Chapter 3: Ch. 03 – Level One

Sword in hand, Simon opened and closed the door several times to make sure he hadn’t lost his only way back to his new home before stepping outside. Once he was sure this door would stick around, he strode out, looking for the dungeon he was meant to defeat. There wasn’t much out there though. He didn’t see an evil castle, any ruins, or even a suspicious looking cave. All he saw was a flower speckled meadow cut through by a brooke, a picture perfect forest, and some distant mountains. The only things here that had ever been touched by the hand of man were his cabin and a trail that meandered back and forth before disappearing into the distance. There weren’t even any wandering monsters or anything. 

Simon sighed in disappointment, wondering why a divine being would bother to put a dungeon a mile or two down a path from him when she could just as easily have put it right there, or at the edge of the forest, or something. It was fine though, he wouldn’t let this setback ruin his day. He’d find the damn thing and then show Helades how baseless her worries were. At least it was bright and sunny, and after a while he’d walked far enough from the cabin that he couldn’t see it, but he still couldn’t find this dungeon of his. 

He passed the time trying to figure out how this game was supposed to work, without much to show for it. He’d tried ‘Status,’ ‘Profile,’ ‘Character Sheet,’ ‘Character,’ Statistics,’ and ‘Skills’ without any sort of pop up or interface. In retrospect he should have asked the mirror for help with that before he left, but that problem could be easily remedied as soon as he got back. At least he decided not to wear armor on this initial expedition. He couldn’t imagine how hot it would be to wear all that boiled leather in the direct sun like this. He doubted he would need it anyway - low level enemies were usually zombies and that sort of thing - they were easy enough to dodge, and he was sure he’d find something better than that starter armor in the first five floors anyway. 

After another mile past though, he still didn’t see anything. He’d come far enough that the meadow was entirely gone and the trees were starting to crowd uncomfortably close to the path on both sides. Simon knew that time was passing because the sun was slowly moving across the sky, and after a while he had shade again. He was grateful for that because he was starting to get thirsty, but it also made him wonder how many more hours it was going to be until sunset. When was it he was supposed to turn back if he didn’t find what he was looking for? That thought weighed on him for a while as the forest grew darker, but he set it aside when another bend in the path revealed another stretch of grass opening up before him. 

Simon decided that he’d give it another hour, and if he still didn’t find anything he’d ask the mirror where he was supposed to go since the function ‘Map’ didn’t seem to do anything. It turned out he didn’t need an hour though, because after another few minutes he could see a small building in the distance. It wasn’t much, but it might be a mausoleum or the entrance to a crypt. That would suit him fine. Tombs were always good reasons to have dozens of levels of treasures and traps. His smile brightened and his steps quickened, but as he finally got close enough to see what it was, the shape resolved into nothing but another cabin. 

Was this a shared world, he wondered as he approached it cautiously. If there were other players here did that mean there was PvP? Simon readied his sword as he reached for the door, but as he flung it open he found no one inside. Instead it was an empty room that looked a lot like the one he started in earlier. Whoever had been here last even left all the drawers open from searching the place, and took a bite out of the cheese…

It was this last observation that finally made him realize he’d somehow come full circle back to where he started. Since he’d walked in one direction without stopping that should have been technically impossible of course, but he didn’t think impossible was something this world worried very much about. Simon tried to model his progress in his head and visualize exactly what a world that took 3 hours to walk around would look like, but what he came up with didn’t make any sense. That would make the world something like 2 miles around, which was silly. Clearly he needed to consult a higher power to get some answers. 

“Hey mirror - where is the damn dungeon at?” Simon asked.

‘Dungeon?’ the mirror printed across the screen. Obviously it wasn’t too bright. 

“Yeah, the dungeon - you know ‘The Pit’?” Simon asked exasperated, “The place I’m supposed to go slay monsters?

‘The Pit is here. It always starts here.’ the screen answered. 

“Yeah, but here, where? I don’t see anything.” Simon briefly wondered if it would be worth the seven years of bad luck he’d get for shattering it to get his sense of urgency across. He decided against it. Not because he believed in luck of course, but because this thing had answers he needed. 

‘You can descend to the next level underneath the bed.’ the mirror wrote slowly, finally giving him an answer that made sense - even if it didn’t really make sense. Who would put a dungeon under a bed after all?

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Simon didn’t bother to ask the thing another question - he just grabbed one of the bed posts and jerked the bed away from the wall. It was made of rough wood, and had a straw mattress, so it didn’t look very comfortable, but wasn’t exactly heavy either. After a few more seconds of manhandling it he revealed a hidden trap door, and only slightly out of breath, reached down to open it. The door was just a dark root cellar with a set of dusty wooden stairs leading down into them. From up here he could only make out a few shapes of boxes and bags against the walls, but nothing that looked particularly interesting. He shrugged. At least this was a start.

“Alright, Let’s do this,” he said, cracking his knuckles before hefting his sword and descending. Something this weak probably wouldn’t even have zombies, he decided. What would he encounter first then? Goblins? Yeah, it probably had to be goblins. He couldn’t think of anything else weaker as he descended the stairs while he looked around for danger. Looking around meant that he wasn’t watching his feet though, so he had no idea what he stepped on that sent him tumbling down the stairs. One second he was standing, and the next he was falling face first towards the dirt floor. There was a violent cracking sound followed by darkness, and then he suddenly sat up in the bed of his cabin once more.

Had he just died for the first time? How embarrassing. 

He thought about asking the mirror but decided he didn’t want to know. Instead he stood up and looked around the room. The only differences he could tell was that his longsword was where he’d picked it up originally, and that this cheese was uneaten. Simon took a bite from the loaf of bread this time so he could see if these changes happened again should he die again in this game. Then he set about looking for a torch. Afterall, he decided, death from falling down the stairs didn’t really count. It was like the real world equivalent of glitching through the land and falling to your death. It was silly, but it happened. 

The important thing was to prevent it from happening again, and to do that he needed light. So with a torch in hand he spent a few minutes trying to find a tinder box or a flint and steel - but the nearest thing he located was a chunk of what might have been flint on the mantle of the fireplace. He took a few minutes trying to strike sparks from his dagger with it, but none of them caught the torch on fire. Reluctantly he was about to go back downstairs without it, when he decided to check to see if the ashes in the fireplace had any coals in them. It turned out they did, and after a little trial and error, and more than a little breathing in soot, Simon had a lit torch in his left hand and a longsword in his right. He was now ready to face the goblins or whatever lame ass creature this game wanted to throw at him. With a little effort he pushed the bed aside again, and this time he focused on his footing as he descended the stairs. 

The basement really was just a root cellar, and he doubted he would find any loot worth searching for here. A quick look around didn’t reveal anything worth fighting though either. Maybe the first level was just a puzzle dungeon then? That was common enough in games like this. The zombies were never in the church basement - they were in the bricked off sub basement and…

That’s when he heard the skittering, but before he could turn to face it, he felt something bite his left calf hard. “Jesus Fuck!” Simon cried out, reflexively kicking back against the thing, sending whatever it was flying. He could feel warm wet blood soaking through his sock and dripping into his sneakers from the bite. Whatever it was had gotten him good. He whirled around, brandishing his sword and his torch simultaneously in different directions to ward off any new blows. 

“Come out come out wherever you are,” he called into the darkness where he’d kicked his small assailant. Unfortunately that’s exactly what they did though. Half a dozen rats not much bigger than the averaged sized house cat suddenly swarmed out of the shadows, sprinting for him like he was their last meal. Simon stepped back and swung his sword twice, but the little buggers were fast, and all he managed to do was kick up dust before they were on him. He managed to kick one away, and he thought he might have stomped a second one, but his legs were on fire from their bites. He would have never thought that rats could seriously hurt a grown man, but now that he could see their large protruding incisors it was hard to see this as anything but being attacked with small chisels or garden shears. They could still tear you to pieces, but it would be a slow painful process. 

“Get off me!” Simon screamed, feeling yet another bite on his legs. Worse though. He could feel one trying to climb inside his right pant leg. Without thinking he stabbed down, skewering the rat as well as his foot to the ground. In the time it took him to pull it out though another rat bit into the achilles tendon of his left foot, sending him tumbling to the ground, unable to stand. After that all Simon could do was try to crawl up the stairs before he gave up on that and covered his face with his hands when one of them went for his eyes. The assault went on for another few minutes before he mercifully passed out from blood loss. 

Simon’s final thought before he woke back up in his bed was that he couldn’t believe he’d been killed by something as weak as a rat.

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