Tom entered the door of the dungeon first and found himself in a dark room. There was something magical about the room though, because unlike a room where there was no light and one could see nothing, in this room Tom could see himself and everyone else just fine, but no walls, floors, or ceilings. He moved inside just far enough to let all the others inside as well.

Once the last person entered, the door closed by itself, leaving the team in darkness that somehow wasn't darkness.

"What the hell is going on here? It's like we are in some kind of goofy room where everything is black but the lights are still on." Jay said aloud looking around after noticing he could see the others.

"I don't know. But I'm guessing we will find out soon." Tom replied looking ahead at a message that appeared on the wall.

The message looked as though it was being written right in front of them as glowing orange script appeared before them one character at a time. When it was finished Tom read what was written aloud.

"Step within, ye brave and bold,

Acknowledge this: the fates are cold.

In the game's heart, the die is cast,

Triumph’s gift, should you outlast.

Gather around, souls yearning for glory's sound,

Dare the depths, where fortunes are found.

Fortune’s favor, for the few who withstand,

To rise as legends, above the common strand."

After he had read the message aloud, a large twenty-sided die floated down from the ceiling. The object was bigger than a man's head and appeared to float in the air in front of him. Not sure what to do with the item, he looked it over. After a minute of staring at the strange die, a glowing text appeared above the dice in the same glowing orange as the text before.

"Roll me?" Tom questioned as he read the new text aloud. "This thing must weigh a ton. How am I supposed to...."

Tom paused as he reached out to grab the die and it fell into his hand and noticed it felt far lighter than he had expected.

"Oh. Well, okay then." Tom continued and tossed the die up and out giving it a little spin at the same time.

It clacked on the ground that no one could see and rolled around for a moment before landing on the number fourteen. The number flashed once in the vibrant orange color of the text and a ding could be heard far off in the distance.

"Squirrel?!" James called from behind Tom, and when he turned to look, he realized he didn't see the wolf with them anymore.

Turning ahead to where the die had been, Tom saw the die had disappeared and a pedestal was in its place with what appeared to be some kind of breathing apparatus that went in the mouth for each of them. Above the pedestal was more orange text reading "Familiars are not allowed in the ocean room. They have been removed until the completion of the dungeon."

"No familiars in this dungeon. Something about an ocean room?" Tom said after reading the text.

When he finished saying this, the room began to fill with water.

"What the fuck?! We came in here just to drown?!" Brian began yelling as he sloshed through the water toward Tom. "You! You did this to me! You can go rot in hell you son of a..."

Brian trailed off when Tom stuffed one of the breathing apparatuses into his mouth.

"Alright, everybody take one. Should help you breathe underwater." Tom said, finding it odd that after all he had been through recently this wasn't affecting him like it would have before the apocalypse.

Once everyone had taken one of the devices from Tom and placed them in their mouths, Tom felt a presence in his mind, like a bubble pressing against him. It suddenly popped and he could hear the voices of his friends in his head. The water had reached about waist-height and Brian was freaking out. Walking over to him, Tom slapped him on the back of the head and his voice went quiet.

"Alright, this is some kind of new dungeon. Be ready for anything. Watch each other's backs. We can apparently communicate through thought with these breathers, so keep communication up." Derek said after Tom had silenced Brian.

The water had reached chest height and all eyes were on Derek as he laid out the objectives.

"Looks like it's gonna be an underwater level. Not sure if when we get there we will be riding something for movement or if this is Super Mario where we get to swim through all the fish without touching them. So be ready. Anyone here can't swim?" Derek asked looking around at everyone.

Fortunately, no hands went up, and no one spoke out.

"Excellent news, you sorry bunch of wet wimps! Now I wanna see some hustle out there. Whoever kills the most monsters gets time off back at the guild." Derek continued going full drill sergeant on the others to try to motivate them.

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The water was just reaching above their heads now. Suddenly, the rushing in of the water stopped and they floated there in silence before the world around them began to lighten. It felt as though they were opening their eyes on a beautiful sunny morning as the world came into focus slowly.

Beams of light were shining down into the water from above the surface through the ripples of the waves causing light shadows to dance on the sandy bottom of the ocean. They appeared to be floating just above the bottom outside of some kind of town that appeared to be built of stone buildings.

"It's beautiful," Kirsten said as her hair floated around her face when she turned her head to look at everything at once.

Fish swam around them on their way to the town and out to sea. A shadow passed over them as a whale swam above them near the surface. Not sure what they should do the team continued to take in their surroundings. Green seaweed grew in what looked like front yards of stone houses outside the main thoroughfare. Bright-colored corals grew on what they could only imagine were underwater gardens as flowers.

A bright orange arrow pointing toward the town in the distance appeared with the words "Head to town" above it.

"I guess we head to town," Tom said through the mental communication link to the others.

They all swam toward the town in the distance following Tom as he set off at a steady pace. The going was slow though, because humans weren't designed to do the majority of their travel underwater. When they finally reached the outskirts of the town, they could see that the buildings were as high as ten stories tall, meaning they were at least three hundred feet beneath the surface of the ocean.

Looking around at what was available, Tom saw that there were some stands selling wares, but the titles of the shops were all in a strange language he couldn't read. As he thought this, the languages all changed to what appeared to be English. Seeing one that said Travel, Tom swam over to it. As the intention to speak to the shop owner formed in his mind, another bubble of pressure built in his mind then popped and he heard a new voice in his mind.

"Hello! Welcome to my shop! I have everything you need to travel through the city in style. Is there anything in particular I can help you find?" The voice of the shop owner said.

The shop owner was some kind of half-crab half-human creature that scuttled over to the counter when he saw Tom swim up.

"We are new to...well, being underwater, so we need to find a way for us to get around better," Tom said to the shop owner.

"Ahhh, surface dwellers. Welcome to..." Tom heard the man make a noise that sounded like someone blowing bubbles underwater before he continued, "We are glad that you decided to visit us."

The man's voice reminded him of the Yes Guy from the Simpsons in the way he ended every sentence in a higher octave than he began. But they needed to figure out how to move better. They would never be able to fight like this.

"We need to figure out how we can move more efficiently underwater. More naturally." Tom explained their situation to the crabman.

"Ye-e-e-s! That would be something you would want first. I have some items here that will help with that. You'll each need one of these." The crabman said as he pulled out a tray with belts on them.

"What are these?" Tom asked, picking up one of the belts to examine it closer.

"They're density-shifting belts. They will let you move through the water as though you were on land. And you can turn them on and off to allow you to swim up to where you might need to go." The crabman replied, pointing out a switch on the belt buckle with a clawed hand.

Tom noticed that the man seemed to have more joints in his crab-like claws than most crabs he had eaten, which allowed him to clamp down like a normal crab, or bend the pincers for a more delicate touch.

"How much are the belts?" Tom asked.

"Five common cores each," The vendor replied.

"Sold. We will take one for each of us." Tom replied, fishing out forty of the cores and handing them to the crabman.

"Excellent! Thank you for your purchase." The crabman bowed low after the exchange.

"So this appears to be some kind of adventure dungeon?" Tom asked as he turned back to the others.

"I was thinking the same thing. Almost like we are playing a campaign for a tabletop game. This could be a lot of fun. But it'll be very challenging." Derek replied.

"Wait, so we're stuck in a real-life Dungeons and Dragons game?" Brian asked, suddenly feeling panicked again.

"Well, hopefully, more dungeon than dragon, but essentially," Tom replied.

"Oh, god. This is it. This is how I die." Brian said.

"Cool your jets, shitstorm. We can make it through this. It's just another adventure." Derek tried to calm Brian.

Just then, a bell tolled in the distance near the middle of town. The sea-people, if they could be called that, around them, all began to panic and pack up their shops and run for the cover of buildings. They began yelling and bubbles of pressure began to form in Tom's brain again that all began to pop at once as a flood of screaming voices began to fill his brain.

Clutching his head at the sudden influx of sounds and panic, the team began to feel too much pressure before suddenly the voices stopped. A message appeared in their visions.

System Update:

Due to the misjudgment of the mental capacity of the creatures of this planet, the Admins have been forced to change the method of communication for this particular dungeon. Please standby as we update the program.

The world had come to a standstill around them. Tom found himself unable to move anything except his eyes as he could look around and see the other creatures frozen in their panicked retreat. Suddenly the world sped back up and a system message informing them that the issue had been resolved appeared. Dismissing the message, Tom suddenly felt some kind of presence around him from where sounds were being generated. As his team stood still and quiet he didn't feel the presence coming from them. This must have been the adjustment the Admins had made. Not feeling like his head was going to explode though, he felt like it was a positive release.

The town grew suddenly quiet as every window and door was shut and locked. In the distance, a cloud of sand could be seen being thrown up by something coming. The grains floated up in the air like dust behind a vehicle but floated back down gently like snow to the floor. As they got closer, the team could see it looked like more half-sea creatures half-humans riding giant sea horses were coming toward them at full speed.

When they got close, they pulled their sea horses up short and began to circle the team shouting jeers at them and trying to scare them. After a minute of this, a voice boomed from outside the circle of running sea horses.

"Well, well, well. What do we have here? A bunch of interlopers on old Pecos Mark's territory, eh? What say we teach them a lesson, boys?"