Dungeons have existed across the world for thousands of years, providing Adventurer's and Voyager's with the perfect opportunity to get stronger, gain power, and achieve vast amounts of wealth. However, with a high reward, must also come a high risk. Dungeons contain powerful beasts, traps, and highly dangerous environments, forcing those who dare to enter them to go through many trials and tribulations before reaching their goal at the end of the Dungeon. Even now, it is rare to find someone who has escaped from a Dungeon and succeeded unscathed...

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With the little Penguin now safely wrapped onto Jordan's shoulder, the two now made their way down to the dimly illuminated ruins in the centre. Of course, Jordan had his assumptions of what this could be, considering all the signs that had been laid before him, consisting of a small talking penguin and walking Lizards. The basic description of dungeons vaguely crossed Jordan's mind, but the shear fact that something as rare as a surfacing dungeon, dungeons which would surface from deep in the ground after laying dormant for thousands of years, would appear on this bland and tedious island surprised Jordan a little.

Jordan began before he was quickly cut off, "Hey Penguin--"

"My name isn't Penguin!" The little thing piped up, "It's Cookie, and I'm a male if you were wondering!"

Jordan stayed silent for a moment, his face not visible at all to Cookie as he stifled a laugh after hearing his name and high pitched voice again, "Right, Cookie. Could you tell me exactly what's going on?"

"Easy! I was...They were...I was going to...I got this thing and then...Uuuuh..."

Jordan kept walking towards the destroyed and withered buildings, until eventually they were deep into the ruins, the same mythical energy they had seen from atop the edge's of the crater surrounding them, "So what you're telling me is, you have absolutely no clue?"

"Pretty much...haha." Cookie said quietly, laughing a little to himself.

It seemed as though Cookie wasn't going to be of any help here, and besides his own intriguing feelings towards this place, Jordan could not help but worry for his Uncle back at the town. Regardless, he pushed the thought away, unable to imagine his fierce and strong Uncle hurt or damaged in any way. However, Jordan did wonder if their home or blacksmith shop survived the severe tremors that came from this surfacing dungeon.

As the two continued forwards, Jordan kept inspecting the different structures covered in dirt and moss. The buildings looking withered away, as though their former glory had vanished with the passing of time.

"How old is this place?" Jordan asked, wondering if Cookie came with the dungeon.

"I'm not sure. Definitely thousands of years old for sure."

"Hmph. Hey Cookie?"

"Yes?"

"Why can you talk?"

There was a long and stretched silence between the two before Jordan spoke once more, stopping in his tracks, "I'm going to need you to answer me Cookie."

"W-what do you mean?" Cookie stuttered, slightly worried for his safety at Jordan's sudden change in tone.

Jordan dropped Cookie from his back, crouching down and glaring at the trembling little Penguin, "Please tell me you aren't a flesh eating monster."

Cookie lunged forward, slapping Jordan across the face with his flippers repeatedly, "IM NOT A FRIGGIN FLESH EATIN' MONSTER! I JUST APPEARED HERE WITH THOSE THINGS CHASING AFTER ME!"

Jordan had to fight for his life before grabbing and pushing Cookie away, "OKAY! OKAY! I'M SORRY!"

Cookie sighed disappointedly, somewhat expecting Jordan to have done something more drastic than ask a ridiculous question before hopping out of Jordan's grasp, storming forwards and deeper into the ruins, "Follow me. I came crawling up from a hole somewhere around here. I'll tell you that I only have memory from when someone gave me this covered thing, to when those Lizard monsters chased me away. Nothing other than that."

Jordan decided to follow, concluding that asking any more questions was not going to benefit him. Mostly because he genuinely had faith that Cookie was telling him the truth. Suddenly, Cookie's waddling came to a halt, Jordan stopping in his tracks as well. The Penguin seemed to be looking directly towards a rather large hole in the middle of the ruins.

"Th-that's where I came crawling from." Cookie said, pointing his flipper directly towards the hole.

Jordan instantly assumed that it must be the entrance to the dungeon below these ruins, making his way past Cookie and towards the edge of the hole, taking a look down to see how deep it was. Instead, his eyes were met with pitch black darkness, the depth of this hole completely unidentifiable.

"Hey Cookie. Do you remember how deep it was?" Jordan asked, turning to look back at Cookie who seemed a little unsure about how close he should get to the hole.

Cookie fidgeted a little, "No, I'm sorry. I was just running without looking back!"

Jordan sighed, a smile of disbelief creeping onto his face, "Then how the hell d'you crawl your way up from this hole...Fuck it I'm jumping in!"

Before Cookie could reach his flipper forward and yell out in protest, Jordan had already sat on the edge of the hole and launched himself down, the air rushing past his body and face as he tried to grip to the wall, the skin on his hands peeling. Realising this was an unfathomably long drop, Jordan panicked and lunged his feet up to the wall opposite him, using both his legs and upper body to slow down his descent. His hands were now bloodied and peeled, but the feeling and rush of adrenaline he had just felt

Eventually, his descent slowed down and he peered down. To his surprise, he could see the ground at the end of the hole due to a dim flickering light illuminating what seemed to be stone floor. He let his grip go as he fell for a short moment before landing safely on his feet, crawling away from the hole just in case Cookie came flying down himself. Jordan sat down, looking at his hands and arms which were bloodied and peeled from his attempt to slow down his descent. He reached back and could tell his entire shirt from behind was torn from how he had to lean his back on the wall as well while falling for extra support in slowing down the drop.

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"Fuck...it hurts." He winced a little in pain, until he could hear an echoed scream coming from within the hole, "Ah shit COOKIE!"

Jordan scrambled towards the end of the hole once more, looking up only to see Cookie's backside heading straight for his face. The collision was soft but also carried a lot of force, sending both of them sprawling onto the ground as Cookie bounced off of Jordan's face, serving him a safer landing than the solid ground.

"UWAAAAAH! JORDAAAAN! THANK YOUUU!", cried Cookie as he crawled over to Jordan, holding onto his trouser leg.

Jordan stared up at the ceiling for a moment with a blank expression, cursing his decisions throughout the day before sitting up and rubbing his face, "Don't mention it."

The two began to make their way down the only path way granted by this stone room. Jordan reached for the torch that had been placed onto the wall and was illuminating the room they had fell in, so that navigation through the dungeon would be much more clear and simple. Eventually, the long stone hallway came to an end as they were greeted by a massive open grassy field with rivers running through, surrounded by four humongous stone walls. Both Jordan and Cookie seemed to be standing in a hole for one of the walls that had a staircase leading down to the grassy layer below. Cookie looked up, able to see exactly where the towering walls came to an end, his eyes sparkling with wonder. Jordan was the exact same but more due to the fact he was comparing his surroundings to a level in video games he'd play on his Gem64.

While they looked up, they witnessed two moons, one silver like the one people on Earth were familiar to, and the other a dim red, the sky littered with millions of stars. It felt as though Jordan had just been dragged into a completely different dimension simply due to just entering the dungeon. This was all just extremely unknown and spectacular to him, to the point where he had to calm his breathing and excitement. He was finally experiencing one of the things he had always dreamt of.

"Psst, Jordan."

The pink haired daydreamer was quickly brought back to reality as Cookie tugged at his trouser leg, pointing his flipper towards the centre of the grassy fields. Jordan turned towards where Cookie was pointing, seeing a band of Lizardmen around a campfire. Another Lizardman seemed to be running towards them, stumbling around a bit as though he was in a panic.

"So that must be the one that got away." Jordan said.

Cookie hurriedly began to drag Jordan down the stone staircase leading towards the grassy field, "If they catch us up here, we're finished!"

Once they had reached the grassy field, Cookie shoved the both of them into a nearby bush. Jordan peeked out of the top and saw both the Lizardman he had chased and two of his friends charging towards the staircase, eventually completely passing by both Cookie and him, and making their way up the stone staircase towards the dungeon entrance.

"Phew...That leaves two at the campfire. You can handle them right Jordan?" Cookie asked, turning to Jordan with wide sparkling eyes.

Jordan felt a wave of intrusive thoughts, begging him to just hand Cookie over to the Lizardmen as their dinner but he shook his head, "Yeah."

The two snuck out of their hiding spots in the bush, sneaking around the small hilltop with extra care and entering a bush close to the campfire spot the Lizardmen had set up. The two creatures seemed to be conversing about something and laughing in what sounded like complete babble or gibberish to Jordan.

"Hey Cookie let's just attack. Cookie?"

Jordan turned to see Cookie's eyes wide and his jaw completely dropped as though he was in complete shock, "Th-they said...they're gonna find me...a-and eat meee!"

Cookie burst into tears, crying uncontrollably as Jordan grabbed him, covering his mouth to stop him from alerting the two Lizardmen. Eventually, Cookie stopped struggling and looked up at Jordan.

"I'm sorry..."

Jordan sighed and smiled, "Its okay. You want to get this started then?"

Cookie smiled brightly back up at Jordan, "Yeah I'm re--"

The Penguin felt his entire body go flying through the air as he soared for a moment, landing face first front of both talking Lizardmen. They both looked at Cookie and back at each other with vicious, sinister grins, standing and reaching for the wooden spiked bats. Cookie could not believe it, Jordan had pretty much just given him up in the worst situation possible. The little Penguin covered his teary eyes with his trembling flippers, certain of his death until a huge thud was heard. Cookie peeked from one of his eyes seeing Jordan had killed the Lizardman that had its back turned to the bush with one swift and unexpected strike using the spiked bat he had stolen earlier in the forest.

Before the Penguin could even say anything, Jordan grabbed him out of the way of an attack from the second and final Lizardman that seemed extremely wary and cautious now of Jordan's presence. It quickly dashed forwards, swinging down at Jordan, who swiftly dodged out of the way. Jordan in response swung directly at the Lizardman, who also dodged backwards with relative ease.

"This isn't going to be as easy as the other's. You advanced or something?"

The Lizardman tilted its head and laughed maniacally. Before Jordan could attack again, Cookie called out to him, pulling back the covers of the long item he had been carrying.

"Please Jordan! Use this instead!"

Jordan turned his head and saw a sheathed sword land at his feet. He quickly dropped the spiky bat he had been carrying and looked at the sword for a split second before he was forced to dodge another attack from the Lizardman. This time however, whilst dodging, Jordan swung his foot at the back of the Lizardman's knee, knocking him off his balance, ultimately providing Jordan the time to inspect the weapon Cookie had just thrown to him. He quickly unsheathed it in anticipation of how the weapon would look like. It seemed to be a silver sword, one with a non-glowing orange gem connected to its platinum sparkling hilt.

The Lizardman turned to Jordan once more, still confident in his own capabilities as it lunged into the air, doing a forward roll a few times to gain some velocity before yelling out in gibberish.

Cookie piped up, "HE--HE SAYS SPECIAL SPINNING BATON!"

"Huh? I don't give a shit." Jordan jumped up, going to use this sword for the first time.

Right as he was going to swing his blade horizontally at the spinning Lizard, the gem connected to the hilt began to glow bright orange, coating the entire blade in a sort of bright energy. Jordan swung the blade as hard as he could, wind blasting everywhere as the two clashed with each other, sparks of orange flying everywhere as the Lizardman's weapon along with his body was split directly in half.

Cookie sat back in awe as Jordan landed, looking at the illuminated orange gem, the whirring sound emanating from it came to an end, dimming along with the orange energy surrounding the blade and gem. The Penguin felt tears rush to his eyes as he scrambled over to Jordan, diving into his arms.

"DON'T PULL THAT KIND OF STUNT AGAIN! I'LL SERIOUSLY KILL YOU!"

Jordan laughed and held off Cookie's flipper slaps while sheathing his blade, connecting it to his belt, "Hahaha! I'm sorry...I'm really sorry I did that okay? Next time you can use me as bait."

Cookie clung tightly to Jordan, already feeling incredibly attached as the pink haired boy stood up, allowing Cookie to be carried in his arms for now. Right as Jordan was going to comfort the crying baby Penguin, he felt the ground beneath him disappear. The two began to fall once more, Cookie's voice echoing out in despair of having to fall once more, and Jordan's thoughts drifting off to how comfy his bed would feel right about now.

Jordan couldn't imagine having to protect himself here like before due to the presence of Cookie. So instead, he wrapped his arms tightly around Cookie, turning himself into a ball, bracing himself for impact. However this time, the two landed in a small but shallow enough pool of water to provide some level of cushioning for Jordan. As he let go of Cookie, Jordan panted and let out a long sigh of relief having expected his life to come to an end. After getting over his scars aching from falling down the first hole and the thought of dying just now, he heard Cookie speak up.

"This must be the second layer of the Dungeon. I remember the Lizard folk only speaking of three layers at the campfire, so only one more after this Jordan! Fame and fortune awaits."

Jordan smiled a little to himself, sighing before following after the baby penguin, who seemed to have changed his tune rather quickly from the crying, sprawling mess from earlier. The tunnel they were now in was once again dimly lit by one torch which Jordan took with him, but was also filled with a shallow amount of water reaching up to Cookie's waist and Jordan's boots. Neither of the two could imagine what waited for them at the end of this murky dripping stone passage, but were extremely anticipating the reward at the end.

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"Sigh...I'm tired of this body."