I moved real careful like, lowerin’ myself down into the dark. For some reason, the light that seemed to come from nowhere all across the First Floor didn’t reach into the pit I’d opened up. Miss Sasha wrapped herself tighter around my neck and arm, keepin’ out of my way as I went.

I’ll admit, I’d been expectin’ more pushback from her on goin’ down here. I’d say I’m a solid glass-half-full type, and Miss Sasha was a firm glass-half-empty. She’d spent most of our three days wanderin’ the First Floor tellin’ me all the horrible ways we could die. I didn’t mind so much, as quite a few things she mentioned ended up showin’ up at some point. What’s the sayin’? It ain’t paranoia if they’re really after ya.

That, and the impression that she was nervous and more than a little scared had me mostly appreciatin’ her words where I mighta found them annoyin’ in other circumstances. My gut feelin’ was that she was really doin’ her best to help, and the constant negative talk was all she had in the chamber. Plus, it wasn’t really all she said. Besides the dire warnings, she had a seemingly endless well of knowledge about everythin’ we saw.

I’ll admit that after a certain point, the constant worryin’ kinda grew on me. It’s hard not to like someone so honestly and clearly lookin’ out for you, even if they go a bit overboard. It helped that she didn’t ignore anythin’ I said in response, and she was willin’ to follow along with my wanderin’.

And that’s how I ended up gettin’ her to swallow ‘bout a dozen shovels and diggin’ a hole behind a Dungeon. To be clear, I fully believed Miss Sasha was right when she said it was a separate dimension or whatever. All that magic nonsense was a little too funky for me. Anyway, the thought had just stuck with me and I was curious to see what the back of a Dungeon Entrance looked like.

Miss Sasha had no idea, which just made me more curious. It seemed like somethin’ that no one really cared to find out about. In my experience, that kinda stuff tended to be interestin’ in its own right. So I dug that hole just to take a look at the back and move on. Benefits of not bein’ on any kinda schedule is that you can waste as much time as you want, right?

Now I’m walkin’ down some pitch-black tunnel in a toilet mountain with no idea where we’re goin’. This is exactly what I’m talkin’ ‘bout! No one had any inklin’ this was here ‘cause they never went lookin’. That’d be just about my favorite thing in the world, right up there with sailin’ ships and high-yield explosives. Walkin’ a road no one’s ever walked just gets my blood pumpin’.

“What exactly are you expecting to find down here?” Miss Sasha broke the silence as I slowly walked forward, edgin’ my feet along so I didn’t stumble or miss any ledges.

“No idea,” I answered honestly. “That’s the fun part.”

“I find the idea of wandering down a pitch-black tunnel into the unknown to be recklessly dangerous, but I guess to each their own.”

I detected a hint of sarcasm and a healthy dollop of fear in her tone, which was fair. I knew I was an odd one for thinkin’ what we were doin’ was fun and excitin’, but I can’t help bein’ how I am. “Sorry for draggin’ you along, Miss Sasha. I appreciate you comin’ with me.”

She laughed at that. It wasn’t mockin’ at all, just her lettin’ off some tension. “And let you wander around alone? No thank you! I’ve known you long enough to realize that’s a recipe for disaster. You get into trouble when I’m looking at you. I can’t imagine how bad it would be if you were unsupervised.”

She was teasin’ me, and I wasn’t about to let that pass.

“Oh, so it had nothin’ to do with sittin’ up above all alone with all the Demon critters runnin’ around? Good to know.”

She huffed, but let my words slide. Though her tail did whip around to gently flick my ear. We’d found out on our wanderin’ that all the Demon beasties were very interested in eatin’ Miss Sasha’s snakey Sin Totem body. She wouldn’t die from it, since Sin Totems can’t die. But it certainly wouldn’t be fun for her. We’d avoided it so far by runnin’ like the the cavalry was chagrin’ us down, but I knew she wasn’t too keen on reachin’ the end result of those ecounters.

It was slow goin’ since the dark didn’t let me see where I was steppin’, and the tunnel we were in didn’t have a smooth floor. Considerin’ it felt the same as walkin’ up above, I was assumin’ that I was steppin’ on toilets here too. I wondered for a second how this tunnel could exist, assumin’ that I was surrounded on all sides by unsupported porcelain. It wasn’t exactly a proper buildin’ material. Then I remembered I was in Hell, and I had a talkin’ snake ridin’ on my shoulder.

Of course it was magic nonsense.

“How long are we going to wander through here before you turn back? This is a little creepy.” Miss Sasha asked.

“‘Til we find somethin’ or somethin’ finds us. If need be I can make a fire with that brush we rustled up and get us some of that meat cookin’, and you’re holdin’ plenty of water.” The valleys between the ‘stuff mountains’ on the First Floor had natural plants and whatnot. Different valleys had different environments, and I didn’t know half the stuff I was lookin’ at.

But leafy greens are leafy greens, and they leave dry leaves and dead branches even if they come from a different universe. So I had Sasha carry some of that good kindling, along with some string I wound from some plants we saw in a valley that reminded me of a jungle. That place had some good fresh young trees with long bark fibers underneath the tough outer stuff once I peeled ‘em. Perfect for makin’ string or rope on the quick.

You could be reading stolen content. Head to Royal Road for the genuine story.

Give me a stick, a string, and some wood shavin’s, and I can make a fire faster than you’d believe. In fact, I’d done just that a day ago when I cooked up the first bit of meat we ate. It was bland, with a strange aftertaste. Kinda like mango, but gamey to boot. Wasn’t my best work, but I didn’t have much to go on yet. I’d found a few plants that looked like they might be tasty, but Miss Sasha warned me that plenty of the stuff was poisonous. Not worth the risk eatin’ Hell plants. The texture of the meat made up for the lack of flavor. The softest, butteriest steak I’ve ever ate had nothin’ on it. Once I found some proper seasonin’s and other fixin’s, I knew I had somethin’ special.

But that was a problem for later, when my belly was empty and I wasn’t wanderin’ down a toilet tunnel. By this point it’d been almost an hour. If I’da been walkin’ at a normal pace I coulda reached the top of the mountain by now. But since I was walkin’ so slow, I figured I’d gotten pretty close to the center. But i wasn’t sure the tunnel was straight, and I was goin’ real slow.

“Why didn’t you make a torch?” Sasha sighed.

“”Cause we only got so much burnable wood, we’re in no hurry, and makin’ a torch ain’t nearly as safe or easy as you’d think. ‘Specially not in a small space like this. The flame could take all the oxygen without us noticin’. Or we’d die from Carbon Monoxide poisonin’.”

“Oh. Dang it.”

I laughed. “Wanderin’ in the dark ain’t my idea of fun either, but we don’t have good options right this second. We’ll figure somethin’ out for next time.”

“I’d rather there just not be a next time.” She muttered.

I’da probably laughed at that, but my next step met nothin’ but air. I wasn’t caught unawares. I’d been movin’ slowly just in case somethin’ like this happened. So I leaned back, takin’ a good big step away from whatever hole I’d found.

“What? What happened?”

“Hole. Least, I think it is.” I shrugged.

“So, what are we going to do?”

“A shovel, if you don’t mind.”

“I don’t think digging a hole is the answer to a hole.” Despite her words, Miss Sasha unhinged her jaw. She could open up a fair bit wider than any snake her size I’d ever seen. Out of her mouth popped the handle of a shovel that poked me in the shoulder, which I grabbed.

“Thank you kindly.” Then I chucked it into the hole. It clanged against the bottom not a moment later. “Well, it ain’t that deep. Figure we just slip on down and see what’s goin’ on.”

I sat on down and dropped my legs into the hole before slidin’ down. Wasn’t the most comfortable, slidin’ over toilets, but safety first and all that. I wasn’t about to jump into a hole I couldn't see, no siree. My feet hit the bottom only a few feet down, and it was like someone flipped the lights back on. Just like jumpin’ down into the sinkhole turned the lights off, they were back on now.

“Wow. I didn’t know that could happen.”

“I’d say the same, but most everythin’ I’ve seen in the last three days fits in that bucket.” I joked, lookin’ at the toilet walls I’d expected to see the whole time.

“Fair.”

The only thing standin’ out was a thin stream of somethin’ windin’ across the ground. How it didn’t just slip down between the toilets and was flowin’ uphill toward where I’d landed, I could only put down to more magic nonsense. “What’s this down here?”

I dropped to a crouch, lookin’ close. It was an off-white liquid with that gasoline rainbow sheen to it. Takin’ a whiff, it smelled like summer sunshine, strawberries, and a warm fire. Since one of those wasn’t even a smell, I was double sure that whatever it was was magical.

“Hmm, it’s not something I’m familiar with. Which is suspicious, because I am extremely familiar with almost every magical substance that can be found on the First Floor. They give those of us who are meant to be Sin Totems a whole library containing every substance pulled into the Game, and I’ve read and memorized the entire thing.”

“No chance you forgot somethin’?”

Miss Sasha gave me a look that let me know right quick I’d asked a stupid question.

“No.”

“...Alrighty then. Looks like we found somethin’ new.” I clapped my hands, risin’ to my feet. “Let’s find out where it came from.”

“It’s not that simple! Nothing is allowed into HGG without the System knowing, and no one can make new things on the First Floor. It’d require some kind of manufacturing facility or crafting Step ability.” Miss Sasha explained as I followed the path of the little stream of mysteries farther down the tunnel.

“So what I’m hearin’ is that either someone managed to make this in the three days we’ve been in Hell and you couldn’t see that library, or this is somethin’ the System ain’t recorded for some reason.” I summed up.

“...Both of those are highly unlikely for multiple reasons, but not impossible.” She admitted.

“There we go.”

“But the odds are astronomical! It’d be like winning a lottery and getting struck by lightning at the same time!”

“Funny that, I had a second cousin that was hit by lightnin’. He got this wild scar all across his arm.” I chuckled. “He was real proud of it, too. Looked real crazy. Then again, he did survive a lightnin’ strike, so I guess it was fair how proud he was.”

“I feel like you’re missing the point here.”

“I think I’m followin’ along.”

‘I’d say your overall lack of concern begs to differ, but I’ve come to realize that that’s just how you are.”

“I’d say I agree with you.”

She sighed. “That does not make me feel better.”

“Mighty sorry about that. Not sure what I could do to help.”

She didn’t seem to believe me. I’m sure the fact that I was grinnin’ like a loon had nothin’ to do with it.

The stream grew bigger the farther we went. The tunnel sloped steadily downward, but at a small angle, only a few degrees. At that point, I think I’d lost track of just how deep we were. The hole I’d opened up with my diggin’ wasn’t that high up the toilet mountain, so I was feelin’ confident that we’d already dropped below the base. That didn’t affect the tunnel none. It was still toilets all around, somehow not breakin’ under the pressure of all the porcelain on top of ‘em.

The stream grew to be more than two feet across, and started to take up more and more of the tunnel. I wasn’t keen on touchin’ the magical stuff, so I gave it a wide berth. By the time it was takin’ up more than half the tunnel and gettin’ deep enough to meet my ankles if I’da stepped in, we came to the end of the tunnel.

Lookin’ past the exit, I let out a whistle. “Well, that ain’t somethin’ you see every day.”