Instead of the hallways I had been expecting, I could see an elaborate entryway to a pair of large double doors that looked to be about 20 feet high. The doors were sinister in appearance, with a dark crimson color and a wet look that gave the impression of the doors being coated in fresh blood. They were surrounded by an arched stone entryway that fused into the walls of the room I exited. The entryway was only about five feet long, but gave an imposing aura with the blocky gothic style look. It did not help that the entry was carved from the same shiny obsidian, lending to a feeling of corruption and death that seemed to emanate from the very stone. I had no idea what was behind the doors, but at an instinctual level, I was terrified of it. I stood rooted to the spot, unable to move forward. I was unaware of time passing as I struggled to get a hold of myself.

Finally, I was able to force myself to take a step forward, then another, until I was able to reach out and grab the handle of the door. The instant I touched the handle, it was like a switch was flipped and I could control myself again. In addition to that I could now hear a soft, eerie, distorted tune that seemed to surround me. Slightly creeped out by that, I tried to ignore it and focused back on the doors. With the limited entryway, there was no way I could just open one and hide behind it. I would have to open both at the same time and open myself up to being a target. ‘Fuck you too.’ It’s like the dungeon wanted me dead. ‘Wait, it does want me dead… now is not the time to lose my fucking mind.’

I had no idea if it was lingering fear or an effect of the dungeon itself, but my common sense seemed to have taken a vacation. I set down the shotgun and used both hands to slap myself, hard. The stinging sensation was enough to break me out of the lingering effects. It seemed that the dungeon was now attacking me mentally, too. ‘well fuck, I hate mental dungeons.’ With my mind as clear as it could be, I examined the doors. I was torn between opening the doors as I was or flying up to open the doors from a height advantage. Either way, I would not be able to use the shotgun immediately. I would also have to decide if I were going to open them one at a time or together. whatever I chose, I would have to stabilize the rifle first.

I untied the makeshift bandage on my arm, checked and saw that the bleeding had stopped. ‘That’s good, I don’t want the health drain from a bleeding wound.’ I folded and put the bandage in my corset just in case, and used the lace pieces to make a temporary sling for the shotgun. Instead of slinging it on my back, this time I slung it across my front. It took a few tries but I found a position that would allow me to quickly fire the shotgun, while slung, minimizing the risk of being defenseless. I also switched the ammo to the acid shots so I was prepared to inflict maximum damage.

After some thought I decided to open the doors simultaneously from the top and hope that any initial fire would come at standing height. I flew into position, grabbed the handles, and pulled. I almost had my arms slammed into the walls when the door swung aside as if it was weightless.

There was no time to do anything except frantically dive into the room as an AK-47s automatic fire ripped through where I had previously been. Immediately I was panicking and trying to frantically dodge the stone column right in front of me. I was able to narrowly avoid it, but clipped my left wing against the far wall. It felt like I had been sucker punched in the gut. A throbbing pain flared with every flap of my wings. I did not have time to do anything other than ignore it as I frantically dodged the automatic fire and columns. While dodging I caught glimpses of a few basic creatures milling around the room. I used the pillars where I could as a make shift shield, but they were not wide enough to cover my entire wingspan, so I was forced to continually move to avoid being hit.

When the break from the AK-47 was due, I expected to have a minute to catch my breath. I was so wrong. Instead of a break, I was now dodging fire from a shotgun. With the slightly slower rate of fire I was able to look at the creature firing at me.

This creature was vastly different from the other creatures. only the grey skin, deformed faces, and eerie yellow eyes were similar to the other creatures. This creature was about ten feet tall with a muscular build that looked wiry, not withered. The wings had roughly 70% of the feathers on them. ‘Shit, I hope it can’t fly.’ While I had been observing and dodging, the creature never let up its fire. I was leery when it suddenly paused for a few seconds and the shotgun it was carrying morphed into a semi-automatic rifle.

“Fuck this shit!”

Not only was the creature large, but it could change its weapon as well. Cursing under my breath I dodged the three-round bursts and wait for the firing break, if it even comes. I was kind of expecting the creature to change weapons instead of actually pausing, but I would take advantage of it regardless. In the 30 break, closer to 25 since I paused to make sure the gun was not changed out, I was able to bring up my shotgun and fired 20 acid rounds giving myself a few seconds to start moving again.

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When the second break came, I gave it the same few seconds, and was glad that I did. The creature changed out the gun again, this time it was a pistol. It was not the same small self-defense pistols that the return fire and mid-tier creatures had. This was at least a 9mm pistol, though it might even be a larger caliber.

The only silver lining was that while I had no opening to fire at the creature, it was only firing a single shot at a time. After a minute of dodging, there was the five second lull while the gun changed back to the semi-automatic rifle. Knowing what to expect, I began to doge while waiting for the 30 second reprieve to return fire. I must have flown too close to the creature, because within a second, it was right in front of me. I folded my wings and instantly dropped, narrowly avoiding being grabbed by one of its large hands. ‘Fuck, fuck, fuck, that was way too close.’ As I snapped my wings out to stop my fall I felt many hands grasping at my feet. ‘Damn it, not again.’

I looked down and saw at least 20 basic creatures crowded around me. I shot into the crowd, frantic to get away before the large creature could get me. I knew this would increase the shotguns overheat stat, but could not care about that or it would get me killed. I escaped the hands and shot off towards the other side of the room. My chance to return fire had been ruined. I would have to wait for another opportunity, if I was lucky it would be soon.

I made sure to stay farther away from the creature and when the gun changed again I glanced down and saw some basic creatures materializing in the large crowd that was already there. ‘Shit, they increase over time.’ Luck was with me, the gun did not change. I counted down the three-round busts until I could return fire. As soon as possible I began firing rounds into the creature. It took a second to realize that the first couple of shots killed the creature before I stopped firing. With a minute to catch my breath, I checked my XP log to see what the creature was called. I wanted to face palm so badly, apparently it was just called a boss.

‘This has to be the most fucking boring dungeon ever. I’m not normally much of one to complain but it really feels like a five-year-old threw a bunch of toys and guns down and made a play battle from it. Maybe the dungeon core is mentally retarded.’

With my mental complaint over, I got back to work. I did not want to spend forever making my way through all of the grunts, so I switched to the fire shots and began taking them out. After I had killed 15 of the basic creatures I received a level up notification for the shotgun.

Level 8 Shotgun

Abilities: infinite basic ammo

Rate of fire: 1 per 0.3 seconds

Damage range: 1-20

Critical hit rate: 20%

Critical hit Damage: 39

I continued to kill the rest of the creatures to complete the room. With the added damage there were only eight creatures that required a second shot to kill.

With all of the creatures taken care of I took a moment to actually look at the room I had been fighting in. it was a long rectangular room, made from the same obsidian as the entryway, with a vaulted ceiling supported by many columns the size of a large tree trunk. There were alcoves evenly spaced along the sides of the room and at the far end of the room was a large mural. The mural was mostly destroyed, but I could see partial wings and what may have been a gun, but I could not be sure. Below the mosaic was a door that would lead to the next room in the dungeon.

I landed and picked up the ammo pile, there was a mix if fire and acid shots with the fire shots being the majority. Once the ammo was stored I checked my status. Even with taking no injuries, my health had decreased another four percent, leaving me at 71%. ‘I need to hurry the fuck up, before my health starts disappearing even faster.’ My shotgun was almost half way to level nine, even though it had just leveled up, and the overheat stat had increased to 83%. I told myself to be more careful and stop raising the stat, I really did not want to max it and be left without a weapon. I contemplated removing the makeshift sling, but ultimately decided against it since it was proving useful.

With that, I headed for the far end of the room. The differences in this room compared to the previous rooms had me cautious about opening the door. Nevertheless, I approached it as I did the doors to the other rooms. I flung it open from the cover of the wall and listened for any sound. When there was no sound, I looked out of the door. The contrast between the room and the hall was like night and day. It looked like a natural cave. There were stalactites and stalagmites throughout the room, with what looked like a narrow path winding through them that faded into the darkness.

I carefully picked my way down the path, avoiding catching my heels in the numerous cracks and holes on the ground. There were numerous twists and turns, yet the dim light illuminating the path never wavered, despite the lack of light source. I finally reached the end of the path and stopped, stunned by what I saw. I was not expecting to see something straight out of a documentary. The passage widened to show large cave paintings where all of the people had crude wings. In the center of the wall was a massive tattered fur door that may have come from a mammoth. Between the destroyed mural in the previous room and the cave paintings here, I got the feeling that the dungeon was creating unnecessary backstory for the creatures I had been fighting.