A few more monsters arrived, But Elder Pachu was quick to swing his sword. It was incredibly unwieldy but it was the only effective thing.

The monsters would wriggle on the floor, decapitated or dismembered, but they would not die. Elder Pachu and I would walk past them quickly. And then we came to a cliff. It was blackness, and neither of us knew how deep, but it was an easy question to answer, we chucked down the head on my companions sword, and it fell. And fell. Then it hit the floor.

“I think we found the pit.” I said.

“Yes, I think so.” Elder Pachu said.

And then it happened, it like the first time I saw the monsters light on fire, all throughout the pit, it was outlined all the way to the bottom in a spiral by flaming monsters scattered throughout a spiraling path to the bottom.

“Is this what the path to hell is like? A spiral?” I joked.

“They do say you spiral down and down until you hit rock bottom. Do you think the bottom down there is rock bottom?” Elder Pachu joked with me.

We grabbed a new screaming torch and edged around the huge cliff, We both walked along the pit, but there was only one of us slashing the monsters. It was really easy, we could see each one a mile before we got to them, but to be fair, they could probably see us before we got to them. Because we glowed.

I kept my eyes out, I felt so vulnerable, I didn’t have armor like Elder Pachu did.

About halfway down, I saw the darkness shift, is that a creature leaping out?

I opened my mouth and then shouted “Watch out!”

But I was too late, and Elder Pachu got shoved by a darker monster, and even more surprisingly, its plot worked, and Elder Pachu fell off the edge into the void, shouting until a loud thud and clang. As if his armor clanged with a solid rock bottom.

I was frozen stiff. He can't be dead. I thought. I yelled to confirm my thoughts, “Elder Pachu!?” But there was no response. I was shaking now, but there was no time to freeze up, there was a dark monster in front of me. And like nightmare fuel, it smiled, and my soft glow reflected off its large mouth and sharp teeth, but my light seemed warped when it touched this creature, as it crept closer towards me, its smile grew wider, and wider. Its skin was pitch black, completely dark to blend in with the darkness. This was not the same creature as the fire gremlins This one had no face, just a mouth.

I was horrified but refused to take my eyes off of it. Were there more of these things hiding behind me?

I quickly said a prayer, one including both my situation and Elder Pachu.

Oh father, please don’t let this turn out with us both dead. Please keep Elder Pachu alive! And Help me! I don’t know what to do!

The creature was backing me up the pit, losing all the progress we had made in our descent. I couldn’t think of what to do. All I had was this branch.

“Look unto me in every thought. Doubt not. Fear not. D&C 6:36” I said. Reaffirming my own faith, chasing away my own fear. And then I felt strength burgeon within me and I jumped at the monster. It also lunged at me to do what seemed like take a bite right out of my face with its sharp teeth. But I was somewhat ready for this and I raised my flimsy stick and gripped it like a pole on both ends with my hands and caught its mouth on my stick, and then yanked it to my left, then I let go of one end and swung it towards the cliff ledge, and then kicked it, its teeth slid right down the side of my stick, shredding some of the bark, and it flailed in the air and fell straight to what I hoped was its death.

In retrospect, this was the perfect opportunity to tell it to reap what it sows or something, but instead I was just concerned for Elder Pachu, and so I screamed his name. But to no avail. I was met only with the ambient sound of fire gleeking gremlins.

I quickly crept down the spiral trying to make my way to the bottom. I crept along the wall, so that no creature could just shove me off like they did with my companion. I came to the first fiery gremlin that I would have to fight all by myself. Instead of fighting it, I ran right past it.

The creature made a questioning squeak that some strange person might have found cute, but I just ignored it. And quickly ran past the next fiery monster. And the next. But I was running out of breath and hardly made any progress down the pit. This is huge.

I came up to the next fiery monster and really contemplated what to do. My football instincts were kicking in, and I juked it, dodging these things is like child's-play.

I now was jogging down at a manageable pace, the decline was very slight, only slightly making it harder to move quickly without slipping.

Another monster, another juke, I looked behind me and there were like four of the fiery monsters behind me. They would close in on me if I stopped my pacing, and so I continued.

Man, I'm walking myself into a trap. Was this all intentional? Was this dungeon designed to catch intruders? Just like it tricked us into thinking that the flaming monsters were the only ones? Was that all planned out? Who, what and why?

I stopped asking and then remembered, these are the devils dungeons.

“Traps. The devil uses traps. The easy way out will only lead into a trap.” I muttered. And then I realized what I had to do. If I was going to go help an unconscious Elder Pachu, then I couldn’t have this army behind me, I had to do it right. I had to take out all of these monsters.

I turned around and faced the four approaching flaming monsters.

“But how?” I had no clue what to do.

I remembered the story of the Brother of Jared in The Book of Mormon, He had approached God with a predicament, God had told him to cross the ocean in barges to get away from the confusion that followed the Tower of Babel, and then when he came to God with the problem that they had no light in these barges, God told him to come up with a solution, and so the Brother of Jared asked God to touch stones and make them glow. And that's how he saw the finger of God.

“Oh God, let me touch these creatures, and not get burned.” I prayed audibly. And then I spat on my hands rubbed them together, and slapped the first gremlin right into the pit. My hands felt mildly warm, but not burned, I smiled, and then spat into my hands again, and repeat the same motion for the next three. Slapping all four into the pit, where they belonged.

“Please let them suffer fall damage.” I half prayed.

Then I worried I was just surrounding an unconscious Elder Pachu with a bunch of monsters who would burn him alive.

“It's too late to worry about that after shoving five monsters down there.” I cringed, and hoped he was alright. Then I continued down, spitting in my hands and slapping the flaming creatures off the edge. Right when I was getting too comfortable with doing this, I remembered I had to watch for the shadow monsters. And it was perfect timing, because right when I looked over there was a monster sprinting right at me, I dropped to the ground immediately, the creature slipped over me and stumbled, I swung my legs around and kicked it off the edge. But I was getting lower and lower, would the fall really be lethal from this height?

I heard screaming. But not scared screaming, it was more like yelling in battle. And it sounded familiar.

“Elder Pachu?” I said aloud, and rushed to the edge, and sure enough, I probably should have looked down here before, but didn’t, Elder pach was engaging in a one man war with two dark creatures and a whole army of flaming gremlins.

A case of literary theft: this tale is not rightfully on Amazon; if you see it, report the violation.

I almost cried in relief that he was okay. I started giggling. And then looked down and saw my slightly glowing white shirt and tie, my nametag, and remembered. “Oh gosh. I’m on a mission. Hah. This was the last thing from my mind when I was called on a mission, or dreamed about coming out as a kid.” I spoke to nobody in particular.

I watched Pachu wage his war, the monsters were growing more wary, less aggressive and more defensive. But his armor protected him from any attack that came his way, the man was practically invincible.

I rolled my eyes and felt a slight giggly fit of jealousy. “God gave both of us what we needed to get through this dungeon.” Again I rolled my eyes at the fact that all I needed was a stick. Perhaps it was a compliment, but it seemed silly. Or maybe there was no real meaning behind what we started with. But my personal philosophy was to always believe that there is a meaning.

Finally I reached the bottom, having pushed every single monster down to the center of the pit and it appeared that Elder Pachu had completely defeated all of the monsters, including the shadowy ones.

I ran to him, laughing and hugged him, “You survived!” I knew you would! You scared me so bad, I thought you had died!”

He touched his metal helmet and grinned, eyes glossy, but holding back the tears, “I guess this armor protected me from any real damage. The fall hurt like a-I mean it was really painful.” He said, and rubbed his plated shoulders.

Elder Pachu continued his accent getting thicker, “I was actually unconscious, but when the first creature fell on me, It woke me up and we got into a duel. At first I couldn’t touch him with this heavy thing.” He motioned with his sword, then he started laughing. “And then these fiery ones just started falling from the sky, I couldn’t tell what was happening, were they jumping at me? Did you push them down?” He finally broke into a full bellowed laugh, “Oh my Elder Todd, you were incredible up there, not a single piece of armor or a real weapon. HAH, you didn’t even need one! I half expected your corpse to fall down here one of these times.”

I rolled my eyes but started laughing along with his energy. He was always so upbeat. So charismatic, it was hard not to smile when he talked.

We looked around, it was a hellscape, with firey body parts all over this arena at the bottom. The flaming body parts were wriggling too.

I shivered.

“So. Boss?”

Elder Pachu looked around, “Right. Boss. Where is it?"

Upon further inspection, there was another wooden dungeon door down here. We opened the door, ready for anything. But inside, there was a key on a pedestal.

“You think it's a trap?” I said cautiously.

“Definitely,” He said.

But eventually despite our precautions, it really was as straightforward as it looked. A key. A stone key. We glanced at each other and knew what this meant. We had to hike back up the pit.

-

By the time we reached the door we were exhausted. That decline was not so bad going down, in fact it was kind of fun. But coming up was absolutely tiring, I swear my legs were shaking from how sore they were.

“These dungeons are too big. Why do they exist? Where did they come from? Do you think we are like actually entering hell when we go in one?” I asked.

Elder Pachu looked at me pensively, “Elder, I think you think too hard.”

I didn’t know what that was supposed to mean, but I stopped talking about it regardless.

“You want to take a break? I feel like I’m twice as heavy--just twenty minutes.” Elder Pachu muttered and sat down in front of the stone door. And before I knew it, he was asleep.

I chuckled “Man, you have got to be the only person I know who would sleep in a dungeon full of monsters.

Though I was tired too, I couldn’t sleep on the rocks, and I didn’t want to get my white shirt-I looked down, “Okay maybe not so white.” It was brown and dirty, practically unrecognizable. I remembered looking white back there when I inspected myself previously. I'm curious why I appeared white earlier. Could it have been my prayer?

Bored, I pulled open my stats.

^The Holy Ghost^

Elder Todd - Level: 1

--Titles--

- Son of God -

- Disciple of Christ -

- Child of the Covenant -

- Tribe of Ephraim -

- Elder -

- Companion -

- Reliable -

--Stats--

+39

Faith : 8+7, 15

Hope : 2+6, 8

Charity and Love : 1+5, 6

Virtue : 4

Knowledge : 4

Patience : 4+6, 10

Humility : 0

Diligence : 1+7, 8

Obedience : 6+8, 14

^Integrity: 5^

There were a few things I noticed, first was that most of the stats that went up were somewhat related to my trials in The Pit dungeon. The second was my new title, Reliable. What does that mean?

I feel like I deserve way more stats than what I got, also why is my humility zero still. I’m humble! Is that why I have just a branch? To teach me to be more humble? I was having a hard time reconciling my two beliefs, that a branch was all I needed in this dungeon, and also that it was meant to humble me.

Also, why am I still level one?

I noticed a new attribute was added, Integrity. I had wondered why that one was left out from the preach my gospel Christlike attributes, my interface must be getting some kind of updates from the church headquarters.

That was a weird thought. How are they updating an interface from the holy ghost? I put that thought away for later. Now curious, I pulled up Elder Pachu’s stats to compare our growths.

^The Holy Ghost^

Elder Pachu - Level: 43

--Titles--

- Son of God -

- Disciple of Christ -

- Child of the Covenant -

- Tribe of Ephraim -

- Elder -

- Trainer -

- Companion -

-Sturdy-

--Stats--

+146

Faith : 70+14, 84

Hope : 49+18, 67

Charity and Love : 87+22, 109

Virtue : 64

Knowledge : 14

Patience : 6+3, 9

Humility : 94+14, 108

Diligence : 200+34, 234

Obedience : 232+42, 274

^Integrity:6-1^

This is ridiculous. Why did he get these incredible stat gains? Although I was noticing a trend, his higher stats seemed to get more stat gains than his lower ones. Perhaps that was why mine is so low? It was just a theory.

He gained the title sturdy, and he lost one stat in integrity. Wow that would really suck if my theory was right.

Tired, I finally fell asleep too, while sitting there with the stone-dungeon-door-key in my lap.