When I next woke up, the sun was burning a red streak into the room. A gentle wind flowed through the room, and I stood up. Looking around, I saw two plants left to die.

Walking toward one of them, the one closest to the window, I picked it up.

“I’ll save you,” I promised the plant. Was it a fern? “Your name is Fernandez, now. Your new home won’t be as spacious, but you’re not in danger of being abandoned anymore.”

I kept talking to the plant as I walked, and soon I came across an odd sight. On the staircase in camo were two men with rifles.

“Uh, hey,” I said.

The men glanced behind, aiming a gun at me. Then they lowered their gun, “What are you doing here?”

“I… I was passed out on the couch upstairs,” I mentioned, gesturing, “Did you guys find a man? He was injured, I managed to save him. He would have been covered in dust and blood.”

The two men glanced at each other as I walked, slowly staggering past them.

“Yeah, there was a man like that. We evacuated him, he’s safe now. Are you okay? You’re covered in red.”

“Thank god,” I said, shoulders slumping and head ducking, “I’ll… go, now. I’m fine, this blood isn’t mine. I went into the portal.”

“… What was in there?”

I hesitated, then shrugged, “I plan on posting it online, so you’ll see if you look at YouTube. I haven’t created a channel yet, but…”

I looked down at myself, my dirt bike armor covered in dried blood. Reward… Reward. Could I get a cure to depression from a dungeon reward?

The mirthful joke didn’t land, even with myself, and I found myself debating it as I spoke.

“The channel name will be Dungeon Blood,” I decided, glancing up, “Like video game dungeons and… Blood. That way everyone can see what it is.”

I then turned, staggering off. I first tried walking to my motorcycle, but more military turned me away. I eventually just walked home. On my way, I saw Shawn.

I stared at him a long time, noting that he was staring back at me. He was frozen. I walked up to him, kneeling and setting the plant down. Standing up, I read through the book I’d gotten as a reward.

Shawn and I both played video games, so I was certain he knew what the portals were.

“You should learn from this and go into the portals. Kill the monsters or they’ll escape and kill us.”

Shawn slowly reached out, “This is…”

“A grimoire. Take good care of it, I’ll want it back some day,” I mentioned, turning and picking up Fernandez. I staggered back home. Setting Fernandez in the small living area right next to the window, opening the blinds to let him get some light, I went to my bed.

As much as I wanted to relax and sleep more, I knew I didn’t have the time. Charging my phone, as I waited I put in the SD card and started the process of making a channel called Dungeon_Blood and uploading the various 8-hour clips to YouTube. I made sure I didn’t just upload the traffic ones, only the ones that happened after the dungeons appeared.

Portals Are Dungeons & Saving Someone, A Conversation with a Lich [1], A Conversation with a Lich [2], and Killing a Friend, Escaping a Dungeon, and Saving a Stranger were all set to begin uploading.

By the time they were all uploaded, my phone finally made it to the glorious 100%, and I took it off the charger, standing up with a groan. I didn’t bother showering, reaching over and clearing the SD card before taking it out and putting it into my helmet.

I ordered a laptop online to make the process of uploading videos easier and started walking as I put my helmet on. I didn’t turn on the camera just yet, knowing what I needed to do.

As I walked, I saw a skittish man only a few blocks from a dungeon, staring at the military. He reminded me of Steven when he first started out, the skinny beanpole looking nervous with messy hair that reached his ears and dark brown eyes. He wasn’t unattractive, and he wore a tattered suit with dirt staining it.

“Hey,” I greeted, walking up. The man jerked, looking at me as his breathing came in gasps. Did I scare him? Poor guy. I knew I couldn’t destroy dungeons on my own, though, so I spoke as his eyes scoured my blood-soaked form, “Do you want to save the world?”

“N-not really,” The man stuttered, looking paler than he had before.

I shrugged, “Then how about magic? Do you want magic?”

The man hesitated, his eyes less hesitant, “Magic?”

“Yeah, there’s magic in those portals. I don’t know how to use it, but I know we can. I promise to give you a book on magic later, if you want?” I’d just call Shawn for it. Surely he took pictures of the pages already, right?

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“Wh-what’s the catch?”

“I can’t defeat dungeons alone,” I said easily, gesturing again at the portal, “Those will spew monsters in three months, we need to stop it before it happens. Wanna join?”

The man glanced fearfully at the portals, “N…” The man hesitated, glancing at a collapsed building only a few buildings down, “If I do, you’ll give me a book on magic?”

I nodded, “Yes.”

Resolve filled his gaze, “Okay.”

Nice. I got an ally. Cool.

“Okay, then let’s go,” At the sight of a piece of metal scrap from one of the buildings, I stooped, picking it up and holding it out to the man, “Here. I’ll protect you, but just in case.”

The pale beanpole reached out, his hands hesitantly wrapping around the metal thing that wasn’t a pipe. Was it rebar, that metal construction people used to reinforce concrete? It looked like it, but it was thicker than I was used to.

I guess thicker rebar for bigger buildings, or something?

I didn’t know.

We made it to the new portal. This one was blue and brown with hints of purple, and was both smaller and less bright than the one I’d come from. I stared at it, wondering if the colors meant something. Then, glancing back at the man, I spoke, one of my hands reaching out, offered to the man who looked very scared.

“Are you ready?”

~~

Maybe I was too hasty in my decision to drag the first person I saw into a dungeon.

The dungeon itself was both similar and wildly different than the one before it. Before there were giant hallways and torches and the like, and now… Well. It was just as dark, but there weren’t any torches at all.

“Am I dead?” The man asked, voice weak.

“No, but I’m pretty sure you’re brain-dead,” I mentioned casually, pulling out my phone and turning on the flashlight.

The darkness illuminated into a very brown, dirt-and-clay-filled area. I looked around the natural-looking cave system.

A very shrill scream echoed out, and I winced, ducking and taking a step back. One hand reached up, pressing against the side of my helmet as my flashlight turned to view the man. What was he—

Very hairy, thin legs were slowly draping around the man I’d brought. Brown eyes glistened in the light and that was a spider.

Like a full-on, scary spider.

“Oh, shit,” I cursed, running forward.

The man fainted on the spot, and had I not been terrified, I may have been annoyed. As it was, my heart was hammering and I couldn’t breathe as my bat swung out, my flashlight held in one hand. It made a very not-spider-like shriek as it fell, and I shivered as I aimed my light up.

“Ahahahahahah nope,” I said casually, reaching down.

The thin man slung over one shoulder, I sprinted. A loud clang echoed out as many, many spiders slowly descended to the ground, gently setting their eight legs on the ground, crawling off of their silken strands.

I should have run the other way I should have run the other way oh god oh god why did it have to be spiders what the hell is this?!

Spiders were fast. In my honest opinion, this was an unfair race, as I only had two legs.

A shiver ran down my spine and I swung out my baseball bat. Then another shrill scream echoed out.

I stumbled, running faster even as the spiders in my light’s view skittered back.

“Ow, shit, shut the hell up!” I snapped, then, sighing, “No, wait, keep screaming, actually.”

“Wh-what?” The man said, voice weak.

“The spiders back away if you scream, you coward,” I replied as I ran.

It didn’t seem necessary as the spiders faded into the distance the moment the caverns started growing lighter. I slowed down, gasping heavily, as I arrived in places with small torches that flooded the hallways with smoke.

The man was also gasping, though whether that was because of how terrified he was or because of the smoke I had yet to know.

Either way, I kept hold of him, changing my phone to be in the hand holding him, my bat switching to my free hand. I hesitated at the entrance of a giant cavern.

Lights flickered on the wall just before a turn in the dark shadowy tunnels. The sounds coming from the area were grotesque throaty gagging noises that made me nauseous.

The shadows that obscured the light occasionally were… weird. They had heads, but they didn’t look like anything I’ve ever seen before. Shifting, I set the gasping man down on the ground.

Giving him my phone, I turned the light toward the spiders that were staring at us from only a few feet away, not moving from… Was that a line carved into the stone?

The spiders were trained?

Swallowing thickly, I turned back toward the man, realizing I didn’t know his name as he stared, pale-faced and wide-eyed, at me.

My heart was hammering as I stared at the (presumed) fire-light flickering across his face, his eyes looking black in the low light and his hair blending in with the wall.

“Hello, nice to meet you. What’s your name? What do you do for a living?”

“I-I’m Lawrence,” He said, voice strained and hushed, same as mine, “I’m an accountant.”

“Oh, nice! Accountant, that’s, what, taxes? Numbers?”

“Y-yeah.”

“Well, great! I’m going around that corner,” I gestured, “You stay here and stay safe, ‘kay?”

His hands darted out, my phone clattering to the ground as he clung to me, voice a quiet, desperate wail, “Don’t leave me! Please, I’ll do anything!”

“I’m just scouting ahead, okay?” My hand landed on his shoulder, holding it tightly, “In order to save the world, we have to either kill all of the mobs, or kill the boss monster. I’m going to try and find the boss monster’s room, and see if we can stealth there, okay?”

Lawrence swallowed thickly, the whites of his eyes only making the void in the center look creepier. His chest was heaving, and the hands he clutched at me with were shaking, his knuckles white.

“Okay, okay,” He said, his voice not as strained, as if he was trying to calm himself down, “Come back soon, I, I don’t want to be left with them.”

I glanced to the side at the area the spiders were, watching as they all crawled around, some returning to their webs and some creating webs that covered the tunnel.

“You won’t be, we can’t go back that way. Not unless we find a way to get through thousands of spiders,” I agreed, “I’ll be back in an hour max, maybe a few minutes minimum.”

The sound of my bat scraped against the stone or clay ground as I stood up, turning toward the tunnel. I slowly walked forward, putting my back to the corner as I peeked around.

Oh.

Oh, god.