“Ok,” I whispered. “You did this before, you know how it’s done, you just gotta remember how…”

I swung my arms around, throwing punches into the air as I walked down the hallway, trying to jog my muscles’ memory of my old boxing training. “If Dad saw me, he’d laugh his ass off. ‘I’ll never need this,’ I said. ‘There’s already one boxer in the family,’ I said… Why didn’t I listen better…”

I came to a larger cave, lit by the pale blue glow of a massive mushroom in its center. “Alright, mighty foe,” I said, pointing at the fungus. “You’re my training buddy tonight.”

I ducked, mimicking the stance Dad used to drill into me, and lunged forward, throwing a punch at the mushroom’s stem. A cloud of spores exploded around me, clinging to my face and clothes.

I stumbled back, coughing and swatting at the air. “Mental note,” I wheezed, “don’t punch mushrooms, mushrooms are not training buddies.”

I brought out my stick and tried moving around. It’s true that I wasn’t much of a fighter back home, but I’m not totally useless either. I knew that the least I could do was move around and try to get a feeling of how my body moved with the backpack on and with my only weapon, the might stick.

“Okay, you’ve seen action movies, Elliot. Center of mass, stick low, aim for the legs!” I ducked and moved the stick as if I was trying to hit the cockroaches feet, but something felt awkward, as if the stick wasn’t meant for me to use. “That thing was weak on its legs, but just dropping it to the ground won’t do much, I need to do some damage.”

I passed the stick to my left hand and moved it around. It wasn’t long enough to be used effectively with both hands, but if I used it with my right, I couldn’t use it to punch, which had come pretty handy last battle. “But if instead I…”

My thought was cut short as the sound of chittering reached my ears, louder this time. I moved and pressed my back against the mushroom, the stick tightly held in my left hand, as three cockroach foot-soldiers scuttled into the room.

One was larger than the rest, carrying a jagged wooden shield in two of its spindly hands. It pointed toward the room’s corners, chittering commands. The smaller roaches split up, skittering along the walls as if searching for something—or someone.

My heart pounded as one passed by my hiding spot, its back turned. Now or never.

I lunged forward, driving my fist into the back of its head and slamming it against the wall. I heard a sickening crunch as its head crumbled beneath my hand, but I didn’t stop there.

I grabbed on its still spasming body and pulled it back, sending it to the ground, where I stomped on it, crushing its thorax and sending black ichor flying everywhere. I looked up from the body just in time to see the shield-bearing roach rushing towards me, shield raised.

I barely managed to dodge it in time, causing the roach to miss and trip over its fallen comrades body, sprawling onto the floor.

I wanted to use that opportunity to kill it, but I was stopped in my tracks by the feeling of stones pelting my back. I turned my focus to the third roach, who was coming towards me throwing large pebbles with one set of hands and brandishing a larger, pointier stick than the one I had with another.

I gritted my teeth, lowering into a stance with my own stick pointed towards it. As the roach’s stick flew downward toward me, I ducked and used mine to deviate the attack away from me. For a second, the roach didn’t know how to react, and in that second, I planted my right foot, twisted, and drove my fist into the roach’s weak spot, the center of its thorax, black ichor spraying across my face.

“Shit!” I yelled, stumbling back and rubbing at the burning sting. Before I could recover, the shield roach slammed into me, knocking me to the ground.

I rolled away, barely avoiding its stick as it stabbed the ground where I’d fallen. Desperate, I kicked up to stand—but my body betrayed me, and I fell forward instead.

As I moved how long it had been since I last tried doing this, which explained how I could fail so… magnificently.

I did manage to go upright, yes, but I couldn’t stop myself and continued falling forward. My hands flailed, grabbing the first thing they found—the roach’s body. My weight dragged it down, suplexing it into the ground with a sickening crunch.

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The sound was disgusting, but the sensation was even worse. I can say with confidence that feeling my arm buried on bug-meat wasn’t something I had in my bucket list.

Still, I could cross it out now.

I went back on my feet slowly, feeling sore everywhere. I stood there for a while, panting, my arms trembling with exhaustion and covered in sticky ichor. ‘Okay,’ I muttered, staring at the crushed mess beneath me. ‘That was... effective. Horrible, but effective.’

I looked around and saw a large stone next to one of the walls. I sat down, wiping ichor from my face with a grimace. These things were getting smarter. Stronger. And if this was just the welcoming committee, I didn’t want to meet whoever—or whatever—was commanding them.

My PDA dinged, the cheery notification a stark contrast to the carnage around me. I cleaned my hand on my jeans and pulled out the device:

Congratulations! You have defeated two Level 1 Cockroach Foot-Soldiers and one Level 2 Cockroach Foot-Soldier!

+17 Experience.

Level up! You get 3 points to distribute as you wish in a safe zone!

Item: Wooden Shield can be obtained.

Achievement: Elbow Deep.

“Elbow Deep? An achievement? That’s the best name they could come up with? I mean, sure, it fits… but come on. ” I muttered, clicking on it.

A new message opened up.

“Having enough ichor on you to create your own cockroach foot-soldier has its benefits, although I would recommend cleaning your hands before doing anything else with them, it stings. You earn the Skill “Cochroach Lv.1”.

It brought me back to my profile, where a new tab had appeared “Skill”.

"Cockroach Lv.1: Roaches are hard to kill, and so are you. If you were to die, you will be brought back to full health once per level. This will reset after spending a full night on a safe zone."

“This seems… abusable…” I whispered. “I’ll ask Benny about it next time I see him.”

I then stretched my arm and grabbed the wooden shield that had fallen close to me. I looked at it and saw it had two small straps on the back. I placed it on my left arm and stored my stick on my backpack. Maybe I would find a use for it later, but having my hands free felt a lot safer for me than using some flimsy stick to fight.

At least I could still use the shield to protect myself and parry attack.

I went to Torchlight and clicked on “Global” on filters:

“Hey, Adventurers—keep an eye out for achievements, I just got a skill for… well… going elbow deep into a anthropomorphic roach. Trust me, it was as disgusting as it sounds.”

I then changed the settings to just my own sector:

“Hey, Sam. Still holding out?” I asked.

It took her a few seconds to respond. “Yeah, still here, but my PDA just gave me this weird notification. Said I can’t stay in the spawn room for more than two more hours or it’ll collapse.”

“Shit…” I whispered before writing. “I think the Dungeon is trying to force you out, According to that message at the beginning, the Dungeon is a place toimprove ourselves, so I guess it would try to do something like that.”

“Are you closer? You think you can arrive before the two hours have passed?” She asked.

I looked at the time. “I don’t think so…” I said. “It’s not a difficult path to follow, it’s just a straight path according to the map Benny gave me, but it’s long, and there’s a Boss between me and you. I think you will just have to leave the room.”

“I don’t know what’s outside, though—I haven’t heard anything. It’s just… quiet.”

“I know, it can be like that here, but listen to me. As soon as you leave, try to find one of the safe rooms. It’ll probably have a sign pointing to it. The one I found had a neon sign and it was called ‘The Inner Inn.’. Also, most importantly, if you see stairs, don’t go up or down yet. Stay on this floor. The monsters here are weak, but if you go to another floor, they’ll get a tougher and I won’t be able to reach you easily because you won’t be able to come back to this floor.”

“Got it. Safe rooms and no stairs. What if I don’t find one?” She answered.

“You will.” I said. “The dungeon’s twisted, but it seems to have some sort of… logic. This floor is set as a tutorial stage: spawn rooms, trick stairs, safe zones, and a boss, in that order. Just keep moving, and you’ll find something.”

“Easier said than done. I’m not exactly a fighter, Elliot.”

“You don’t have to fight. Just run if you see anything, alright? Stick to the edges of the walls and stay quiet. And if you find anything useful—sticks, rocks, whatever—grab them. You’ll feel better with something in your hands.”

“...Okay. I’ll message you when I leave. Promise me you’ll find me, Elliot.”

“Promise. Just stay alive, Sam.”

“Promise… love you Elliot.”

“Love you too…” I finished, standing up. “I gotta go fight a boss monster now, see you on the other side.”

I grabbed a handful of popcorn from my backpack and continued my way towards the center of the floor.

As I walked, the skittering grew louder, a constant, maddening hum that seemed to vibrate through the walls. Dark stains streaked the floor, leading toward the looming stone door. The air here was thicker, heavy with the sickly-sweet stench of rot.

I heard a ding coming from my PDA and pulled it out as I stopped in front of a closed stone door. “I just left the room.” Said a message from Sam. “It collapsed as I left. It’s dark, but I found what looks like a hallway. No monsters yet, just… noises. Following the wall like you said. Don’t you dare die out there.”

Another ding called my attention. “Boss Proximity Alert: Cockroach Queen – Sector 14, Floor 84.”

The door loomed before me, ancient and unyielding, carved with grooves and marks that reminded me of insect legs. Behind it, the skittering noise was deafening, a chaotic symphony of claws against stone.

I gripped my shield tighter, sweat slicking my palms. “Well, that’s not creepy at all.” I took a deep breath. “Okay, Elliot,” I whispered. “Don’t die before you find her.”