Aired July 23, 1:00 PM ET

JEFFREY COMBS, CNN HOST: "Some time ago the Dracosys informed us that each week, undefeated dungeons would grow a floor. But no dungeon has, as of yet, seemed to grow. So, where are the extra floors? Today I'm joined by Deputy Chief Of Homeland Security, Barbra Lancing and Terrance Walls, chief advisor to the Nightfall Guild. Barbara, what can you tell us?

BARBRA LANCING: Jeffrey I'm here to assure you and the American people that the threats are not accelerating. We have control over most American Dracosys sites at this point, and we're treating Scourge patients as best we can.

COMBS: So you can't talk about where these additional floors are?

TERRANCE WELLS: Let me jump in there, Jeff. Our working theory is, and if you'll allow me to explain a bit to the audience-

COMBS: Please do.

WELLS: Each Dracosys site sort of works like a car, burning fuel to perform tasks. Each site gets a certain amount of fuel each day, each week. Adding floors costs a dungeon a lot of fuel. Just because it has the option to add a floor, doesn't mean a dungeon has the fuel to do it.

LANCING: I can talk more freely about sites outside of the US. And I can confirm that dungeons and ruins that aren't being attacked regularly are, in fact, growing. We've got our armed forces, state and local forces, and even militias coordinating to challenge every site in the country. Our sites are burning their fuel, as Mister Wells describes it, on just making monsters to replace all the ones we're killing.

COMBS: So you're saying as long as we keep sending people into danger, things aren't getting worse?

LANCING: I wouldn't describe it as sending people into danger, that makes us sound reckless.

WELLS: It's always dangerous. You can spin it however you want to, but people die inside dungeons every day. The people going in accept that risk. And they're heroes for doing it.

LANCING: I can assure the public that every day our troops get stronger, are better equipped and gain levels. Our casualty rate is dropping every week.

WELLS: The government's casualty rates, you mean. Individuals and guilds, like my Nightfall, are taking up the charge as your troops play it safe.

COMBS: So this is a threat, but one that's being managed?

LANCING: That's correct.

COMBS: Some experts are postulating that the Dracosys is keeping the floors in reserve, to be deployed all at once. Is that something that could happen?

LANCING: I've seen the Dracosys design documents, and can tell you that's not a possibility. Dungeons can't keep resources in reserve like that. The Dracosys has to keep to its own rules. Rules we're learning to exploit to keep us safe.

WELLS: What about Scourge? Didn't that break the rules? And we're already seeing the rules change. We can't be sure of anything anymore!

COMBS: And unfortunately that's where we'll have to leave it for now. Coming up after the break, is there a monster in your tap water? This Louisiana sheriff says to be on the lookout.

7/23 Outside Studio 20 2:45 PM

"How come you never use your constellations, Jun?" Mercy asks me this right before I open the grey studio 20 door. Of course everything and everyone here is in black and white and grey, so that's not really saying much.

I stop, hand inches from the door handle. "They cost 50 power. Which is 50 AP and KP. They're tremendously expensive, and honestly I'd rather just shoot 50 bursts of fire or lightning."

"Fair enough," says Quins.

I open the door.

It's Skull Island, of King Kong fame. I know this because of the skull-shaped mountain in the middle. The door opens onto a small wooden dock on the shore.

"Wow, we get to explore all of Skull Mountain Island!" Odysseus grins.

"I thought it was just Skull Island," I say.

Odysseus explains. "The copyright on the movie hasn't expired yet, but the book is fair use. This dungeon hasn't used any copyrighted characters, just knock offs. So therefore this is a new movie set based on the book, not the movies. And the location in the book was Skull Mountain Island. Though the book was a novelization of the movie, it actually came out first, making it both derivative and original at the same time."

Ivy punches him in the arm. "Dude, O-D, I'm gonna change your name to wiki-man."

"I just like old movies," he says, looking embarrassed. "And podcasts about old movies."

"We watched Cabinet Of Doctor Cagliari last night," Ivy says to us, grinning. "It was wicked."

Judging by Ivy's demeanor and Odysseus's embarrassment, he's thoroughly in the friend zone but is coming to accept it. Holy shit I just figured that out! 100 Wisdom is amazing!

We step into the studio and onto the island. As expected, the door closes and seals behind us.

I'm in my Sun Wolf armor. Mercy is in a new combo outfit, "Oni Hacker Warlock Princess." It combines the short skirt of the Oni Princess Kaguya outfit with the cleavage revealing shirt from the White Hat Warlock outfit. Also there's some combination of powers involved, but for some reason I can't concentrate on that. She has a black metal bo staff, the head of which is circled by three razor sharp data strands. In the real world, the data strands glow lime green, contrasting against the black metal. Here? Grey on black. Boring. I hate this place.

Odysseus, Ivy and Quins are all wearing the Pathbreakers armored uniforms. Odysseus is wearing the heavy armor variation, which includes thigh guards, shoulder guards and skirt armor. The company we worked with questioned the skirt armor idea, saying it was standard to have a crotch flap. I explained that according to my experience with Gundam model kits, skirt armor that was several separate, moving pieces, would give our people more mobility and better coverage around the hips and joints. I was correct. The heavier armor does require the wearer to have a decent Strength score, but that's totally doable.

In this black and white and grey world, the dark blue Pathbreakers armor is flat grey. "I suppose it's really easy to make camouflage for this area, huh?" I posit.

Mercy, who is always smart, chimes in. "Evolutionary wise, these creatures should have an easier time distinguishing between grayscale colors though, so I'm not sure if it would help against the natives."

"No free lunches, mate," Quins winks at me.

The small wooden dock looks barely large enough for a small sailboat to dock at. Honestly, there probably shouldn't be a dock here at all. There's no reason for it to have been made by whatever locals are here. Ah well, old movies didn't give a shit about continuity, and the Dracosys sure doesn't either.

The beach is 30 feet wide, and curves around the jungle. The jungle is dense enough that we can't see more than a few dozen feet in. And in the distance, probably seventeen miles in, stands the aforementioned skull mountain. It looks less like a human skull and more like the Punisher logo, with long ridgelines coming out halfway down the mountain.

Man, I cannot tell you how many Army meatheads love the Punisher logo but could not tell you who Frank Castle is. Back in Afghanistan, Jenkins the chopper pilot had to give me a dollar every time I found another logo-wearing guy who didn't know the Punisher's real name. Ahhhh, good times. Wait, no, those were mostly shitty times. Jenkins was alright though. Until he got blown up.

"Dammit, someone say something very smart or very stupid!" I say, coming out of Army PTSD-land.

"I have Guns And Roses on my ipod for just this occasion," Ivy says, and proceeds to slide through her music library. As I'm not familiar with the band, I don't know yet if Guns And Roses is something smart or dumb.

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We proceed from the beach to the jungle and are immediately set upon by large centipedes with glossy black backs.

Skull Centipede. Tier 4. As big as a sofa, as tough as a truck, as toxic as a barrel of week old clam chowder. Good news? None. Bad news? They also smell like a barrel of week old clam chowder. Possible loot: Toxic fangs, armor plates.

Ivy starts up "Welcome To The Jungle" and we all feel stronger, faster and tougher. I tell everyone the bugs are tier 4, so we should all get hits in for the experience points. Then we demolish the bugs. Odysseus puts glowing Smite rounds into them, piecing their shells. Ivy cracks her whip which I think does nothing to the bugs. Mercy weaves between them, bashing with her staff as she goes. I make a solar dagger and poke the monsters. Once Mercy gets through the cluster, Quins fires an explosive arrow which hits the ground, then explodes upwards, sending bug chunks flying.

And yes, I know centipedes are not technically bugs.

Nobody wants to keep the stinky bug guts "loot" so we move on.

-----

Mercy, Ivy and I can all fly. Odysseus and Quins object to being carried like babies, so we end up walking. This is fine, because my radar lets me see enemies before they can ambush us. Every once in a while one of us flies up, gets a look around, then flies back to tell us what landmark we're closest to.

We trudge through the jungle for several hours, killing critters and generally being the villains of Avatar (the less good, non-airbending one). Or Fern Gully if you're a 90s kid. Odysseus is a 90s kid. He reminds us of the animated movie, and tells us several interesting notes about the voice actors.

We're causing a ruckus on purpose. We're hoping Mr. Kong will take notice and come attack us. So we can kill him. We're assuming he's the boss of this floor. I mean, shouldn't King Kong be the boss of the King Kong floor?

"I'm really close to just torching the entire jungle," I say after we kill another Spiked Tiger.

"Jun, I know you're frustrated," Mercy says. "But environmental destruction is never the answer."

Odysseus holds a hand up, to stop the group moving forward. We stop. He turns to us, lowering his weapon. "Environmental destruction might be the answer. Kong shouldn't care about how many bugs we kill. He's going to care about his territory."

"We even in his territory though?" Ivy asks before chugging from a canteen.

"Looked like it from the last aerial sweep I did," I tell her. "We're on the other side of the big gate from that village."

Quins seems curious. "Village? Village of what, bugs?"

I shrug. "Uh, looked like people maybe." Everyone turns to me. "What?"

"Possible friendlies." Odysseus says.

"Fake people?" Ivy asks.

Quins shakes his head. "Oh hang on then, I'm not getting involved in some quest to save the do-dad for some old git." Quins is referring to the quests some golems give out.

Mercy thinks aloud. "Actually, a quest could be the answer. We might need to progress the storyline by talking to someone, then Kong might show up."

I tilt my head sideways. "l don't want to get involved with golems."

Golems are what humans typically call the fake humans the Dracosys makes. Usually they're bad guys, and not much more intelligent than your average rampaging bear.

Golems aren't humans. They don't need to eat or drink or sleep. They can do those things, they just don't need to. They have a very limited area of knowledge and can't learn stuff outside that area. Like no matter how many times you tell a golem it's the year 2024, that it was made by the Dracosys and that Elden Ring finally got released, it'll stick to what it was programmed to know. They're closer to robots, or video game NPCs, than real people. They have just a few lines of dialog and can't react to anything unexpected, but some give quests or sell items.

We (humanity) have taken some of these guys out of the dungeons and examined them. They... Don't have whole brains. Their brains look like Swiss cheese, with just enough in there to run the Dracosys's NPC protocol. They don't have the ability to reproduce, and the kid ones can't grow. Golems don't even keep memories past 24 hours.

There's a lot of controversy around them. Like, are they humans? Should they have rights? Should we be saving the peaceful ones? Is it murder to kill one if it'll be back the next day?

They're not real people. They just look real. That's what we have to keep telling ourselves. Even in here, I've killed golems. The terrorists from the burning building. The Nazis in WW2 land. And I can tell you, as someone who's haunted by the massive number of real people I've killed, killing golems doesn't feel the same. They aren't real.

They aren't real.

They aren't real.

Uh, also, Abdul Al Hazred, the guy we pulled out of the Afghanistan Cthulhu dungeon? He broke a lot of the rules on NPCs. Aaaand I've got no idea what happened to him after that mission. It's probably fine. The US government only does good and polite things to Arab prisoners.

We talk it over and decide that Mercy, Ivy and Odysseus will go into the village. Quins and I stay outside as backup. It's a simple, solid plan. It's just one where I don't have much to do. And I have to let my Mercy out of my sight on the 20th floor of a dungeon trying to kill us. I can do that.

-----

7/23 Studio 20, South side of Skull Mountain Island 5:45 PM

"Mate, would you kindly stop air pacing?"

I've been flying back and forth behind Quins for the last 20 minutes. "I have to be mobile in case they need me."

"Jun, my friend, you know she's strong, right? Probably as strong as you are." Quins isn't actually looking at me. He's focused on the village. It's all grass and bamboo huts, with half naked people/golems walking around.

Mercy, Ivy and Odysseus got pulled to the center of the village. Probably to see the mayor. "They've been in there for too long," I say to Quins, then hover up above to get an aerial view.

My team is sitting down at a table with five locals. They're... I get on the comms. "Are you guys eating a roast pig?"

I see Odysseus stop mid-bite with a rib centimeters from his face. Mercy swivels her head and looks around, then up. I wave at her. She waves back. "They're really nice?" Mercy says, wiping barbecue sauce off her hand.

"Yeah, okay, cool, just great," I mutter into the earpiece. They can't see me roll my eyes.

"Hey, Jun, I was just thinking," Odysseus says, putting down a black and white rib. "Kong was only the villain in the original era. But the modern interpretation of the movie sees him as a victim."

I tilt my head in annoyance. "So he's not the villain? Then who do we kill?"

Odysseus shrugs. "The invaders to the island?"

"But that's us," Quins says.

Just as I'm contemplating how I'm possibly going to fight myself, I see red dots suddenly pop up on my radar. Before I can even call it out, something slams into my chest. I look down at it. It's an arrow, like one of Quins's. Except it seems to be made of smoke. It explodes and I get blasted to the ground. I grind to a halt at the edge of the village.

The red dots come closer. Five of them. They emerge from the jungle.

Three are dressed in Pathbreakers armor. One is dressed like a Warlock Oni. And one is in Sun Wolf armor, holding a big ass sword. They're all seemingly made of pitch black smoke.

Ah. We have to fight the invaders. Us.

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