Sam looked at the message that had just opened, and at the exact moment he had completed reading the sentence he felt the same warm light move him.

“No, wait!” Sam called out, almost like he was trying to cancel it. However, his words were ignored and from his view the first word was spoken in his room and the second was wherever he landed. Before he got a chance to look around in this dark place two windows opened; a welcome and a quest window.

[ Welcome to Solo Dungeon: !&¤§%. ]

[ Solo Dungeon Clear conditions - 0/?

-Exit into the next room. ]

First of all, he didn’t like the glitched text on the name. It looked like the message was going to welcome him to the name but...

Secondly, without more details, or rather without any good details, he only felt like complaining to someone about this. He had to exit a room... which was ominous at the best of days.

Taking a good look around he couldn’t see much at all. There was no light source, the whole place was completely pitch black. He could feel the ground being somewhat soft under his feet, a strange give in the footing. Standing still he also almost felt the ground move, like he was standing on the fleshy body of something massive. The damp air was filled with the smell of rotten meat and mould, a strong sting of old sweat and festering excrement lingered in the distance. He needed a brief moment to control his stomach and swiftly get used to the smell, even slightly. Or he’d lose the remainder of his lunch. Having lived on the street aided him a little with this, but the smell was intense.

Taking out his cell phone, he complained about little charge left as soon as he unlocked it. Sam couldn’t pretend he was surprised, he had had this phone for years and it was second-hand even then. Activating the flashlight warned about low power and that this would drain the remaining battery faster. He didn’t have a choice and allowed the activation.

The little LED activated, sending out its short-range light. The walls, the floor, the ceiling, everything he could see was made of slowly pulsing, discoloured flesh. Everything was slimy and moist like it was rotting slightly, just enough to let a layer of slime and puss cover most of it. The skin-like layer above it looked more like a thin transparent film of slime that had barely hardened, making a membrane more so than skin. In certain areas there appeared to be oozing boils in clusters, or the odd one alone here and there. It was wriggling, pulsing and ever so barely moving almost as if a pulse was moving towards it, pulling and moving the slime and puss-covered membrane around. It was the image of standing inside a large, diseased and rotting corpse, barely still living.

Sam had to widen his stance to not fall to his knees, he didn’t want to touch this thing more than he had to, but the sight of everything pushed him over the edge and the twisting grasp in the bottom of his gut had enough. He threw up everything in his stomach, splattering across the fleshy floor in front of him. His stomach contents mixed with the already wet substances on the floor, lit up by the flashlight on his phone, combined with the horrible new smell this created. His already empty stomach churned, and he gagged and tried to throw up again. Though his stomach didn’t have anything remaining it still tried to throw up more than once. This process went on for a few moments, a few moments that felt like far too long. Once he finally stabilized his stomach enough to not gag and throw up nothing, something even worse happened.

The flashlight turned off.

The flashlight turned off and he got a few seconds of a screen displaying a message about being out of battery, shutting down. He cursed himself that he didn’t get a new modern Arcane Battery phone yesterday when he had that much money, or just a dumb little light using simple batteries. They were super cheap and lasted for hours due to simple LED tech... but no, he was now in the darkness.

A brief thought made him realize why this was a quest, getting out of there was... disgustingly easy and hard at the same time. In the brief practical use of the light, he saw that he was in a room, or more like a fleshy cavity of sorts... a hallway or opening was leading out of here. His light didn’t have the range to show him further away than that, but... he had a backup solution... Like everyone, he could feel his way around. Stepping gently and feeling around the walls with his hands, but... he didn’t want to fucking touch anything. Just the thought of touching those disgusting, rotting walls, made him gag again.

Wanting to take a deep breath to refocus, his body refused the action, almost to the point of wanting to stop him breathing. It allowed him to force breathing through ragged rasps with gags in between. He used a considerable time to get even barely used to the air in there if that could even be called air, before he could even take a moment to think.

Forcing himself to breathe, through tears, pained stomach muscles and lungs, he finally got a moment. He wanted to get out of this, but what did he have to work with? A stick or something would work wonders but he only had his daggers, some potions and his armour. He had some of the spikes from before but... even if he wanted to tie them together sort of as a poking stick, he didn’t have anything to tie them with.

If he could only use his Psyhands, he couldn’t feel anything with them, but with 8 of them, he could feel around. From earlier tests when he did the monster dismantling in Aetheria, he found out that though they can be covered in substances, just despawning and manifesting them had the substance fall to the ground. So they would have been perfect for this.

On instinct, or perhaps a desperate plea for it to help, he reached out with all his Psyhands, stretching them out around him. He heard the squelching sound of them hitting the walls, the floor and the ceiling, it was nauseating. Seconds after trying to touch around he heard highly viscous substances fall and land on the floor, taking a step to the side as a reaction there was something slippery under his foot making a similar sound as he slid a bit to the side.

His stomach tried to empty itself again, but like a minute ago, there was nothing there. All he got was the involuntary cramp of his stomach trying to wring itself empty. Through all this, he just felt glad that he managed to stay standing, and didn’t slip up and fall. That would have been horrifyingly disgusting.

Taking a step forward, he tried focusing on his arms more than anything. His mental image still showed him that he could take a few steps forward without hitting anything. Though doing so was surprisingly hard. The ever-sliding mass he was stepping on, the realization that he just stepped in his vomit... mix... didn’t do him well. No, he had to focus on his Psyhands, they were described as hands, he could somewhat sense where they were to a certain degree, like his normal hands. If nothing else he could extend them as far as he could and with the sense of distance he should be able to at least guesstimate a wall, if there was a floor to step on and so on.

To his ecstatic glee, given the situation, he found out that this worked!

Sending out his hands and touching whatever they hit, he could hold them there as he walked to get a rough sense of where the wall, floor and so on, were. It gave him a super shitty but working way of navigating. He moved forward into the hallway, and as he touched around and tried to push the hands forward, not being able to, signified a wall. If it slid to the left or right gave him a feel for if it was angled away. Doing the same for the floor made sure that he wouldn’t fall into something. Though this worked it didn’t let him feel every bump, everything in his way.

Feeling that the hallway was rounding a corner, so to speak, he could slowly walk that way, mentally preparing to slide and fall and to catch himself. He’d rather soil his hands than his face. The lack of sensitivity had him step on something slightly hard, as his weight accidentally got put on it it popped. His foot stepped into something gooey and foul-smelling. The viscous liquid filled his shoe and clung to his leg, seeping through his sock.

His stomach again churned, painfully strong, the tiny bit of stomach acid it had managed to build forced itself up his throat and coated his mouth before just dripping out. Collecting it and spitting it was the only thing he could do, accidentally tasting it even more through the necessary action.

This place was horrible, he hated it here, and he’d rather be back on the streets. What kind of fucking horrible alien creature, God or fucked up being would create something like this. What even was this? Was this just a living series of hallways, was he inside something and... What the fuck was going on?

Pulling his foot out of the nasty semi-liquid substance, the feeling of it clinging and barely letting go twisted his stomach yet again. Especially so when he put his foot back down on the ground and tried to walk, the slick feeling of almost being on ice, barely and vaguely knowing why it was slick, made the whole experience worse.

No, he had to focus on his Psyhands, focus on the important details. Where there were walls, and there was a floor where he was about to step. Put everything else into the back of his mind. Ignore it.

Suddenly, from his right, there was a strong whisper, like someone wanting to shout but needing to keep it as a whisper.

“Hey, over here!”

Startling Sam to the point of him just grabbing his daggers and flailing them in that direction, his daggers digging into the nasty wall, cutting into it. Like a zit ready to pop this sent a pulse of unknown viscous and smelling liquid in Sam’s direction. Not seeing this happen he didn’t have any way to defend against it. A solid splash along his right side, from head to toe, a horrifyingly gruesome taste, highly viscous almost slime-like texture. His body convulsed in disgust, his stomach clenched harder than he had ever felt, forcing everything out. This caused him to lose his footing. The already slick surface, mixed with the new slop was enough to let his step slide to the side, removing his support entirely. He fell to his side. As a reaction, he dropped what he was holding and braced with his hands, Though this let him support himself as he landed, it soiled his hands considerably, all the way up to the elbows, it also let him halfway land on his very sharp dagger.

The cut into his thigh was shallow, luckily. The negative thing was that this wound was now covered in whatever this swill was. Though he couldn’t feel it entering his wound, his mind made him feel it. He tried to rub it away but with his hands like they were, it didn’t do it better.

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De spawning a few of his Psyhands, he manifested them again to get them clean, using them to dig, rub and scrape the best he could to get shit out of his wound, he knew he made the wound slightly worse but... in a slight panic of the unknown, he couldn’t stop himself.

When this felt done... or as done as he dared to do without being able to see anything, he felt horrible. Even worse than he already did. He felt infected, not sure if that was just the icky feeling or if something was making it worse. It had only been seconds so realistically it shouldn’t have infected him already... but at the same time.

He needed to push on, his mind was making things worse, he wanted out, he wanted to clean the wound, he just wanted to leave. He felt around to find his daggers, picked them up and continued.

By focusing on his Psyhands the last... Hour? Hours? He had no idea, but he had managed to slowly navigate around corners, through ‘hallways’. He was becoming more adept at understanding the bouncy nature of when a Psyhand could or couldn’t move further. He got slightly better at registering the hardness of things on the floor and the walls. He was slowly understanding the feedback he got back better, to the point that he could avoid stepping on weird shit.

“Behind you!” A strong whisper suddenly spoke to him from behind. He again turned around and sliced at it, falling over like before. His daggers didn’t connect with anything.

“Who’s there?! Why are you doing this?!” Sam shouted out, hoping for an answer.

There was none.

Not even an echo or anything, the walls and ‘construction’ here were too soft, with no hard surfaces for the sound to bounce off. The only response was the passive silent squelching from the walls.

Every step he took, every touch he did with his Psyhands made a sound, a moist slap, the bubbling of the hands sinking into something horrifying, something. But whatever was following him made nothing. There was no sound of wings, no steps, no touching around. He was alone, he couldn’t sense anyone normally but at the same time, he didn’t feel there was anyone with him.

“Hurry!” The voice whispered from his side. Again he flailed after it from his seated position. Hitting a wall he cut deep into it. Nothing happened. The fact that there was a wall there, this close to him, there was no room for anyone to be there. But... at the moment the harsh whisper spoke to him, he felt a presence... right?

“They are coming!” The whisper warned him, from a bit further down the hallway he came from. What was this, who was this?

“Who are you, who are coming, what’s going on?!” He shouted out to the voice.

He got no reply.

Getting himself to his feet, desperation fueled his movements. He moved faster, his Psyhands doing their best to feel around, he slipped and almost fell many times, actually fell a few. He couldn’t feel well enough for this, he had to focus on the Psyhands, sense their input, how they stopped and what they bounced against. It was weird, it worked but he had to move slowly.

Then, like suddenly finding a missing piece, something in his mind clicked. Something in his brain connected to the Psyhands. He felt everything, every bump, every strand of slimy goo, every hard surface and the textures they touched. Despawning and manifesting a hand near him, he touched his normal hand with it, it felt like his two normal hands touching each other. He touched his armour, he could feel each strap, the buckles, the rough texture around the edges.

Reaching out again with this newfound feeling was... horrifyingly disgusting, but knowing it wasn’t his normal hands, letting him feel without danger. It changed the process dramatically. He could walk faster, he could scan the floor and walls, find better places to step, feel corners, and avoid boils. It was disgusting as fuck to feel all of this, but it was better, much, much better.

“Hurry!” The whispering voice shouted right ahead of him, like he was about to bump into this person, this startled him considerably and all his hands, normal or Psyhands, honed in on the sound trying to grab it. But besides crashing into each other there was nothing. Nobody, no person, no nothing.

He managed to not fall over this time, but it was only barely.

“Who are you, please... answer...”

This was getting to him, he didn’t want to admit it but it was surprisingly terrifying. He didn’t know if the voice was helping him, fucking with him or otherwise. There might be something after him, there might not. He felt paranoid, he couldn’t see, he didn’t know, and he could feel his wound almost festering. Using a clean Psyhand he could confirm something was going on there, it felt more gooey than it should be... He didn’t know why, he couldn’t see.

He wanted to give up, he wanted out, he just wanted it to end. At the same time, he had just gotten a new ticket to life. He was making good money, at least compared to before. He was befriending Janik, he wanted to keep this life. He wanted to see what more it brought. A brief thought returned to his earlier existential crisis, why he was doing this. At first, it was just a dream of wanting more, wanting power for the sake of gaining comfort. But there was more to it. He didn’t feel bad for the Goblins, actually he kind of felt good ending them. Not just them; the Kobold as well. His mind went back to when his family was killed, the monster which got out of the Tower somehow. Did he want to kill them all? No. that would be a neverending cycle of murder. He could never out-kill the instant generation of dungeons, that was impossible. He wanted to kill the Towers, he wanted to get whoever was on top to shut this down. One good thing could be to fix it, but the social difference between Players and normal people was horrible, he had tasted this himself, from both sides.

But, if he managed to get to the top, would he be willing to give up the power he had now? Let alone the power he would have amassed if he got to the top. Parts of him didn’t want this, but other parts wanted to just let it go, let his fellow lesser people get a more balanced life.

Another thought came to his mind, would it be better to just gain that power, and use the power to make things better? He was no hero, he wanted things for himself, and he wanted to grow to the top for his own sake. Not having anyone able to step on him, but was that enough? Was that his real goal?

Considering it for a moment, he realised something. It wasn’t just one or the other. It was a mix. He wanted revenge for his family, his friends, and his life. The monsters that did this, the people or entities that allowed them to get out and have their way with defenceless normal people. Every goblin kill, every dungeon cleared, it felt like a small step towards this goal. He wanted power for his own sake, he had had horrible things happen to him in his life, it was good until the monster but... Living on the streets with nothing. It might not be the worst thing in the world to many but to him, it was a nightmare. And... it was just fun and interesting. It gave him purpose, something to look forward to, seeing self-improvement over a shorter time, as most young boys; he wanted power because it was cool. Did he need more reasons than that?

“RUN!”

As his mind turned almost hopeful and cheery, the whisper again warned him and yelled at him to run. It came from nowhere, everywhere, it was above him, below him, all around him. It felt like it was inside his head. He was flailing his Psyhands around in any direction, but couldn’t hit or find anything besides the walls, ceiling and floor. Being ripped out of his train of thought had him again fall over, bracing himself against the soft sloppy ground covering his hands with a fresh coating of mysterious substance.

Forcing himself back to his feet, he was getting strangely used to this. He realised that though the whispers were startling, nothing happened. Not knowing what was going on with his wound and the unknown was horrible, yes. But besides the blind stumbling about, nothing was happening to him. He wasn’t attacked and the whispers coming from inside his head, being illogically close, it just clicked for him that this didn’t feel real.

Almost as if on the queue on realising this, his Psyhands could feel the hallway he was following opening up into a room. Entering it he could see the faintest of light sources in the distance. Carefully going towards it he felt the ground with every step, not wanting to fall into or over something.

Finally making it to the light, he felt a strange sense of calm, just being in a lit-up area felt very good. He didn’t know how long he had been stumbling around, but it felt like several hours. He was tired, he wasn’t hungry at all. Or rather, his body wanted nourishment but there was zero appetite.

Standing in the light he felt it pulse, a few seconds later the whole room he was in lit up. He could see all the gore, all the rotting flesh, the veins, the puss-filled boils. He didn’t feel the same level of disgust as before, but it was still unpleasant.

[ Solo Dungeon Clear conditions - 1/?

-Exit into the next room - Complete

-Survive the Chamber. ]

The quest window blinked and updated, giving him a completion of the horrible hallways he had to navigate, but he didn’t like the new entry on the list. Turning towards some fleshy sounds coming in the distance, it looked like some dogs turned inside out, made of the same puss and gore as the rest of this place, were digging themselves out of the fleshy floor, leaving large, gaping wounds. They were dripping with puss, blood and saliva as their mouths opened with an otherworldly snarl. There were two of them, and he saw another lagging behind as it was trying to dig its way through the skin-like membrane.

The quest window pulsed again.

[ Solo Dungeon Clear conditions - 1/?

-Exit into the next room - Complete

-Survive the Chamber. 00:01 / 10:00. ]