As I stand in my arena I can’t avoid being bothered by its lack of detail. “If I’m going to be here I at least want something nice to look at, could you create decorations or details to apply to the walls or floors? Honestly I don’t think it needs much more than a few barrels here and there or some more natural looking walls. If you added a small ring of water around the edges of the arena then it would add a little bit of atmosphere.” My suggestions for the dungeon seem to put it into thought as I don't get any response yet.

A few minutes pass as the dungeon stays quiet for a bit, which leaves me some time to process things a little. All things considered this new body feels pretty good, I haven’t felt any dissonance due to my past life so I haven’t thought too hard about it yet. The armor I’m wearing isn’t heavy at all and barely restricts my motions no matter what I seem to try.

Finally the dungeon addresses my questions while I'm preoccupied testing out a couple of swings of the great-sword I've been given. “If I were to try and add any design past shape to this floor it would require more Narath than I have, even if I were to add a new torch to one room it would still be just out of price range for me. If we could get someone to run through a couple of rooms then I’d have a way to improve the aesthetic a bit.” I find it a bit strange that decoration costs a dungeon's resources but unfortunately solving that problem is out of my hands right now.

“If the room is making you restless you could attempt to possess one of the floor monsters? It isn’t the best start im sure, but at the very least I would rather you not simply be required to stand here until a runner happens to find the entrance.”

How exactly does it expect me to know enough about what I’m doing to possess a creature? They told me that nothing other than me is sapient so maybe I can just close my eyes and think really hard about possessing a rat? I shrug to myself and just improvise, shutting my eyes and imagining a rat in my head.

Several minutes pass and nothing changes, although I start to hear the skittering and squeaks of the rats just outside the arena. My hearing feels really clear for some reason, although I guess that makes some sense, while I don’t quite remember how my hearing was before, I am certain it wasn’t this potent, and the new ears on this body function very differently from what I expected.

And so I sit here, trying different images in my head until something happens, which nothing does for a long while. Something I have yet to attempt is figuring out a specific rat to possess. Opening my eyes and walking over to the exit towards the other rooms, I spot one rat standing on its hind legs and choose it as a target for the idea. I shut my eyes one more time, then imagined what I would expect to see based on how the room looked near the rat.

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A few minutes of trying and without any kind of warning, the feel and sensation of my boss' body vanishes, only for a really strange feeling of being unbalanced to take its place. I try to open my eyes and figure out what's happening, only to fall over… As the rat. I try to say something outloud but all that comes out are squeaks, although the dungeon seems to understand me regardless of that. “Wait did I succeed? Am I in control of the rat now? If this is a successful possession then I have to ask, Is my body still where it was?”

“Yes, although I'm not sure what you did exactly, I can confirm that you are in fact puppeteering the rat near the arena exit. You should be able to explore the rest of the floor like that, if you see anything that catches your eye feel free to say something, I will be busy planning for upgrades for when someone runs through the first floor.” With that recommendation I began experimenting with moving in a four legged body.

First attempt at walking leaves me on the floor which while I'm not sure the dungeon can laugh I can imagine it’s fairly amused by it. A few more tries and I manage to figure out running and jumping as a rat, turns out its weird little tail is important for both of those. First order of business is checking out the room outside this one, although I figure it isn’t any more interesting than this one, sleek gray stone walls that don’t even pass as natural. Walking into the next room I confirm that suspicion, although I do spot a few traps along the ceiling, a quick observation reveals they just drop rocks when a tripwire is activated, although I think the wire is a little too high to avoid detection. Although, while I can spot it while this low down, I'm not sure anyone else will see the tripwire due to the lack of light nearby, as well as its thinness.

After running through a couple more rooms, it all seems pretty similar. A few rats here a trap there, if you’re lucky you'll spot a lone torch somewhere that doesn’t quite help anyone in the room. In total it looks like the first floor of the dungeon has five enemy rooms, and one blank room at the entrance, which I should add is simply an arch-way directly to a small grassy clearing in the shade. Next idea I think of is to try and leave the dungeon. I’m not sure if I can get far due to the conditions the dungeon told me, but maybe I can get outside enough to wander in the grass or something, assuming there is any out there that is.

Nothing seems to try and stop me from leaving through the arch. After walking a couple steps into the clearing just outside, I find out why the dungeon is shaded. There is a sizable hill that this archway digs into the side of, and while I'm not sure if it's afternoon or morning, the sun rests behind it casting the long shadow seen from the inside. The entrance of the dungeon looks like a poorly carved arch with a repeating forked pattern engraved in the pillars. Above the passage is a cap with a very simple depiction of a sword at the center.

As a last test, I try to run as far out as possible, only to be stopped just a short distance away from the exit area by a force pulling me back towards the dungeon. The range of how far I’m able to come out here is only about one room on the inside, albeit circular. With all the information I’ve gained so far, I’m deciding to call it for now and head back inside to try and release control of this rodent’s body and get back into mine…