“3 hours until floor collapse.” Read my PDA, the red light beeping incessantly in the corner of the device.

“We need to hurry.” I told Sam. “We should probably go to your set of stairs.”

Sam nodded. “They were not too far away, we should be able to make just in time.”

We began moving, but something stopped me dead in my tracks.

A glint in a corner of my vision, something shinning down the corridor.

I turned around to face it, but it wasn’t there anymore. “Did you see that?” I asked.

“See what?” Answered Sam, stopping a few steps ahead of me.

“I’m… not sure, but I get the feeling we should be going back…” I said.

“Back where? The only thing that way is the Boss Chamber.”

“Yeah… I know. But maybe I missed something. It’s closer anyways, we should be able to go and if there isn’t anything we can turn around and go to your set of stairs.”

Sam looked down the hall towards her stairs and then towards the Boss Chamber. She then looked at me. “Are you sure about this?” She asked.

“No…” I said. “But something is telling me we should be going there.”

She sighed, turning around. “Ok, I trust you.”

I held her hand ans smiled at her. “Thanks, I know.”

We began running, and it wasn’t long before we arrived there, barely 5 minutes later.

The door was closed, and faint rumbling could be heard all around us.

“Are you sure the boss is dead?” She asked.

“It should be, I killed it. Also, I noticed that ever since I did, no enemies have been spawning in the floor.” I pointed back at the hallway. “Did you notice how quite everything is? Other than the rumbling, I mean.”

Sam nodded. “Yeah, things are quieter than when I left the room.”

I checked my shield was well strapped to my left arm and I slid my new knuckleduster on my right. “We should be ready in case there is something back there.” I reached out for the door. “You got your staff?”

“I do…” She said. “Although I still don’t know how this magic thing works.”

I smiled. “Just bonk whatever we find real hard, that thing looks painful.” I said, looking at the staff her size made out of dark brown wood curved and twisted over itself with what looked like a large knot at one end of it. She smirked. “Alright then, we’ve got a plan.”

I pushed the door, which slid easily to one side, and I was left speechless at what laid before me.

Where before there was a chaotically arranged room with broken pillars and a pile of rubble with big mushrooms growing on top, now was a beautiful art modern room that looked remarcably like the entry hall of some high end hotel. The pillars (not intact) were made out of marble and lined with gold, the floor was covered in checkered tiles.

And in the middle, where the large pile of ruble used to be, where I had killed the Roach Swarm, was an elevator door built into a large, semi-translucent crystal.

“What the fuck.” I said. “It wasn’t like this before…”

A female voice resonated in the room coming from hidden speakers. It was cold and mechanical, but it didn’t completely sound like a computer voice either, it was more like one of those AI storytellers you could find on Youtube, those that sound almost human until you notice they just never stop to breathe.

“Welcome Adventurer Kane and Adventurer Hayes. You are the only ones left in this floor, and thanks to Mr. Kane's accomplishments at defeating the trial of the Cockroach Queen, you have earned the right to use the Secret Route out of this floor.”

The doors to the elevator opened. From where we were standing, I could see a small table with a package on top. “Please go into the elevator and take your prize in the following 5 minutes or lose your chance to do so.”

A red number popped up in the screen at the top of the elevator.

300… 299… 298…

It was counting down.

I looked at Sam. “Do we do this? We can still go back to one of the stairs.”

“I’m… not too sure about that.” She said, pointing back. “The stone in front of the door we came in collapsed, I don’t think it will be opening again any time soon.”

I looked back and, indeed, the door had been, somehow, covered in stone when I was not looking. “How did I not notice.” I said.

A case of content theft: this narrative is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.

250… 249…

“I don't think it was a natural collapse, I think the dungeon is forcing us to go down with the elevator.” Sam Said. “All the other doors are the same, all closed.”

I looked around, confirming what she was saying.

213… 212… 211… 210…

“So,” I said. “It’s either we go down through here… or we don’t go down at all, we die with the collapse.”

I hated this, I hated being forced to take a decision without being given an option.

190… 189… 188… 187…

“It seems so.” Said Samantha. “Shall we go now? We have less than 3 minutes left.”

I sighed and nodded as I grabbed Sam’s hand. “We should go in together, avoid any possibility of this thing separating us.” She nodded and we walked to the elevator.

We stopped right in front. The lift was bright, made out of what seemed to be only mirrors. The only thing breaking the endless repetition was the wooden tall table in the middle holding a pair of red gift boxes. One had a green lace and the other one had a blue one.

100… 99… 98…

“Okey…” I whispered. “At the count of one… Two… Three!” We both jumped into the elevator at the same time, the door immediately closing behind us.

Ding! Went off both of our PDA’s in our pockets. I looked at her and smiled, she looked gorgeous in her jeans and black turtleneck... even after you noticed the tear in her left arm. “I hate that I was the only one of us in pajamas when this shit happened, you know how ridiculous I felt for those first hours?”

She smiled back. “Well, mister lazy pants, you were the one that decided our movie night should be spent in that silly Christmas pajamas.”

I heard a small rumble and that classic feeling in the pit of my stomach as the elevator started a quick descent. Without much fanfare, I reached out and grabbed the box with the green lace around it.

“Why did you choose that one?” Asked Sam. “They look the same.”

I looked her in the eyes and grinned. “Well, I just love this shade of green.”

She blushed slightly and looked down at her own gift. “I… I like blue…”

I smiled sheepishly. “My eyes aren’t blue, though… but, on the other hand, yours are green.”

She punched me softly in the shoulder and I laughed, pulling on the ribbon and opening the box.

Inside of the box, all I found was a microchip, one with the traditional icon of a planet.

“What’s this?” Asked Sam, looking into my own box. “Oh, you got the same?”

“No.” I said, the smile widening in my face. “This one looks like its a map module, yours looks like… a Camera module? There isn't even a camera on the PDA…”

I brought out my PDA. There was a new message.

“Achievement: Wayfinder.

Find a secret way out of a floor. You lucky, lucky bastard.

Reward: PDA Module.”

Sam looked at her own PDA. “We got the same achievement,” She smiled. “Mine doesn’t call me a lucky bastard, though.”

I sighed. “I think it’s my luck stat.” I said. “Remember back then? When I saw something you didn’t? I think I managed to trigger some event thanks to my points in Luck or something. That’s why it’s calling me the lucky bastard.”

She nodded. “Yeah, that sounds possible.” She took the chip in her hands and asked. “So… how do we use these?”

As I looked through the menus trying to find something, she grabbed her own PDA and turned it around in her hands, finding a slot in one of the sides similar to those in cellphones, the place where you put an SD card. “I think I found it.” She said, taking her chip and pushing it into the empty slot.

It moved freely for a second before stopping, Sam being unable to push it forward, but then it just… got absorbed into the PDA and a small camera materialized itself at the back of the device.

"Huh..." We said in unison. "So that's how that goes."

"It just... appears." I finished.

“New App Installed: APPraiser!

Find out what things are worth and what things are worth trashing using your new camera! Just point it to whatever you want appraised and wait for a calculation. Piece of coal? One credit, Random stick? 45 credits, The silly man in the christmas pajamas? Priceless.”

“Why is it even your PDA mocks me?” I asked as Sam laughed next to me. I sighed and took my own module.

I turned my PDA in my hands until I found my own slot (Which funnily enough wasn’t in the same place as in Sam's) and inserted my module.

“App upgraded: Map Module!

Now your PDA will update your map with interesting points around you without you having to find them yourself. At entry on every floor, you will get a random assortment of interesting places added into to map. You can also write notes on the map and point places of your own now!… It won’t help you find your way out of student debt, though, that’s still on you.”

“Ok, not that was uncalled for.” I said, Sam still laughing besides me.

“It’s funny…” She said. “I swear it’s never talked like this before we found each other.”

I shook my head. “Apparently the dungeon finds it incredibly funny to act all sarcastic with me…”

As the elevator showed no sign of stopping and there was no indicator telling us when we would arrive, I pulled out the bowl of popcorn and placed it on the table. “Want some? They are still warm.” I grabbed a handful and placed it in my mouth.

They were still crunchy.

Sam looked at me with her mouth agape. “What… is that?”

I looked at her and, matter-of-factly, said. “A bowl of popcorn.”

“No,” She said. “I can see that, but, like, why?”

I grabbed another handful and placed it in my mouth. “Would you believe me if I said that I have no idea? It’s endless, too.”

“What?” she said.

“Yeah, endless.” I said. “I grab one handful from the bowl, and they reappear slowly, crunchy and fresh as ever. It’s an…” I cleared my throat. “Everlasting Bowl of Popcorn, a Legendary item.”

Sam grabbed a handful and placed it in her mouth. “I had it with me when everything happened. Apparently it got in even though it shouldn’t have, so now it never empties.”

Sam munched on the popcorn as she looked at me. “I don’t understand.”

I smiled. “Welcome to my world.”

A bell and the sound of the door sliding open behind us brought us back into the real world. I grabbed the bowl and placed it into my backpack.

We stepped out together, surveying the area.

It was a large cave made of dark stone similar to that in the previous floor, but on these tall walls there was no bioluminescent fungi, instead, there were large shinning crystals that protruded from the rock in every direction.

This looked more natural than the long hallways from before, less manufactured.

A Ding from my PDA made me pull it out.

“Welcome to Dungeon Sector 24, Floor 85, Crystal Veins Biome. 13 points of interest have been added to you map.

New Quest: Find a way down, Survive.”