"I do believe you are unconscious again, and you seem to be very intoxicated, but I see you unlocked your class, good work."

"That would explain the feeling of being drunk, I don’t remember what happened after the first few rounds." Davin tried to cradle his head, but he remembered that he was in his head at the moment.

"I can't do much for the hangover you are going to have when you wake up, but I found a way that I can make the tasks I have for you easier, so I hope that is some compensation."

"What did you have in mind for me?"

"I am glad you asked, do you remember that 'static' you found? After looking into it, it seems that those are the 'leaks'."

"Oh? That would kind of make sense, they seemed out of place."

"The spell you gained upon unlocking your class, I've added the ability for it to track the 'leaks', the spell will be able to guide you to one that is close by, I do not yet know what can be done about them, but if they happen like the others, they will change the landscape of where they originate."

"What do I do once I find them?"

"Your new friend wishes to catalog things, I suggest making use of that, you are the only person in the afterlife that will know anything about them, hopefully, you can find things of use from them."

"So seek, catalog, and basically make sure that they aren't going to blow up in my face, gotcha."

"Ah, hmm, that does seem to be the long and short of it for the time being, I do suspect that the incidents will become more powerful as time goes on, so the 'static' that you witnessed is only the beginning, from what I remember of the last major influx, some of the events changed miles of landscape and an entire new slew of creatures came as a result."

"And if this place is fueled by belief, that is where I begin to worry."

"Worry? What is there to be worried about? Your world didn’t have any monsters or other dangers."

"In real life no, but at the same time, there are a group of people that believe that our government is actually controlled by a group of lizard people that came from a hidden world far below the surface, then there is a huge number of things that people believe in as a result of movies and other media, not to mention all of the lore and history that we have as a world that hasn’t touched this place in over two millennia. So, yeah, I am worried."

"Hmmm, you make a good point, I hadn't considered that."

"A third party member is high on my list of things because of that.

"That is a good plan, but it looks like this is the end of our time, you will be waking soon, and from what I can tell, you won't be happy about it."

With that, the world faded yet again, and Davin felt his mind floating back up to the surface, the feelings of having a hangover were strong, the pain that was in his head thrummed, and the nausea came in waves, as he slowly opened his eyes he found himself in a dark room, struggling to make his eyes focus. He wasn’t sure how long he sat there, he was sure that he'd fallen back asleep a few times, he hadn't noticed the ropes till the third time that he woke, his eyes finally able to focus, he saw the room was dirty, unused, and smelt musty as if it hadn't had any fresh air in years, as he looked around the little light that there was seemed to be leaking in through small panel windows, the light tinted brown from the layers of filth. As he regained some of his senses, he started checking his bindings, pulling and moving his arms, the ropes were snug, but there seemed to be some play if he moved in just the right way. He started wiggling and shifting, trying to get the snug rope to shift just enough to get his wrist free, pulling his arm free of the tangle of rope, pulling the rest of the ropes off took some time, while he continued to worm his way out of the ropes he tried to look for anything that stood out, since he couldn’t see the door from where he was he assumed that it was behind him, but since the chair seemed mounted to the floor he couldn't turn his head far enough to see all of the room. What felt like hours passed as he continued to untangle the ropes that now having looked at it all seemed haphazardly tied around him, noticing knots and extra sections of rope that seemed to not be tied to anything.

Davin started to grow mad as he pulled the last few ropes from his legs, finally able to stand up, his backside stiff from the old wooden chair, finally getting a look around the rest of the room, the thick layer of dust backed up his thoughts of its disuse, the room bigger than he'd initially assumed, the area behind him stretching further than he'd anticipated. He started the slow walk from the room, having taken a better look and not finding anything significant in the room, having claimed an old chunk of wood that would work as an impromptu club if things came down to violence, and part of him hoped it did, he was irate. He took off sneaking as he made his way down the hall that was at the end of the room, the lack of windows made the area far darker, moving slowly forward, not knowing what would be ahead of him. The dust near the wall seemed strangely disturbed, but at the same time he'd also noticed, that there were no tracks into the room, he'd been leaving footprints anywhere that he'd been, but the dust was undisturbed otherwise. He focused on the dust at the wall, there seemed to be a door or a trap of some kind, sadly, he didn't have any of his kit, having gone to a party with his friends, even his belt was missing, his clothes offered nothing for his defense, any hit that he took would likely take him out, remembering the training he had done with Grim, and that was before he had actual hit points…

His efforts weren't in vain, the panel he seemed to have found had a small stash of gear, some rusted lock picks, a bit of aged rope, and a few stones, not the most helpful of supplies, but enough to give him a bit more of a leg up than he had a few minutes ago. He continued the stealth as he moved through the hall, it getting deeper as he moved, thinking about the things that could help him he tried casting one of the spells that he knew, he hadn't tried Guidance, and now seemed like as good of a time as any, thinking of the spell and focusing, he entered that strange state of uncontrolled movement once again, this time letting it finish, holding the spell in his mind as he moved down the hall. He felt the click as he stepped down, the floor giving away unnaturally, he tried to step back, but his foot slipped on the dust, just in time for a large ball on a chain to swing in just around head height. As his breath caught up, sprawled on the floor, a cloud of dust drifting down around him… the feeling in his mind seemed to echo that the spell that he was holding was used and that he had also used some of his luck for the day, that was a strange feeling, he wasn’t sure how lucky worked, and this helped answer that.

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His steps now were far more gentle, making sure not to trigger any more of the traps that may be in this hall. As he made his way he heard the sounds of what seemed like chatter, but it wasn’t anything he would call a language, it seemed more akin to the sound that insects made when calling mates, and that made his skin crawl… and all he had was a club. The moths that he found himself watching as he slowly moved around the corner, him having made an active effort to sneak up on whatever it was that was chittering, part of him relaxed since it was just a moth, but the other part made him panic as he was looking at a moth that was easily the size of a dog, and there were two of them. Davin did not have the best track record with bugs, he could deal with the one-off spider or ant, but any time there were more than he was prepared for, it made his skin crawl, thinking of from when he was a kid and he was over at a friend's farm, and they had a bucket of scraps that had been sitting out for a few days… the flies swarming around it should have been a giveaway, but as the bucket spilled into the trough and the pile of maggots that spilled with it. Davin let out another involuntary shiver, he needed to get over the fear, these things were in his way and he didn’t think that he'd get out of this without a fight.

Having a strong feeling that they hadn't seen him he had one chance at this, he'd hopefully be able to take out one right away with his sneak attack, he knew it did some extra damage, and if he got in the first shot he was practically guaranteed to. Looking into his character sheet.

[Sneak Attack

Beginning at 1st level, you know how to strike subtly and exploit a foe's distraction, you can deal extra damage to one creature you hit with an attack if you have an advantage on the attack. The attack must use a finesse or a ranged weapon.

You don't need an advantage on the attack if another enemy of the target is within 5 feet of it, that enemy isn't incapacitated, and you don't have a disadvantage on the attack.]

At this point, the biggest problem was that he only had a club, and they weren't finesse weapons that he was aware of, but he did have stones, and those could be a ranged weapon, he ducked back into the dark hall once again, tossing the stone up and catching it, testing its weight for the throw. He leaned around the corner as silently as he could, locking on and throwing his stone, hitting the giant moth with a crunch his stone sending it slamming into the wall it was crawling near. Davin ducked back as the other moth seemed to chitter loudly as its friend seemed to have spazzed and was now dead or dying. Holding his next stone as he waited for the chittering to calm down, he stood there waiting. Growing anxious he popped out again and lined up his shot, but his prey wasn’t surprised, but it had only moved a little closer while Davin had waited, he threw his stone right at the face of the bug, the stone striking it with a loud pop as the carapace of the critter burst open as the stone ricochet off of the shell, the force sending the stone wide as it collapsed.

Davin's heart was racing, he had never really killed anything larger than a bug before, while yes it was still a bug, it was the largest thing that he'd ever had a reason to take out. While in the back of his mind, he knew that death here wasn’t permanent, he still couldn’t help but be afraid of it, he'd experienced that darkness when he first arrived here, and it was scary. As he approached the bodies he examined the corpses, kicking the first one he came to make sure that it was dead, upon contact, it shattered into an ethereal dust, leaving behind a few green tokens. When he was told that they came from monsters and such, he was expecting it to be a process and not that they dropped them like loot in a videogame. He scooped up the tokens putting them into his pocket since the token pouch that he had before he started drinking seemed to not be with him, which he just now noticed.

He looked around the hall he had slain the months in, it seemed to not have any traps, but just because he didn’t see them, it didn’t mean that they weren't there. That thought made him feel paranoid, but at this point, better safe than sorry, moving in stealth once again he started to move down this new hall, the small windows letting in the barest amount of light. The narrow hall rounded another corner, this all feeling far larger than it should be for the distance that he'd traveled, he came to a sudden stop, the heavy bars that blocked the path now stopping him from progressing out of this hell hole. The area behind the gate seemed to open up into a wide room, he could see pillars just at the edge of his vision, focusing on the gate testing it, it feeling far heavier than it had initially looked, it not even budging as he tried to swing it, moving his hands around the edges and testing the hinges, he found what seemed to be a lock, almost hidden within the design of the bars and the darkness of the room. The rusted picks that he was carrying didn't seem like they had much wiggle room for failure, maybe getting only one attempt out of them before they broke. The age of the picks made the process far more terrifying than he wanted to admit, and when the click of release finally happened his heart almost stopped thinking that he'd snapped his picks in the process, the door swung silently as he pushed it forward, seeming as though it was well oiled, or perfectly balanced, which seemed strange for everything else he'd been dealing with.

Stepping slowly into the larger room keeping his wits about him, not knowing what else could be hiding around the next pillar. Speaking of the pillars, they were closer to pedestals only going up a few feet and having a flat top meant to have something sitting on them, eight in all, each having an old faded placard with something etched into it. Along the wall was a series of brass statues that all seemed to be around the same size, varying widely in design, some creatures, others weapons, a few tools, and odds and ends. He rubbed the layer of dust off the placards, each one only having a mark or two on them, similar to tally marks at best guess, seeming to range from one to four each set of pedestals having them in a different order. Puzzles were never his strong suit back home, while yes, he enjoyed them from time to time, they were far more his wife's hobby, that thought sent a pang of sadness through him, lingering on it a bit before shaking his head and focusing on the task at hand. The statues seemed to be in no order whatsoever, his paranoia still running strong, he checked for anything that could be set off and cause some kind of disaster to bite him in the face. After settling his paranoia, he looked for things that stood out among the statues, patterns, sets, anything, sorting the statues seemed like a waste of time, but he couldn't think of any better plan, he had pulled a few that stood out, one set was ore, a bar of metal, an anvil with a hammer and then a sword, suggesting that he could set them down in order, another was a group of people, all arranged by height. Having no other standouts he tried the combinations, after setting the last statue on the pedestal he waited, looking around for anything to happen, he started pacing the room, feeling that he'd be down here forever if he didn’t solve the puzzle.

He was growing frustrated, the last few what felt like hours were spent swapping around the statues, seeming to get no closer to an answer… his pacing had expanded, rubbing his hand along the wall as he idled around the room, so focused on what the answer could be, he'd gotten so caught up in his head, so he didn’t notice when he had walked further along one wall than he had before, to the extent that when he walked directly into the wall, not having enough presence of mind to be able to catch himself from falling back after effectively bouncing off the wall. He stumbled, falling to the ground, his confusion jumping, looking around he saw that he was in a hallway, which from what he remembered about the room, it shouldn’t exist, back tracking into the room at large, he saw what he missed. The hall was camouflaged, the two walls painted to make the opening seem as if it was not there, the puzzle functioning as a distraction. Groaning as he thought about how obvious it all was now, picking up where he left off, sneaking down the hall once again. Using the wall as a guide, he continued his path down the dark hall, making a mental note to get something to function as a flashlight. Exiting the hall Davin found himself in what seemed to be a storage area, casks, kegs, and barrels stretched from floor to ceiling, recognizing the barrels as the same ones that Big Green used in The Hall, his anger jumped again…. And that was when he noticed the stairs.