Pocket Dungeon -- Chapter 1 (Patreon)

I might be dead.

It wouldn’t have been a crazy possibility. I was sure there were all sorts of bloodborne pathogens or secret diseases I could have somehow had. Maybe I’d stepped on a rusty nail at the bookstore and developed tetanus at some point without realizing it, and now this was my end.

Or maybe the crystal I’d bought earlier was actually some sort of poisonous element. There had to be some logical explanation as to why one second, I had been looking into the odd, unmarked crystal, and the next I was in some sort of… medieval-looking room.

The world felt like it was spinning around me, and my head felt like it was full of syrup. I planted one hand on a rough stone wall as I tried to steady myself and waited for everything to go back to normal.

Maybe if I just closed my eyes, when I opened them, I would be back in my shitty apartment where I was most definitely passed out right now in a puddle of my own drool and holding a random crystal.

I took a deep breath and clamped my eyes shut. I waited for some sort of change, something that would make all of this make any sort of sense. But when I opened my eyes, I was still in the strange-looking room.

Fuck.

Whatever was going on, it was clearly not going to change anytime soon. I glanced around the room to try and get a grasp on my surroundings.

The lighting in the small room was dim. The only source of light at all was a series of three torches mounted onto the wall with rusty hardware. I was amazed that they were actually able to hold a flame with all of the water dripping down from the ceiling.

The room was small enough that I could have walked the entire perimeter in thirty or so paces. The walls were made of dark gray stone. It was rough to the touch and felt a little like it was covered in dirt and moss. The floors and ceiling were made of the same sort of stone. The only furniture was a large island sort of thing in the center of the small room, a small treasure chest, and a series of primitive-looking wooden lockers against the wall.

There was a ladder propped up against one of the walls that led to a grimy trap door at the top. The only other way out of the room was a large wooden door against the opposite wall, and it had those old school metal brackets that I associated with shit like Game of Thrones.

I shook my head as I realized that if I was actually alive and only hallucinating right now, I might be a lost cause for the rest of my life. I could never live this kind of insanity down.

What the hell had happened to me when I looked into that weird crystal?

My sister, Carrie, had already given me enough shit for buying the thing in the first place. I imagined her coming to my funeral and getting all high and mighty for being right.

In my defense, I hadn’t even intended to buy anything when she dragged me into some sort of hippie store that had popped up on the corner next to my favorite brunch place. But because she was my sister, and because she was only in town for the rest of the day, I caved and went with her.

I didn’t believe in any of that hippie shit, but even I could admit that rocks were pretty cool. So while my sister had some sort of long and probably insane conversation about horoscopes and healing energies with the white woman with dreadlocks at the front of the store, I’d looked at the motherfucking rocks.

All of the stones were labeled with their name and whatever alleged properties they had, but I’d come across one that was missing any information at all. It was about the size of my palm, and was a strange, almost electric-green color washed throughout the otherwise pale pink stone. I had never seen anything else like it.

At the time, I’d have guessed it was some sort of quartz with my limited rock knowledge, but it wasn’t anywhere near the other quartz, and even to my untrained eye I could tell that the structure of the rock was… off. It almost looked like there was a circle in the center of the stone, like an eyepiece.

It was weird.

There was something about the strange stone that had called to me, too. I didn’t believe in fate or anything of that nature, but I couldn’t deny that I felt like I was meant to own the crystal.

Carrie had given me a ton of shit when I’d brought it up to the register and paid a measly five bucks for it, but it was still better than the stack of ugly tarot decks she bought alongside her haul of incense.

It was when I’d started to investigate the stone later in the night that I’d found myself suddenly in this place.

The crystal had to be what sent me here, right?

I’d taken it out of my pocket and saw some sort of strange glow from the center of the circular divet in the stone. I’d raised it up to my eye to try and see what on Earth could be making the crystal glow, and the next second, I felt like I had a case of whiplash and was standing in the center of a medieval room.

“What’s happening?” I asked aloud to the empty room.

I didn’t expect an answer, but a second later, I felt as if I was blinded by a sudden flash of green light. I gave a sharp gasp and stumbled back into the center island as I tried to regain my vision.

“You have entered a Level One Dungeon,” an automated-sounding voice said. I wasn’t sure where the voice was coming from. There didn’t seem to be any sort of speakers in the room. And it honestly sounded like it was coming from… inside my head?

“What?” I gasped as I finally regained my vision.

“Please equip yourself and proceed through the door to the dungeon. You have three hours to navigate the dungeon successfully,” the voice continued. “If you fail, you will be trapped inside of the dungeon for the rest of eternity. Good luck.”

As if on cue, the lockers against the wall swung open in an ominous sequence. I swallowed the lump that had welled up in my throat and studied the lockers.

What the fuck was going on? Had I eaten something strange? Was this, like, the world’s worst case of food poisoning? I hadn’t taken anything, but this sounded way too similar to the story my buddy who did mushrooms had told me about his trip.

It was only then that I realized there was something in the corner of my vision. I saw what looked like a small countdown clock frozen at 3:00:00.  It was like there was something stuck in my eye, and I furrowed my brow in confusion.

Then I turned in a slow circle, just to make sure I hadn’t missed something along the walls, but sure enough, the strange countdown clock was only in my vision.

I gave another turn, and the clock followed me with each move I made.

“Okay…” I muttered as my mind reeled.

That must have been the three hour timer. If what that strange voice had said to me was correct, then it probably started as soon as I stepped out of the door and into whatever awaited me.

Which according to the voice was a Level One Dungeon.

Shit, I hadn’t picked up a video game in years, but that sure as hell sounded like one, and I shook my head as I realized again how insane I sounded.

I looked around the room for some other way out of this shit. The only other exit seemed to be the trap door above me, but there was a thick chain and a large, threatening-looking lock draped across it that I wouldn’t be able to pick in a thousand years.

That left me with one choice: I guessed I was going to get whatever equipment was in those lockers and then head out into whatever waited for me on the other side of that door.

I took a breath to steady myself and walked over to the row of lockers.

Only one of them seemed to have anything inside of it, so I reached in and grabbed the bulky, leather-wrapped bundle. I tossed it onto the island in the center of the small room and unwrapped the hefty package.

I wasn’t sure what I had expected to see, but it certainly wasn’t a fucking sword. I sucked in a breath through my teeth as I looked at the weapon. I was far from an expert in swords and weaponry, but it looked like a longsword that had a handle long enough for two hands.

I recognized the style from when my ex-girlfriend had made me binge watch the Netflix version of The Witcher with her. I think it was just because she’d had a crush on Henry Cavill, which should have been a sign that our relationship wasn’t going to last if that was her type.

I had on good authority that I had a handsome face, but Henry Cavill was built like… Uhhh… Superman, and I looked like my best friend was a Great Dane who I also solved mysteries with.

I picked up the sword to get a handle on how it felt in my hand. The hilt was wrapped in some sort of leather that nearly crumbled under my touch, and the blade itself seemed a little worse for wear, but it didn’t feel off balance. Or at least, I didn’t think it felt off balance.

It took me a second to realize there was text floating in the air over the sword.

“Whoa,” I murmured. I gave the sword a small wave, but the text floated over the top of it still.

The text over the sword was in white and read “Spike.” I figured it was the sword’s name.

When I blinked again, the text over the top of the sword disappeared.

This shit was starting to get freaky.

I set the sword down to investigate the rest of the things in the leather parcel.

There were only a couple of items left. One was a pair of tanned leather gloves that looked like they were about my size, and the other thing was a sheath for the sword.

There wasn’t exactly much equipment to equip myself with, but I supposed anything was better than nothing. I picked up the gloves, and just like the sword, text floated over the item.

The words were written in white and designated the gloves as “Tanned Beginner’s Gloves.” Instead of putting the gloves down or blinking away the label this time, I decided to investigate a little closer.

It reminded me of the clock I had seen in my vision that was clearly only apparent to me, but I wanted to investigate a little further to test my hypothesis.

I reached out toward the text and was surprised to see that my hand was actually extending toward it, like it was really there in the world. Then my fingers brushed against some sort of invisible screen. I hesitated, but then I tapped at the “screen.” I was glad that I did, because in the blink of an eye, a new series of text appeared over the top of the item.

Tanned Beginner's Gloves

Stamina: +1

Dexterity: +1

Stealth: +1

Those must have been the item’s stats. They seemed pretty basic, and I wasn’t really sure how they stacked with anything else, but I supposed this all sort of did work like a video game. I guess it made sense.

Even how the hell I’d gotten into this situation didn’t.

I slipped the gloves on and then grabbed the sword’s sheath.

The white text over the sheath informed me that it was the “Spike’s Sheath.” When I tapped the name to see the stats, it was formatted the same way as the gloves had been.

Spike’s Sheath

Dexterity: +1

I slotted the sheath along my belt and picked up the battered longsword again. This time, I tapped over onto the stats for the item to get a look at those. They were formatted a little differently than the previous two items were, and I wondered if that was because it was a weapon and the other items constituted as armor. I still had a lot of shit to figure out, if any of this was even real.

I hadn’t completely moved past the idea that I was dead or in some sort of wild coma.

Spike

Damage- Average

Attack Speed- Slow

It seemed like a less than great sword, but any weapon was better than nothing while heading into the unknown that stared me down. I slid the sword into the sheath and glanced around the small room.

I checked each of the other lockers to make sure I hadn’t missed any sort of equipment, but it was clear there wasn’t anything left in the room. I had officially run out of reasons to put off whatever was waiting for me on the other side of the door.

I took a deep breath and steeled myself for what I might see. Then I opened the door.

A faint jolt of electricity, almost like static shock, seemed to move through my body, and the small timer in the corner of my vision began to tick down.

I sucked in a deep breath and stepped away from the door. It slammed closed behind me as if by its own volition. I quickly turned around and saw that I was now facing a solid wall. The door that had been there only seconds before had disappeared.

“Son of a bitch,” I breathed with a slight hint of panic.

If I wanted to get out of this dungeon, I was going to have to move forward.

The light in the hallway that stretched out before me was dim. Like the equipment room, it was lit by rusty-looking torches mounted to the walls every few feet. But even then, the firelight did little to take away the overwhelming gloom of the dungeon.

The smell of mildew and dampness clogged my nostrils, and I fought the urge to pull the collar of my shirt up over my nose. I was sure I would go nose blind to it soon enough. There was something else underneath the musty basement smell, however. It was sharp and a little sweet like spoiled milk.

I didn’t know for certain, but I had a niggling feeling in my gut that it was blood.

Shit.

I took a deep breath and focused on the hallway.

The stone floor was uneven and pitted. Small pools of some sort of murky liquid filled the pits and formed puddles. I made sure to step around the first puddle I came across as I began to walk. My boots were nice, but they weren’t exactly waterproof.

I debated pulling Spike out to hold the longsword in front of me, but decided it was probably smarter to have my hands free in case I needed them. I had no idea what to expect as I slowly crept down the hallway and made my way to the first bend.

Then I came across a small dark hallway to my left. I’d nearly missed the entry way thanks to the lack of lighting.

The side path was entirely dark. No matter how hard I strained my eyes, I couldn’t make anything out past the thick curtain of gloom.

I took a small step forward before hesitating. It didn’t seem smart to walk into the darkness completely unaware of what waited for me inside, and I narrowed my eyes as I took stock of the area.

I hadn’t really played any video games since undergrad because I’d simply been far too busy. It had admittedly bummed me the hell out to find that part of my life slipping out of my reach at first, but I’d gotten so used to the grind over the years that I’d hardly even noticed after a while. Now, my old gamer spidey senses felt like they were waking up, and this definitely reminded me of those old school dungeon crawlers I had been a fan of once upon a time. This whole thing felt like Skyrim but in real life. Or, I supposed if I was dead, the real afterlife.

Despite my lack of recent video game experience, I did have some other real life experiences that I thought might help. I had been spelunking in caves before when I was a teenager, and one of the first rules of going into any unknown dark place was to not go into an unknown dark place without a source of light. It was a great way to get yourself hurt or killed.

After a second of deliberation, an idea struck me, and I backtracked out of the narrow entryway. A few feet ahead of me on the wall was one of the mounted torches. I made a beeline in its direction and gave a hard yank to pull the ancient wood from the damaged mount.

The fire made a small whooshing sound as I pulled it free, and I held it aloft in the air above me and made sure to keep it far away from my hair. I really didn’t want to accidentally set myself on fire on top of everything else that was going on.

Whatever the hell it was.

With my newly acquired torch, I made my way back to the small entry. It only took a second to see that the hall led straight to a dead end. Nothing dangerous would have attacked me, but who knows, maybe there was some sort of trap that I easily avoided by thinking things through first.

I started back on the main path. I was incredibly aware of the timer ticking down in the corner of my vision, but I also wanted to be careful. I had no idea what to expect from anything.

Up ahead, the hallway twisted at a right angle. I kept close to the far wall so nothing would be able to jump out and surprise me as I crept around the corner.

I was met with another long, straight hallway, but the hairs on the back of my neck started to stand at attention. Something about this hallway was… strange.

This hallway was distinctly different from the last one I’d been through. The walls were a little wider, and the tiles were odd. They reminded me of when I had tried to print something before, and the ink from the printer had left some items faded while others stood out in bold contrast. Even the torches seemed spaced farther out along the walls. Nothing jumped out at me other than this, but the sudden shift in setup made me wary.

My brow furrowed, and I thrust my torch out in front of me for a better look. I carefully waved it through the air on the off chance there was some sort of medieval laser beam situation going on, but nothing happened to the torch.

Weird.

I took another slow, hesitant step forward, but then the ground seemed to shift almost imperceptibly under my foot. I froze. My entire body went tense as I looked down.

The toe of my boot was on a stone that was a slightly different shade of gray than the surrounding rocks. If I wasn’t looking for a difference, I doubt I would have been able to see it, but now that I knew it was there, it was the only thing I could see.

I didn’t shift my weight at all as I extended my arm out a little farther. The torch illuminated the ground, and I was suddenly able to see a sort of pattern on the stones.

The lighter-colored tiles were spaced out a few feet from each other, and they looked like they would take some serious stretching to get from one to the other.

I had the sudden memory of Indiana Jones and The Last Crusade when he had to jump on the specific stones that spelled out Yaweh or the floor would collapse from under his feet. Could it really be as simple as that?

I kept my other foot braced on the ground behind me and used my free hand to lean onto the wall. I pressed the rest of my weight down onto the small stone just to see what would happen and braced myself for the worst.

The stone depressed further into the ground and I heard another faint click before it seemingly locked into place. The floor didn’t collapse. In fact, nothing aside from the faint locking sound seemed to happen.

I raised up my foot slowly, and this time, I pressed it down on one of the seemingly normal looking stones that bordered the sunken tile.

The rock crumbled like it was made of dust, and suddenly, my foot dropped into a plunging sort of nothingness.

“Shit!” I shouted.

My voice echoed across the sparse stone walls. I yanked my foot back and was grateful I’d made the decision to brace myself on the floor behind me for safety.

Okay. Only step on the light-colored rocks. Got it.

I waited for my heart rate to slow before I carefully planted both of my feet onto the small stone tile. It was barely wide enough for both my boots, but I made it work.

My eyes skimmed the floor in front of me for the next closest safe tile. It looked like it was about two feet away, which was definitely going to be an easy step.

I sucked in a breath and carefully extended one foot out to the stone. It gave the same click as before as I pressed it down into the locked position, so I hopped the rest of the way onto the stone.

Sweat trickled down the back of my neck. I wasn’t sure if it was because of nerves or the heat from the flaming torch, but I swept the torch out in front of me to look for the next stone. They seemed to be getting farther and farther away from one another.

Okay, that made sense. I could do this.

I held my breath and hopped onto the next stone, and my legs only wobbled a little as the rock lowered and locked into place. The next tile I needed was at least four feet away. I would have to stretch as far as I could to make it this time.

I tried not to let my nerves get the best of me as I stretched my leg out as far as I could go. I debated lowering myself closer to the ground to make the stretch easier, but decided it was smarter to keep my balance. The last thing I wanted was to somehow miss the right stone and then topple forward.

My foot barely connected with the edge of the correct tile, but at the same time, I must have pressed down onto one of the other rocks. A large section of the floor started to crumble away into dust.

The gaping hole it left showed me a pitch black chasm.

My heart started to hammer in my chest as I inched my foot safely onto the correct platform. Then I shifted my weight as carefully as I would dare before hopping the rest of the way over.

There was only one stone left before the floor ended and turned into a new hallway. It was the farthest one yet at about six feet. There was no way that I could stretch and make it. I was going to have to jump.

“Okay, shit,” I breathed to myself. “We’ve got this. Come on Wes, we’ve got this.”

I took a few seconds to psych myself up, and then I jumped.

Time seemed to slow as I moved through the air. I guided my landing as best I could, and when I landed on the pale gray stone, a wave of relief washed over me.

The correct tile sank and locked into place with a soft metallic click.

I didn’t have a chance to celebrate my victory, however, because the entire hallway began to shake. In the blink of an eye, the false floor crumbled and fell down into nothingness.

I was suspended above a massive, seemingly endless cavern by only a tiny, narrow pedestal that disappeared into the black.

“Fuck,” I croaked as my knees went numb.

I didn’t dare look down as I stretched out my leg and pulled myself over onto the safety of the ledge. Then I tumbled onto the ground in a wave of relief and rapidly scuttled back against the wall of the hallway. I did not even want to imagine what would have happened if I fell.

Only when I was back up on my feet in the safety of the next hall did I dare look back at the chasm I had just crossed. I’d never been afraid of heights, but the sight made me sick to my stomach. The stones I had assumed were just special tiles were endlessly long pillars. They looked too thin to support their own weight, much less my own.

I tried not to imagine what would have happened if I stood on one for too long. That didn’t matter now, though, because I’d figured out the puzzle and made it across. The only thing left to do was keep moving forward.

Especially since the dropping of the floor meant I literally couldn’t go backward. Not unless I wanted to risk a serious death-drop into nothingness.

I couldn’t wait to tell my sister about this shit if I ever made it out of here to find I was still alive.

Honestly, though, I doubted Carrie would believe me if I told her. For someone that believed the stars controlled her moods, she was shockingly skeptical. She was a fucking enigma, and if I made it out of here, I was going to thump her upside the head for coming all the way to Chicago only to get me trapped in some sort of portal dimension or something.

I adjusted my grip on the torch and took a step forward down the next hall. There was another large, heavy-looking wooden door in front of me. The handle was just a large metal ring that looked like it had seen better days. I might have been imagining it, but as I got nearer to the door, I could have sworn I heard some sort of skittering on the other side.

A chill rolled down my spine. I used my free hand to pull Spike out of the sheath and braced it in front of me. Then I took a deep breath and planted one foot on the door to kick it open.

It swung open into a small room, and it took me a moment to process what I was seeing. There was a large tile mosaic on the floor that looked dirtied and scuffed over. It was hard to make out the design, but whatever it was, it looked like it had a lot of fucking legs.

At the far end of the room, opposite the other doorway, was some sort of shrine. Maybe? I wasn’t really sure what I was looking at. It was a small table with a few candles burnt down to stumps and a large skull sitting in the center. The skull clearly hadn’t belonged to anything human.

I swallowed the lump in my throat and took a cautious step into the room.

In an instant, I realized what that skittering sound had been as a massive spider launched itself from the ceiling in the darkened corner of the room.

The creature looked like it was the size of a golden retriever. It had eight massive, spindly legs with disgustingly greasy-looking hairs protruding from the chitinous flesh. Its eyes were dark and blank, and they were all focused on me.

I could see my own frightened reflection in the darkness. I didn’t have a second to think before I thrust the torch forward at the spider.

The creature let out a loud, aggravated hiss before dropping to the ground in front of me. I swished the flames around to try and keep the spider at bay, and only then was I able to see the intricate net of spiderwebs that covered the uppermost part of the room.

Text hovered over the spider’s head, just like it had for all of the armor and weapons. It read Medium Monstrous Spider: level one. Below the text was what looked like some sort of health bar.

Was that seriously a health bar? I suddenly regretted not keeping up to date on gaming. And just about every other decision I had made that led me to… whatever the fuck this sort of situation was.

One thing was for sure, though.  If this was a medium spider, I was terrified to ever encounter a large.

The spider circled around me in a wide arc and continued to chitter. It seemed like it was trying to assess how good of a potential snack I might make.

I felt sick to my stomach. There was no way that I would be able to get to the door across the room without the spider attacking me, which left me with one thing left to do.

I was going to kill the spider.

As a kid, I’d taken a few tae kwon do classes at a local studio while my mom worked nights, but eventually Carrie had started ballet and according to my parents, that had taken precedence. I didn’t really mind. It gave me more time to read while she had her practices, but apparently, somewhere in the back of my mind, I still remembered one of the basics of the martial art: a front kick.

I forgot what I ate for breakfast most of the time, but somehow, my body still remembered how to deliver a swift front kick to the spider. It only dropped the health bar by a measly five percent, but it seemed to stun the creature long enough for me to form a better plan.

This time, when the spider came scuttling back to me at full force, I swung down with the longsword in an overhead arc.

The blade landed firmly on top of the spider’s head, and the creature let out a pained wail.

The health bar dropped down another thirty percent.

A grin split across my face. Holy shit. I was getting the hang of this.

I tossed the torch down in front of me in the direction of the spider so I could use both hands on the sword. The creature quickly dashed away from the flames, but I didn’t let it get far.

I lunged with my longsword braced in front of me and slammed it down onto the spider’s left half.

All four of the creature’s legs on that side were dissected from its body with a wet, sickening thunk. They hit the ground, and the spider let out another loud hiss.

There was only about ten percent of the health bar left, and I quickly took it out with another swing of the sword, and its creepy head rolled away from its body like a deflated basketball.

I felt a rush of adrenaline as I realized I had won. Holy shit.

I had just won a fight against a monster.

In a dungeon.

With a sword.

What the actual fuck was going on?

And why was I kind of buzzing on the situation a bit?

Before I could do something embarrassing in celebration, a soft chiming sound pinged from somewhere in the room. I quickly glanced around and saw that there was a small treasure chest sitting where the spider’s body laid in a limp pile of green goo on the mosaic floor.

“What the hell?” I muttered to myself before I bent down and used the tip of my sword to drag the chest away from the spider. Once I was sure I wouldn’t get spider guts all over me, I crouched down and popped open the lid.

My eyes widened in shock at the actual gold that glinted up at me. The torchlight made the shiny metal look like it was dancing in the dark cavern of the chest, but I didn’t hesitate to scoop it out and drop it into my pocket. I had no idea what I was supposed to do with a pocket full of gold, but I knew for damn sure that I wasn’t going to leave it behind.

The door in front of me opened with a soft click.

I made sure I had every piece of gold picked up from inside the chest . Then I grabbed my torch off the ground before I crept toward the now open door.

I used the toe of my boot to push the door open since I didn’t want to get jumped by another giant spider if I just walked in without taking precautions.

Luckily nothing jumped out of me as the door swung the rest of the way open, and I took that to be a good sign while I crept into the room with the torch aloft.

The room was dimmer than the last one I had been in, but from an initial glance, there didn’t seem to be anything inside. Then again, I had thought that same thing about the last room.

There wasn’t much in this room. It was about the same size as the first one. A door sat on the opposite side of the room, and I wondered if I had to do something to make it open. There was a small chest in the center of the room and not much else.

I felt the hairs on the back of my beck rise to attention as I studied the chest.

Too innocent.

It had to be a trap.

I was not going to get caught in a trap. Instead of fucking around with the chest. I slipped my sword back into its sheath as I briskly walked to the other side of the room. I pulled hard on the door handle, but the door didn’t open.

Okay, maybe I just didn’t pull hard enough. I tried to yank on the handle again, and I was met with the same level of resistance as before.

Great.

I turned back around, and my gaze fell onto the chest.

I felt like I was getting a feel for how this dungeon worked now. If there was a chest, I’d end up having to open it somehow.

Cautiously, I walked over to the chest in the center of the room. I sucked in a breath through my teeth and debated pulling out my weapon while I circled the chest. As much as I wanted to have the weapon out and at the ready, I needed a free hand.

I held the torch up over my head to illuminate the room as I carefully moved around the chest. It didn’t look like there were any apparent traps, but I couldn’t be too careful after the shitshow I’d just been through.

I really did feel like Indiana Jones, and that was just about the only thing that was able to get me through the situation. Indy wouldn’t freak out, so I would also be totally cool.

Well, that wasn’t quite true. He would freak out if there were snakes. But I would be fine. Totally cool and chill in this random dungeon I’d woken up in without any idea what the hell was happening.

Finally, I crouched down onto my knees in the center of the room in front of the chest. It was about the size of a large tote bag, but made entirely out of what looked like rotting wood. The metal brackets that held the chest together seemed like they could break if I gave them a swift kick and nothing else. Even the lock on the front of the chest looked like it had seen far better days.

I tried to lift the lid of the chest with my free hand, just to see if it was actually locked.

The gesture was met with an annoying amount of resistance, which told me that yeah, the chest was definitely locked and I was going to have to figure out how to open it.

I glanced over my shoulder and studied the room. I didn’t think I’d missed anything when I walked in, but I really couldn’t be sure. I stood up and decided I would walk the room tile by tile to look over everything. It was the only way to make sure I checked every square inch of the place.

I started at the door I had just walked in through. I began to walk the perimeter of the room in slow, cautious steps, but it felt like the room was getting darker and darker as I went. Was I simply imagining it, or was the already dim light from the torches on the walls fading? It felt like my torch was the only bright spot in the entire room.

Weird.

I crouched low to the ground as I moved. I also swept my torch around me like it was some sort of metal detector, but so far, all I’d found were lots of tiny bugs, dirt, and what looked like moldy bread. There didn’t seem to be anything in this room that could help me.

And then I saw the small hole at the base of the next wall. It was probably no bigger than the size of an orange or a grapefruit, but there was something entirely cartoonish about the hole. It looked like every mouse’s hideout I’d seen in every old school cartoon growing up.

I hesitated. So far, the hole was the only thing other than the chest in the center of the room that seemed to scream “I’m part of the puzzle.” But I also didn’t want to stick my hand in a dark hole in the middle of a dungeon. What if something was in the hole? What if it chopped off my hand?

My brain continued to conjure up nonsensical threat after nonsensical threat after I lowered myself down onto my knees to study the hole a little better.

It was smooth, like it had been carved into the stones on purpose. It was definitely more than some random notch in the wall.

The entire room had gone dark around me by then.

I hadn’t been imagining it after all.

The torches on the walls had completely extinguished their flames. If I hadn’t thought to grab a torch off the wall earlier, I would have been completely left blind in the dark.

I strained my ears to try and hear any sounds from the hole in the wall, but I was met with silence.

An idea struck me.

Instead of foolishly sticking my hand or face in front of the hole, I adjusted my stance and used the burning head of the torch to investigate the strange notch.

The room went completely dark as the flames disappeared into the hole in the wall, but hopefully the fire would either kill or scare away anything that might be inside.

I felt unnerved in the dark, like something was watching me. I glanced over my shoulder and tried to scan the darkness, but everything was just some sort of murky blur. It was impossible to tell if there was anything waiting for me in the darkness.

The thought set me on edge, and I yanked the torch out from the hole in the wall so quickly that I nearly extinguished the flames. The torch was still in one piece, and it didn’t look like there had been anything inside the hole at all.

That left me with one option.

I sucked in a breath and shifted on the ground. I had to press one of my shoulders to the cool, dirtied stone tile as I extended my free hand into the hole. Then I crept my fingers along the rough hewn stone tile slowly, and I braced myself for whatever I might find, but instead of accidentally slapping my hand down onto something either disgusting or alive, all I found was more stone tile.

“Shit,” I muttered. There had to be something in the hole. It looked too intentionally placed to be anything else.

The darkness in the room felt like it was somehow swarming in closer to me, too. I wanted to get out of here as soon as possible, so I pushed my arm in further. My shoulder was practically pressing against the wall at that point. I couldn’t get my arm any deeper into the hole, but I still strained my fingers to try and feel something.

Maybe I had been wrong and there really wasn’t anything in the hole in the wall. I still had the rest of the dark room to explore, so maybe it was some sort of red herring?

I shifted on the rough ground and started to pull my arm free once it became clear there wasn’t anything for me to grab ahold of in the hole.

Then I nearly pissed myself.

Nothing could have prepared me for something in the hole grabbing me back.