I draw my stick and approach the giant stone doors that mark the entrance to the rest of the tunnel. There are some strange runes carved on the surface of the door that I can’t make out at all. Maybe it’s the same rune system that holds the illusion in place? No clue, as I can’t fuckin’ see the Mana infused runes, but the door is slightly ajar, so the word or words are broken up. As I pass through the gap, I note that it’s a pretty good thing that the door is already open, on account of the fact that even my enhanced Strength means nothing against a foot thick, 9 foot tall stone door. How the hell would someone even open this? Can it be closed? This place would be really defensible just based on this choke point… hmm.

I step through and find a long, dark passageway. I can see very faint light in the distance, but the entire way there is mostly shrouded in darkness. I shrug and begin slowly making my way down the hall. The light from outside fades almost immediately past the doors, but I can still make out a few feet in any direction. My vision feels weird in that range, entirely colorless and mostly outlines of features… must be due to my Perception stat. I figure that as my eyes adjust I’ll be able to see more, but for now it’s pretty crap. A few careful steps in and suddenly Kaythe starts trying to guide me to the left wall. At first I resist, as I’d much rather have space around me for maneuvering if need be, but Kaythe rapidly becomes more insistent, even going to far as to *click*(danger) its disapproval. A trap? But… looking around, I don’t see anything. It looks like a totally normal underground cave hallway, if a little dusty. Granted, I can’t really see the ceiling that well, but the floor and walls look normal…

I put my stubbornness aside and follow Kaythe’s guidance to the left wall and start walking forward from there, only to be *once again* interrupted by Kaythe! It’s wiggling like crazy and constantly clicking out the ‘danger’ warning, but there is literally nothing there. “Kaythe” I whisper, “what the hell is wrong with you?” Kaythe, for his part, clicks in my face and continues wiggling. Very helpful.

But I trust the little idiot so I stop again.

Let’s say there’s a trap here. It has to be triggered somehow, yeah? Unless it’s magic… like a rune trap… but even then something has to set it off, right? While there’s a chance that it requires a living target to set it off, that would be ridiculously unfair for a dungeon so early in ‘the game’, so I’ll assume (probably wrongly) that it can be set off by anything that ‘trips’ it. I don’t see any tripwires, and pressure plates could be hidden, but there aren’t any holes in the walls for spears or poison darts to come through… so the threat is either going to come from way in front of me, the ceiling (which is tall as fuck and hard to make out), or the floor.

With that in mind, I grab a fist sized stone from the floor and roll it down the middle of the path. The stone rolls along the ground, and I don’t hear anything trigger, so I start to reach for another stone to test the ceiling when I hear a sharp *crack* sound from in front of me… but also down, much further than the ground. I immediately dive to the ground, from the noise, but after lying there for a few seconds in a fog of newly stirred up dust, no other sounds have emerged… so I guess the trap is triggered?

I move forward to investigate only to have Kaythe start warning me in the same place about some clearly well hidden danger.

Exasperated, I ask Kaythe to kindly show me this danger, to which Kaythe clacks in agreement. It crawls off me, forward a few feet, and then into the ground.

Before popping back up.

And crawling back to me.

My exasperation switches to confusion, and then a dawning realization. Despite having 27 Intelligence, I’m a fucking idiot.

The entrance to the cave was covered in a giant illusion, so why the fuck didn’t I think the traps would be?

Crawling forward on my stomach, I slowly approach the place Kaythe had disappeared through, and, sure enough, my hands pass right through the ‘ground’. The illusion dispels at my touch, revealing that it is, in fact, a giant pit. One with giant, sharp spikes at the bottom.

Neat.

I carefully slide back and away from the pit of death, quietly whispering my thanks to Kaythe for saving me from a really dumb death. Now that I can see the pit, I can tell why Kaythe wasn’t happy with me just walking close to the wall. There are ledges on either side of the pit, but they’re only about half a foot wide, and I would have tanked ass right into the pit if I’d gone on walking. Additionally, I know these illusions have to be powered by something, and because the illusion vanished at my touch (but not Kaythe’s?), I have to assume it’s a much smaller battery, likely for a one time use.

As one time would be all it needed… eugh.

I check the near side, and as far along the left and right sides of the pit as I can see from the safety of my side, but don’t see anything but sheer drops, meaning… I’ll have to cross and check the other side.

I almost wish I could put the illusion back. I don’t much care for heights. Especially not heights where I don’t have much footing, it’s dark as shit, and there are giant spikes waiting to fill me with their love.

It’ll be fine.

I won’t fall.

Kaythe will help me balance.

Right Kaythe?

Right?

Haha… please.

Back against the wall, I start to carefully scoot along the edge of the pit, doing my best to study the tips of the spikes that I desperately don’t want to become more familiar with.

Stolen from Royal Road, this story should be reported if encountered on Amazon.

People always told me not to look down, but fuck that, I need to look down. This isn’t safe, it’s fucking dangerous, and being constantly reminded that I’m about to die is a great way to stop me from getting comfortable. Comfort means slip-ups. Panic also means slip-ups. Gotta walk the razor’s edge. Freak out just enough.

Good thing I live my entire life being anxious all the time.

This is just another day in the life.

No problem at al- OH I’M ACROSS THANK FUCK.

I calmly walk a few more steps before sitting down and allowing myself to lose composure for a moment.

Screaming internally is a very healthy coping mechanism, and I won’t hear otherwise.

A quick break to steady my nerves and a thorough check of this side of the pit reveals a small, dark stone embedded in the side of the wall. I pluck it out, and though it is very smooth and pleasant to hold, it doesn’t seem terribly interesting. I’m pretty sure it’s another Mana battery though. If not, it’s just a cool looking stone, and those are usually worth *something* in video games. I find it interesting how these stones seem to be consistently exposed or reachable in some way. You’d think you would want them well hidden so nobody would take them… but… I guess you’d also want them accessible so you could refill them. Maybe it’s not so bad if someone steals them? They could be super easy to make for all I know. *If you have magic.*

I do have the issue of rapidly filling pockets though. One of them is full of nuts and flowers, so I slip the small stone into the other pocket. I really need a bag… and I just realized I left the two dog monsters to rot instead of keeping them for fur and meat.

I can’t keep doing this. I feel like my increased Intelligence stat just makes it easier for me to get caught up in my own head and forget important things. Yes, Kaythe had disappeared and finding it was way more important to me than some shitty dog corpses, but I still should have remembered to grab them.

Now I can’t even use them as a treat for Kaythe for finding this place or saving my life.

I really do owe it for that.

Hopefully this dungeon has some nice, easy things to kill that taste good to Cathids.

I turn away from the death trap and continue forward again, much more carefully than before.

You know, I thought just being on the lookout for traps was enough, but it really isn’t, especially when you’re fucked if you miss even one.

The darkness extends further on my left, indicating a passageway off to the side. Glancing again at the still distant light, I decide it’s better to investigate now and maybe not get ambushed from behind later.

It also occurs to me that I might just be ambushed from behind in *this* room instead, with something from the hall creeping in behind me…

I add ‘watching my back’ to the list of things to do neurotically.

The room, or as much as I can see, looks very old. The stone that makes up the floor is smooth, but not slick, and the air hangs stale. It’s dead silent in here. At least in the hall, there was some sound of wind and grass creeping in from the outside, but… not here. Every step I take sounds like thunder in my ears, and that’s not just the higher Perception. I’m sure the residents of this place are non-existant or totally aware of my presence, and I’m really hoping it’s the former. I do my best to quietly move around the room to take stock, checking every corner and constantly looking out for traps and anticipating Kaythe letting me know I’m an idiot for something or other, but I find nothing.

Well, nothing but four sarcophagi. They’re made of stone that feels the same as the floor, but completely caked in dust. Granted, everything in here is, but it indicates that none of these were recent burials… and that nothing must wander these halls. I can track my own footprints in the dust, and other than that, there’s no disturbance.

Now. I’m not usually one for grave robbing, but… that’s a human taboo and there aren’t any other humans around.

I lean down next to the sarcophagus closest to the door and shove the stone slab on top. It resists my efforts, requiring me to regrip and get better footing before I can, very slowly, shift the stone.

If I thought my footsteps were loud, fuck if this isn’t the end of times. A loud, grating sound emanates from the stone as it protests the sliding. Even though the process certainly only took a few moments, the intense pounding of my heart and abject terror I felt doing it made it last an eternity for me, but greed quickly overcomes my fear.

Inside the sarcophagus, instead of a decaying corpse, is a smattering of small coins. I’m unable to make out the surface or the type of metal, but hey, currency is great. Also maybe has implications toward there being a buy/sell system in this game, which would be super. Again, need a backpack. As I slide the coins into my pocket, my inventory management is once again brought to bear as a problem: coins make a shit ton of noise. As much as I’d love to sneak around, clinking and alerting everyone even more to my presence, that’s a fucking terrible idea… but so is leaving the coins. I’ll have to share if the ‘backup’ arrives and finds it. Eww.

If I had some cloth, I could cushion them so they didn’t make noise… but the only cloth I have is part of the limited clothing I’m wearing. While it isn’t terribly cold in here, and I have a resistance skill to it, I feel… attached to them. I have so few possessions, it would be hard for me to willingly destroy some of them. Instead, I opt to start a pile of loot by the entrance and deal with it later… maybe bury it at the mouth of the cave. Dunno.

I move on to the next sarcophagus, opting to kick this one open instead and just get the noise out of the way. The stone slab slides off cleanly, loudly striking the stone floor as it lands, and a bony hand snatches my ankle.

I scream.

I was so entirely unprepared for that to happen that I didn’t even have my stick in hand, so I was only able to reflexively pull my leg away in a shitty attempt to dislodge the angry dead. My efforts only serve to drag the skeletal remains that have grappled onto me out of the confines of the sarcophagus, and it rattles menacingly as it begins reaching up towards-

ABSOLUTELY

*stomp*

THE FUCK

*crack*

NOT

*CRUNCH*.

[Congratulations, you have slain a Wight. +30 Power (-20)]

If i’m going to have my junk grabbed, it sure as shit isn’t by a fucking skeleton in a dusty cave. Just no. Would it make a great campfire story? Yes.

Could I heal even if it injured me? Probably.

Could I live with myself? No.

It’s fortunate that the skeleton didn’t start to stand up or anything and stayed conveniently at stomping height, but… stomping something to death that’s this big is a little personal. Like how there’s that threshold for bug size where you don’t want to step on them because there’s probably going to be actual resistance and, worse, a crunching *noise*? That. But instead, bones.

I know it was already dead, and that helps a little.

Fucking irrational human minds. It was trying to kill me, lay off the discomfort for every little thing, damn.