The cold, dark corridors were lit only with the sickly blue flames of the giant lamps, they were bolted to the wall with oversized metal bolts.

Loud footsteps echoed through the ruined corridor followed by even louder rumbling as if something was tearing the walls themselves down, bringing down sheets of crumbled brick and cascades of smaller wall-fragments down to the ground.

The huge scarred floor tiles were home to many colonies of moss; one of the only things that would are enter this cursed labyrinth.

Through this seemingly unending network of twisting tunnels and abandoned passageways ran the group of four battered adventurers.

In the very front was a well-built human clad in shining armour fit for a fantastical knight of his level.

The visage of arcane neon-blue shields drifted around him, the result of a defensive spell which would be akin to slapping a band-aid on the victim of a sentient paper shredder with a lust for vengeance and human blood.   

That is to say it would be rather ineffective.

The knight glanced back seeing the glint of their foes piercing eyes in the darkness, his confidence never wavering.

In the centre stood the pale, ghostly human, his health-bar was flashing red as an indicator of his dire situation.

“JohnWillStab: IS THIS ACTUALLY POSSIBLE?!” the newest member of the game typed out his flustered message whilst turning his camera back to see the massive skeletal serpent moving closer and closer. 

The dungeon boss’ bones were yellow-green and covered in patches of thin moss.

While the skeleton making up its body was snake-like its head was a very human skull no less than three times taller than a human standing on their tip-toes.

The boss’ skull displayed its sharp, jagged jaw and red glowing circles in its vacant eye-holes.

“Bonifacius: We must remain positive, my friends!” the armoured figure in the front exclaimed playing the ‘/thumbs up’ emote to show his confidence.

He was a roleplayer, a type of person who enjoyed getting in-character and pretending the collection of pixels on their screens was in fact a polygonally-challenged reality.

The ground trembled and rocks fell from above while the group continued their aimless charge and or strategic retreat.

“♛: THE F#$K IT IS! I DON’T HAVE A RESSURECTION SPELL!” exclaimed one of the short figures in the back, she was clothed in a yellow raincoat and carried a large wooden staff in her hand.

As evident by the unusual name, ♛ or “Crown” was a cheater.

Whether is was just bullying somebody who wronged her with the virtual equivalent of DIY divine retribution or ruining the economy by mysteriously acquiring large sums of money out of nowhere,♛ was no stranger to exploiting the game for all she could.   

“Bonifacius: Then we simply cannot afford to die!” he exclaimed with the confidence you would expect from him considering he was the leader of this here dungeon party.

♛ spammed the ‘/surprise’ emote causing her character’s eyes to widen and cover her gasping mouth no less than a dozen times in the span of a few seconds, breaking the animation somewhat.

“♛: OH GREAT!” 

“♛: WHY DIDN’T I THINK OF THAT?!”

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“♛: NOT DYING! FAN-F#*KING TASTIC!” everyone except Bonifacius sensed the potent sarcasm weaved into her message.

“Bonifacius: INDEED!” he exclaimed with a burst of new-found confidence.

As the group reached a point where the tunnel split into two hallways, Bonifacius, JohnWillStab and ♛ went left while XxFoxlyxX, the last member of the group and a frogman just like ♛ turned right.

“XxFoxlyxX: …”

“XxFoxlyxX: What the F#$K guys!?” he cried as the skeletal serpent neared the split at great speeds.

Its massive skull smashed into the moss-coated wall causing more rocks to fall down from above while the glowing eyes of the beast flickered indicating its temporary pacification.

The impact sent tremors throughout the entire dungeon causing even more dust to rain down as the players had to fight to remain on their feet.

Over its head appeared the icon consisting of a yellow swirl with red stars circling it indicating the ‘Stunned’ debuff was at work.

Tensely everyone watched the boss lay there, they waited for its verdict, which direction would it chose and which group would it pursue.

At no point did they dare to stop running.

After about five seconds the boss awoke with a mighty roar.

Quickly it turned right as its grotesque form slithered over the stone tiles towards XxFoxlyxX.

“XxFoxlyxX: THE SNAKE IS AFTER ME!”

“JohnWillStab: Your sacrifice won’t be forgotten!” he exclaimed.

From the chat-feed Foxly could see that JohnWillStab was playing the “/mourn” emote while running.

“XxFoxlyxX: DAMN IT! THIS DUNGEON WAS A MISTAKE!”

“XxFoxlyxX: WHY WOULD THE SNAKE GO AFTER ME?! SURELY IT’D PURSUE THE BIGGER GROUP!”

Desperate to survive Foxly spammed every speed-boosting ability he had, unfortunately for him the seal-class which was his primary class was far more efficient at slowing enemies than speeding themselves up.

The snake’s status as a ‘Boss’ made it immune to abilities that would slow or immobilize it, the only way to stop its charge was to force it to smash its ancient skull into a wall.

Not long later both the snake and Foxly left the group’s line of sight, the only thing that came afterwards was a notification in the chat window.

“Your ally, ‘XxFoxlyxX’, was killed!” read the message in bright red.

“JohnWillStab: Damn it! How do you make a game with THIS as your low-level dungeon?!” he demanded hearing the distant rumbling of the boss getting close to their group once again.

“♛: AND THERE GOES THE NO-DYING PLAN!” she exclaimed.

“Bonifacius: All the more reason we cannot die, now! WE SHALL AVENGE OUR FALLEN COMRADE!” he exclaimed followed by the “/cheer” emote.

“JohnWillStab: Or join him!” John argued.

 “Bonifacius: Perhaps!”

“(Dead)XxFoxlyxX: HOW COULD YOU JUST ABANDON ME THERE?!” he cried.

John could envision a teary-eyed Foxly floating around him, in reality Foxly’s camera was probably focused on his mangled corpse somewhere in the dimly lit tunnel.

“(Dead)XxFoxlyxX: What are you going to do without your top DPS?!“

Nobody except ♛ who was too preoccupied with staying alive had the heart to tell him he wasn’t the top DPS.

In fact, Foxly was the lowest on the DPS meter, this included Bonifacius who was the group’s tank and ♛ who was the group’s healer.

Technically he did more damage than them but the seal class works well with quick bursts of damage which do poorly on DPS meters.

“JohnWillStab: You’re the one who split away from the group, don’t blame us!” he exclaimed as the red eyes in the distant hallway came into view.

“♛: IT’S RIGHT BEHIND US!” she reminded everyone.

JohnWillStab looked around the dungeon, he leaned forward in his seat in real life as he desperately tried to come up with a plan or strategy to defeat the boss, coming up with plans was kind of his thing.

His mind was going into full one-hundred percent analytic-mode.

He scanned every bit of information available to him.

“I have a plan…”

“JohnWillStab: I HAVE A PLAN!” he exclaimed.

“Bonifacius: Great! We expected no less!” he replied enthusiastically.

“♛: …”

“JohnWillStab: I don’t know if it’ll work…” he began.

“♛: JUST F#$KING SAY IT!” she cried seeing the boss only meters away.

John cleared his throat as he glanced towards his side with an forced look of confidence.

“JohnWillStab: Okay, we’re ending the prologue here!” 

“JohnWillStab: Please enjoy the rest of Binary Progression part one from the start!” he cried clenching every muscle in his body.

“♛: …”

“(Dead)XxFoxlyxX: That’s cheap, man…”

His eyes lit up in realisation.

“(Dead)XxFoxlyxX: HOLD ON, YOU SON OF A B#*CH, COULDN’T WE HAVE DONE THAT BEFORE I DIED?!”

“♛: We’re just establishing your contribution to the team from the start…” she said smugly.

“Bonifacius: I see, very well then! Let the tale begin anew!” he exclaimed.

“(Dead)XxFoxlyxX: YOU BUNCH OF UNGREATEFUL A#*HOLES!”