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 and a trail that meandered bad forth before disappearing into the distahere weren’t even any wandering monsters or anything.

  Simon sighed in disappoi, w why a divine being would bother to put a dungeon a mile or two doath from him when she could just as easily have put it right there, or at the edge of the forest, or something. It was fihough, he wouldn’t let this setback ruin his day. He’d find the damn thing and then show Hedes how baseless her worries were. At least it was bright and sunny, and after a while he’d walked far enough from the 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. Irospect 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 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 somethier than that starter armor in the first five floors anyway.

  After another mile past though, he still didn’t see anything. He’d e far enough that the meadow was entirely gone and the trees were starting to crowd unfortably close to the path on both sides. Simohat time assing 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 su. 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 ih revealed aretch 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 sihe funap’ 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 dista wasn’t much, but it might be a mausoleum or the entrao a crypt. That would suit him fiombs were always good reasons to have dozens of levels of treasures and traps. His smile brightened and his steps quied, but as he finally got close enough to see what it was, the shape resolved into nothing but another .

  Was this a shared world, he wondered as he approached it cautiously. If there were other pyers here did that mean there vP? Simon readied his sword as he reached for the door, but as he flung it open he found no one inside. Instead it was ay room that looked a lot like the oarted in earlier. Whoever had been here st eve all the drawers open from searg the pce, and took a bite out of the cheese…

  It was this st observation that finally made him realize he’d somehow e full circle back to where he started. Since he’d walked in one dire without stopping that should have been teically 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 sehat would make the world something like 2 miles around, which was silly. Clearly he o sult a higher power to get some answers.

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

  ‘Dungeon?’ the mirror printed across the s. Obviously it wasn’t tht.

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

  ‘The Pit is here. It always starts here.’ the s 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 ency across. He decided against it. Not because he believed in luck of course, but because this thing had answers he needed.

  ‘You desd to the level underh the bed.’ the mirror wrote slowly, finally giving him an ahat made sense - even if it didn’t really make sense. Who would put a dungeon under a bed after all?

  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 h wood, and had a straw mattress, so it didn’t look very fortable, but wasly heavy either. After a few more seds 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 celr with a set of dusty wooden stairs leading down into them. From up here he could only make out a fees of boxes and bags against the walls, but nothing that looked particurly iing. He shrugged. At least this was a start.

  “Alright, Let’s do this,” he said, crag his knuckles before hefting his sword and desding. Something this robably wouldn’t even have zombies, he decided. What would he enter first then? Goblins? Yeah, it probably had to be goblins. He couldn’t think of anything else weaker as he desded the stairs while he looked around for danger. Looking arou that he wasn’t watg his feet though, so he had no idea what he stepped on that sent him tumbling dowairs. One sed he was standing, and the he was falling face first towards the dirt floor. There was a violent crag sound followed by darkness, and then he suddenly sat up in the bed of his 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 inally, and that this cheese was uen. Simon took a bite from the loaf of bread this time so he could see if these ges happened again should he die again in this game. The about looking for a torch. Afterall, he decided, death from falling dowairs didn’t really t. It was like the real world equivalent of glitg through the nd 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 tor hand he spent a few mirying to find a tinder box or a flint and steel - but the hing he located was a k of what might have been flint on the mantle of the firepce. He took a few mirying to strike sparks from his dagger with it, but none of them caught the tor fire. Relutly he was about to go back downstairs without it, when he decided to check to see if the ashes in the firepce 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 tor his left hand and a longsword in his right. He was now ready to face the goblins or whatever me ass creature this game wao throw at him. With a little effort he pushed the bed aside again, and this time he focused on his footing as he desded the stairs.

  The basement really was just a root celr, and he doubted he would find any loot worth searg for here. A quick look around didn’t reveal anything worth fighting though either. Maybe the first level was just a puzzle duhen? That was on 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 kig back against the thing, sending whatever it was flying. He could feel warm wet blood soaking through his sod 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 dires to ward off any new blows.

  “e out e out wherever you are,” he called into the darkness where he’d kicked his small assaint. Unfortuhat’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 st meal. Simon stepped bad swung his sword twice, but the little buggers were fast, and all he mao do was kick up dust before they were on him. He mao kie away, ahought he might have stomped a sed one, but his legs were on fire from their bites. He would have hought that rats could seriously hurt a grown man, but now that he could see their rge protruding incisors it was hard to see this as anything but being attacked with small chisels arden shears. They could still tear you to pieces, but it would be a slow painful process.

  “Get off me!” Simon screamed, feeli another bite on his legs. Worse though. He could feel orying to climb inside his right pant leg. Without thinkiabbed down, skewering the rat as well as his foot to the ground. Iime 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, uo 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.