The always-out-of-order bathroom opened to the lobby of the dungeon. This time, the sight that greeted me on the other side of reality was especially unnerving. The scene was unlike any of the times I'd dived before.

It was an empty room. Not just empty, but completely empty, devoid of any clues or hints of what obstacles or objectives the dungeon might contain. With mere seconds left on my timer, I stepped inside.

The door closed behind me, and then it vanished altogether. This part was normal.

Sometimes the exit wouldn't appear until I'd defeated the dungeon objective. It was different every time. Random. Only once I’d completed the requirements of the seed would the door open, but I'd still have to fight my way back if I wanted to make it out alive. Unless it was one of those weird dungeons, those were insane. If that was the case, then getting out alive would be anyone's guess.

A status message flashed across my vision.

Dungeon Core Initiated.

Divers Present: 1 of 1.

Song Selection: Staying Alive by the Bee Gees.

Diver: Claudia Swift.

Current Class: Sevenia Nymph.

Magic Specialization: Fae.

Equipment Rules: Standard.

I breathed a sigh of relief and flexed my white and brown faerie wings, a benefit of my current class. Fae energy swirled around my fingers and I felt the pull of my litany of spells. The difficulty of this particular dungeon was almost assuredly too hard for me to handle, but at least I had full access to my normal dungeon magic, my weapons, and the rest of my equipment. That meant I had a chance.

A chance, even a remote one, was better than it could have been.

Despite being granted access to my gear, a quick glance at my inventory confirmed that I’d need to exit the lobby before I could equip any of it.

“You should know by now. I'm too stubborn to die,” I shouted to the jukebox. I couldn't see it, but I could feel its presence.

It was watching, waiting for me to make a fatal mistake so it could claim my soul for its own. My words echoed back, betraying the faux courage I'd tried so hard to feign.

As if in response, a small table popped into existence beside me. Three small cookies adorned a delicate plate that reminded me of my late grandmother’s fine china she kept locked inside an antique curio cabinet.

“Refreshments?” I asked. “Are we really doing this right now?”

The cursive icing that was scrawled atop the cookies spelled out two short words. The script was legible, but the handwriting was unsteady, as if applied by arthritic and trembling hands. The black lettering called to me, taunting.

“Eat me.” I read the message aloud, eyeing the treats with growing suspicion. “Yeah. Nice try.”

I pulled both the plate and the cookies into my inventory and looked around the empty room. There had to be another clue.

There seemed to be nothing out of place at first, but then my eyes settled on the strange scratch marks that scored the white walls on either side. A rusty brown smudge stained the ceiling above my head. On the far end was a small door. It was much too small for a normal person, and I suspected even a mouse would have a hard time passing through. The toe of my shoe might fit, but nothing more.

Cookies it was, then.

I opened my inventory to find the items, much like my weapons and armor, frustratingly inaccessible. The words of each were grayed out. This meant they were off limits, at least until I somehow managed to get out of the small antechamber.

There was no way to know for sure what might have happened if I'd eaten the cookies before dumping them into my inventory, but I was starting to get the feeling it wouldn’t have been good. None of my spells would help me out of this mess. Something told me the answer to this puzzle had to be something else. The solution had to be something silly, but painfully obvious once you figured it out.

There was a storied familiarity about this place that I couldn’t quite put a name to. It didn’t match the song, as far as I could tell, but it was there all the same.

My mind went back to the cookies and a sideways glance at the table revealed another item. One that hadn't been there just moments before: a tiny vial with a tag dangling from the neck.

Why offer the items in stages, the cookies first, and then this? The dungeon was warning me.

I looked up at the rusty-colored smudge on the ceiling and then at the deep scores along the walls. It was obvious to me now, and a sudden weight filled my stomach. The cookies were a test, one I’d been lucky enough to pass, even though I still didn’t recognize the theme. The stain and the scratches were evidence that at least one other Diver hadn’t been as fortunate as I’d been so far.

This was the first dungeon I’d entered that had been tried and failed at least once. It was a shocking reminder that I had to not only play by the dungeon’s rules, but I had to decipher them as well… or else.

I picked up the bottle and read the tag. The words had the same strange scrawl. “Drink me…”

I looked at the door and then back at the bottle, pondering it all for a moment before realization struck. Then I silently cursed myself for not putting it together sooner.

“Alice in Wonderland? You’ve got to be kidding me.”

Neither the dungeon nor the jukebox offered much of a response.

“I guess that makes me Alice, then, right? That’s cute. Real cute.”

The cap tore off the top of the bottle without much effort. The glass touched my lips, and I took a sip. It tasted like a creamy mix of lavender and chamomile, with the added sweetness of honey. A sleepy feeling washed over me, spreading through my limbs like the warmth of a cozy blanket on a cold winter night.

My vision distorted as the table beside me lurched upward. The door on the other side of the room grew a little bigger, but that wasn’t quite right. It wasn’t that the door had gotten bigger. I was getting smaller, but I still wasn’t small enough.

The author's narrative has been misappropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon.

Another sip of the brew shrank me further, and then another. I downed the liquid in small measures until it was gone. By the time I reached the bottom of the bottle, I was finally small enough to fit through the tiny door, but the expanse had grown dramatically. It would have been better to move closer to the door before drinking the concoction, but what was done was done.

The wind fluttered beneath my wings, carrying me across the huge room. When I opened the tiny portal, I half expected to hear the ticking of a clock and see the retreating figure of a white rabbit. There was neither. Instead, a bright world full of fantastic sights and sounds and colors greeted me. Outside of the very blank room, there appeared to be no walls. The scenery smelled real in every sense of the word.

Mushrooms of various sizes and shapes jutted in odd directions. Ferns stretched upwards as far as the eye could see. The massive leaves of some gargantuan tree littered the ground. Small woodland insects roamed the undergrowth in abnormally large proportions.

A sudden bevy of fear caught in my throat as I stepped inside. There was no denying it. This was no ordinary dungeon. I thought to bite a cookie. They had become accessible within my inventory once I'd stepped through to this side of the door.

I then thought better of it.

There was probably a really good reason the dungeon had taken the time to warn me. The jukebox might be a being of pure chaos but, as long as Bob stood watch across the bar and Divers kept the songs from leveling too high, the entity was bound by at least some measure of order. Even here in the dungeon, where its power was at its strongest.

“Stay alive, Claudia. Just… stay alive…” The words sounded hollow as they left my mouth, but it remained my silent mantra as I ventured further into the unknown.

I equipped my armor as I went. First my Feathered Pauldrons, then the Layered Demonleather Greaves, the Iron Oak Breastplate and Enchanted Dragonskin Bracers were next, then finally the Wyvern-Fang Crown. My razor-sharp double Woodland Chakrams found their way to my open palms. The circular blades were decorated with delicate ivy vines and gleamed in the greenish light.

I was ready for battle, but I felt myself hesitate. This dungeon was not meant for a Diver like me. It was much too strong. Whatever awaited me in this core was going to be far tougher than I might normally expect. I would do well to keep that in mind.

Fluttering through the undergrowth, I made my way toward what appeared to be a small clearing. A leaf the size of a house broke free from one of the towering trees and drifted downward, swaying back and forth as it fell. A mushroom to the right of me released a cloud of spores that smelled of earth and dust.

I covered my nose with the back of a hand and glanced at my status bar. Nothing. I’d been lucky.

Who knew what kind of traps the dungeon had in store? My mind went to the bottle of liquid and the plate of cookies. If I’d chosen the wrong one, I would have died. The drink was what got me out of the room. The cookies were a distraction, or meant for something else. You never could tell. The jukebox's dungeons could be tricky like that. The song title generally held some sort of clue, but that, too, could be deceptive.

For now, ‘Staying Alive’ meant just that. The last thing I wanted to do was die in a place like this, but it couldn't be that simple. Could it? No. This was a level 6 song. That meant people had died. Real people. People like my brother, Ellis.

This song had taken at least one experienced Diver, possibly up to five inexperienced ones, and if I died, it would level up yet again. Some things were worse than death. The idea of Earl coming in to clean up after me might just be one of them. Especially after the shade I'd thrown at the sour old man.

None of the large creatures mulling around the clearing appeared to be aggressive. In fact, they didn't even seem to notice my arrival. Ants and slugs bandied about, skittering or slurping here and there.

A chill ran down my spine.

The slugs reminded me of the slimes I'd had to kill to defeat the last dungeon. Those creatures had high physical damage resistance, but were susceptible to most forms of magic. As a hybrid magic and melee class, it had been a bit of a double-edged sword. I could do more damage to them with my magic, yes, but the more mobs you faced at once increased the difficulty of mana management.

Some dungeons worked like that, pushing you to conserve resources as both sides waged a battle of attrition until either the Diver or the mobs eventually succumbed. I wondered if fighting the slugs would be the same.

The nearest of the slimy creatures pulled some decaying matter from the forest floor and began to slurp and chew. Tendrils of mucous obscured the object from view. It looked like a white stick that had been covered in red gelatin. Then realization struck. A gauntlet slipped from the skeletal hand that dangled from the mob's mouth. It fell to the ground with a muffled thud.

“Have you come to recite me poetry?” a lofty, drawling voice cooed from somewhere overhead.

A wobbling, purple smoke ring drifted downward, settling atop my crown before rolling off my hair and armor and dispersing across the loam. Then a new status message flashed in front of my eyes.

Dungeon Hint Located.

1 of 2.

Absolem's Abjuration:

When Caterpillars Refuse to Fly.

Absolem’s growth has been halted.

Help him to overcome his fears and finally take flight.

Note: This is your Main Quest. You must complete this quest before you will be allowed to leave the dungeon.

That was it. There was nothing else, and there would only be one other clue for me to find before I could solve this dungeon. I was on my own to figure out the rest. No wonder this song was at such a high level.

“Dear Miss. Are you deaf?” the bug, presumably Absolem, asked in a condescending voice as he peered at me.

The caterpillar was hanging upside down from a dipping length of fern with a hookah hose in one of his numerous hands. Those hands looked surprisingly human for being attached to a bulbous, purple-hued bug.

“Why don't you want to fly?” I asked, cutting right to the chase.

Absolem jerked backwards as if I'd physically slapped the pipe from his pursed lips. His eyes blinked in obvious disbelief.

You Inspect Absolem.

Level 25 Stunted Caterpillar - Elite.

Disposition: Flippant, Irritated.

Hit Points 1,000 / 1,000.

Quest Status: Mandatory.

Levels in dungeons like this were always a little more complicated than they seemed. I was only Level 3, while the caterpillar was Level 25. That didn’t mean he was 22 levels above me in experience or stats. It was confusing, and it could change from dungeon to dungeon, but I’d learned not to waste time questioning it.

The system message itself was a little different from the ones I'd seen before, but the meaning was clear. Absolem had to survive.

“You are not the girl I know,” he said, squinting at me. “Who… are… you?”

Another smoke ring escaped his mouth. This one crawled through the air like an inchworm.

“Claudia,” I answered, waving the smoke away.

“Claudia is Not-Alice,” he retorted, sending another smoke inchworm in my direction.

“Don't do that. It's rude.”

“Rude, you say, Not-Alice?” he asked. The words came out painfully slow. He drew out each syllable far beyond what my patience could handle. His gaze narrowed. “You are Not-Alice. Not-Alice would presume to ask why I might choose not to fly? All of this without uttering a single recitation?”

“If I recite a poem, will you sprout wings and fly?”

Absolem seemed to think about this for a moment.

“No,” he said, exaggerating the facial movements for my benefit.

A smoke ring drifted downward, crashing into my face with enough unnatural force to push me back several paces. It didn't do any real damage, but my vision blurred.

If I could have killed the pompous bug, I would have cut him into chunks for the slugs to devour without so much as a second thought. Unfortunately, that wasn't an option.

“Perhaps…” he said, righting himself.

“Perhaps?”

“Perhaps if you were to kill enough of these creatures,” he said, waving three of his chubby arms toward the ground. “Perhaps then I could safely wrap myself within the warm embrace of my cocoon. Only then would I choose to fly.”

I once again surveyed the surrounding creatures. My eyes lingered on the slowly disappearing remains of the previous Diver until a loud crash captured my attention.

Something was nearby. Something big.

Above me, Absolem looked in the direction of the sound and began to tremble with fright.