker, though.

I’d used Burn Baby Burn to forge my new Hydro Fracking Blast Relic, and the only other decent fire-based Relic I had on hand was Erlenmeyer's Molotov Cocktail, which was a significant step down in terms of raw damage output. The mana leakage further reduced the fire damage by 50%, until the juice just wasn’t worth the squeeze.

The same thing was true for the Spike Grenades.

Although they worked okay, they didn’t really offer me any extra versatility if things got dicey. Sure, they were handy to have in case my mana pool ran dry, but thanks to Wild Surge, I wasn’t too worried about that. Not anymore. Plus, Fault Spike was actively equipped to my Spatial Core, so it wasn’t like I lost access to the spell itself. There was no telling what we’d be facing below, so I wanted greater flexibility, not more of the same thing.

That was the key. Improvise, adapt, and overcome, just like the Marine Corps taught me.

Although Runic Resonance Trap wasn’t my most powerful skill by a country mile, the one thing it offered in spades was adaptability. On paper, it made sense to upgrade some of my most hard-hitting spells like Hydro Fracking Blast or StainSlayer Maelstrom, but some gut instinct told me that leveling Runic Resonance Trap would serve me better in the short term.

Raising the Relic from level five to level ten—the next major threshold—would take an eye watering fifty Relics, ten per each level, but thankfully I had a lot to burn. Our Grand Reopening had netted us nearly three hundred new Relics and though many ended up on the shelves for resale, there were a shit ton of duplicates and trash-tier Relics that I could afford to sacrifice in pursuit of greatness.

Even though it pained me a little on the inside, I bit the bullet and did what needed doing.

The process was a long and tedious one. For each new level, I needed to meticulously arrange the various objects around me in a ring, then position myself in the center of the ritual circle. When correctly aligned, the Relics radiated a strange warmth and a subtle, but tangible aura of otherworldly power. That power, I’d come to realize, was the innate generative mana of Backrooms. It was the spirit of the God Box, located down on the thousandth floor.

Through meditation and the exertion of will, that generative life force could be siphoned away from sacrificial Relics and funneled into another, fueling its advancement. But the stronger any individual Relic became, the more energy it required to level. That was the law of diminishing returns in full effect. By the time Runic Resonance Trap finally crossed over the level 10 threshold, I had expected angelic horns to blare and fireworks to explode overhead.

But no. Runic Resonance Trap hit level ten without much fanfare.

Just another day in the Backrooms.

The advancement came with several awesome upgrades, however.

For starters, the cast time dropped from twenty seconds to ten and the mana leakage improved drastically. Now, all the runes I crafted could contain 75% of the original spell effect. But the real payday was a shiny new secondary feature called Runic Triggering Mechanism, which was even better than Runic EOD Handler. With it, I could add a specialty trigger sigil, specifying under what circumstances the core runic trap would activate.

That didn’t sound all that impressive, until I realized the trigger was only limited by my imagination. I could create a trigger phrase so that the Trap Rune only activated when I said a specific word or phrase. Or when someone else said a specific word or phrase. That effectively allowed me to create Health and Mana Replenishment grenades, which I could use on myself.

I could also craft runic traps with extremely complex triggering mechanisms, capable of discriminating between Delvers and Dwellers, or even activating based on level or organization affiliation. It was even possible to add timer delays or turn the runic bombs into proximity mines, so they only went off when a target creature entered a certain range.

That opened a whole new world of interesting and horrifying possibilities.

Before departing for the lower floors, I planned to plant several old fashion floor traps right outside my doorway anchors that would only go off if an Aspirant of the Skinless Court got within ten feet. Between that and the Doorway Sentinels, those fucksticks were gonna learn the hard way why they should leave me alone.

The only drawback was that I needed to have Runic Resonance Trap actively equipped to my Spatial Core for the triggering mechanism to stay intact. As far as I was concerned, though, that was a small price to pay for the unrivaled versatility the spell now offered. In essence, I could basically create one-off Artifacts, so long as I had the appropriate Relics needed to fuel my desired effect.

I enlisted Croc’s aid, then spent the next twelve hours building a plethora of fancy new grenades—though now they resembled spell cards more than grenades.

I started off with the easy ones and constructed a red-backed deck of Health Regen spell cards using Pharmacist’s Scales. Just like the original design, the spell cards would activate the second they touched any living creature other than me, but I also added a secondary trigger word, Tactical Triage, along with an additional trigger condition, which would allow me to use the spell cards on myself.

Once I ironed out all the kinks, I repeated the process again, this time creating Mana Regen cards using a blue-backed deck, though I changed the trigger word to Rip-It and Whip-It.

I stowed both decks in my toolbelt for easy access, then Croc and I started tinkering around with some new and improved offensive spell options. First up was Voodoo Doppelbanger.

Rare Relic – Level 1

Range: Line of Sight

Cost: 50 Mana

Duration: 20 Seconds

Cooldown: 2 Minutes

Voodoo Doppelbanger is the physical incarnation of that old saying, “I’m rubber your glue, whatever you say bounces off of me and sticks to you.” Except with less glue and more explosions. Plus, blood and guts and just a dash of maddening, Eldritch body horror. That’s right, with the flick of your wrist, you can summon an imperfect but disturbingly lifelike clone of yourself—one with explosive anger issues and a total disregard for its own earthly existence.

For twenty-seconds, Voodoo Doppelbanger absorbs 30 percent of all damage dealt to the caster. Then, in an unbridled fit of primal rage, your disgusting clone launches the ultimate kamikaze move, unleashing all the absorbed damage in a glorious burst of flesh and fury! Because, sometimes the best revenge is actually an unhinged suicide bomber wearing your face like a Halloween cheap mask! This Relic enables Mana usage.

Even accounting for the mana leakage, the spell was still ridiculously strong, as I learned while experimenting against the gangly limbed Greeters down in the Lobby. When I uttered the activation phrase, Comatose Clone, the spell card summoned a deeply unsettling replica of me.

I mean, it was obvious that I was the template, but each clone was uniquely terrifying in their own horrifying way. They were just… wrong. That was the only word that fit. Some were wildly malformed. Their backs hunched, their arms too long or legs too short. Others had melted flesh, as though they’d been made from wax then left too long in the sun. Some didn’t have ears or mouths. A few even had bits of straw poking through papery skin or protruding from eye sockets, as though they were giant corn husk dolls.

One and all, the horrifying clones were twisted things that just stood there, staring at the world with glassy, dazed eyes and slack faces.

For fifteen seconds, twenty-two percent of all damage dealt to me was instantly transferred to the slouching, comatose copy. Then, as soon as those fifteen seconds lapsed, the cursed doppelganger’s eyes filled with a murderous, unbridled rage and it took off like a bat out of hell. Transforming into a fleshy, suicidal homing missile that wrapped its arms around the nearest enemy like a python, before erupting in a blast of meat and bone, leaving only a pink stain behind.

Even though I consciously knew the clones weren’t sentient, it was still a tough thing to watch. I’d had a buddy die in Iraq, blown to pieces by a daisy-chained IED left on the side of the road outside Ramadi, and seeing it happen over and over again left me feeling queasy to my stomach. The only redeeming mercy was that the doppelganger chunks dissolved after a minute or so, which meant there weren’t just random bits of Dan confetti forever strewn across the ground.

Thank Jesus, Mary, and Joseph for that.

I had no desire to scrub pieces of myself off the floor with a mop.

As gruesome as the skill was, it was too good to pass up. There were several other unexpected benefits to consider as well. Benefits that I hadn’t initially anticipated.

Turned out, the clones seemed to be completely impervious to most types of physical damage. You could wail on the doofuses with a hammer or set ’em on fire and they just took it like champs, remaining in place until the end of the spell duration. And that meant the clones could effectively be used as impenetrable meat shields. Just take cover behind one of the Doppelganger Dans and let it soak up punishment like a dirty kitchen sponge.

The second unexpected benefit was that the ability stacked.

If I summoned two clones simultaneously, they both absorbed twenty-two percent of any damage I received. Add a third and fourth clone into the mix and any damage was almost entirely offset by the clone army.

As with all things, there were still a few notable limitations.

The biggest drawback was that the doppelgangers didn’t deal any damage at all unless something hit me first, and I wasn’t real keen on turning myself into a punching bag, considering that the pain didn’t transfer. Only the damage. Although I had thirty-six years of poor life choices tucked beneath my belt, I wasn’t a masochist by any stretch of the imagination. Still, the skill could be a literal lifesaver, though there was still some risk. If something dealt greater than one hundred percent damage—say 100 points of damage when my health pool only had 80 points—that extra 20 points would bleed over to me.

If I wasn’t careful, it would be easy to get over-confident, wade into a genuine shitstorm, and wind-up dead as a doornail. In theory, though, if I had enough active doppelgangers, I would effectively be invincible for fifteen seconds, even if I’d feel every single blow.

It was an exploit that never should’ve been possible, since the Relic had a two-minute cooldown between casts. Because I was storing them in trap sigils beforehand, however, I could have a small army of deformed Dans create a wall of impenetrable bodies. Once the spell lapsed, that unmoving wall would turn into a meaty avalanche of mindless, ambulatory death drones. It was one of the most gloriously fucked up things I’d seen in months, and I planned to put it to good use.

I created an entire pack of Voodoo Doppelbanger playing cards, then painted the card box completely black because it was easily the darkest skill I had in my arsenal—even worse than Unhinged Taxidermist.

And speaking of my Taxidermied Horrors, I decided to add a few sigils to them as well.

Although I couldn’t inscribe runes on living flesh, the Horrors didn’t technically qualify as living, so the sigils took without a hitch. I didn’t relish the idea of turning my disgusting but faithful minions into undead bombs, but if things really went to shit it would be an excellent Ace in the hole. Even better, I could inscribe multiple Trap Runes onto each Horror. One sigil onto each limb, another onto the torso, and a final on the head for a total of six Runes, all with different effects.

I loaded the Horrors down with my most devastating spells—Hydro Fracking Blast, StainSlayer Maelstrom, Sterilization Field, and Fault Spike—then bound all of them with a single unique activation phrase, so they wouldn’t accidentally go off.

Lastly, I fished out an old Relic that I’d been hanging onto since before killing Funtime Frank, called Balloon Menagerie. I’d looted it off the corpse of a particularly nasty Dweller named Harold the Terror Clown on the seventh floor. Created from the damaged psyche of a neglected twelve-year-old boy, Harold was exactly as disturbing as his name implied, and the Relic I’d pulled off his corpse wasn’t much better. With it, I could conjure five slow-moving balloon-animal, homing-bombs.

The Relic was wildly unstable—even more so than Burn Baby Burn—and it had a horrendously long cast time, but that didn’t matter when making Runic spell cards. The fact that they were unstable was actually a bonus, and though they didn’t deal nearly as much raw flame damage as my original grenades, that was counterbalanced by the fact that they dealt significantly more concussive force damage. I created an entire deck, which I painted bright green, the same color as Harold’s stupid clown hair.

I was tempted to create even more spell card varieties, but begrudgingly decided against it. I’d already spent more time than I should have crafting the damned things and Jakob had finally finished up his own preparations. It was time to get our asses in gear and head down to the nineteenth floor, where the mother of all HOAs waited for us.