There is something fundamentally wrong with me. I don’t know if it started when this game took over the world or if it was always there, but the further I got into this new world, the more it became apparent. I had to stop sticking my hands into toilets. The first time had been for a useless gun that I couldn’t even pick up and now I’d done it and ended up here. I had to work on this serious character flaw before it killed me.

Taking a deep breath that I immediately wished I hadn’t due to the sudden urge to hurl, I took a step forward toward the distant roars. My progress was quickly stopped however when a high-pitched chime echoed around me and a twenty-kilogram floundering cattle dog fell on my head.

“Stella, calm down,” I bellowed as I fell to a knee in the disgusting sludge trying to yank her off and spin her around so she’d land on her feet.

Her long claws scratched my unprotected face before I managed to get her off of me without hurting her. My health had dropped a surprising amount from just a few tiny scratches reminding me of just how powerful Stella was becoming as a warrior.

Stella finally calmed down enough to start inspecting the gross sewer we were now stuck in. It might be a little selfish but I was grateful I didn’t have to do this so-called dungeon alone. She sniffed at things I really wished she wouldn’t.

I was starting to think whoever had designed this game had just taken chunks of various video games from new to old and scrambled them all together until it came out with this bullshit. I was also pretty sure that they were still developing it as we lived it because things kept changing in weird ways. I’d liken it to playing the beta version of a poorly funded ragtag RPG.

Who knows though? I could just be talking out of my ass but that’s what it felt like. Maybe I just hadn’t been smart enough to put it all together yet.

Stella started trotting further down the poorly lit tunnel. I moved to join her when the chime sounded again. I panicked and tried to throw myself out of the way but I wasn’t fast enough. Nora slammed into me, the woman in full plate armor much heavier than Stella had me been. I slammed to the ground, just barely keeping the literal sewage from my mouth.

“Thanks for the catch Joe,” Nora said.

“Holy hell woman, how much do you weigh?”

She slapped me upside the head but there was no power to it. “There’s no need to be rude.”

“Get off me.”

It took a little maneuvering but she finally managed to climb to her feet with her axe in hand. She held out a hand and I took it. I’d barely made it halfway up when the sound played again. Nora yelped and jumped back but I had nowhere to go with the wall at my back. I braced myself as Jacob appeared from nowhere and crashed into me. This time I landed on my back. Great, now both sides of me were coated in filth.

“Wow, what the hell is this place?” Jacob asked as he jumped up.

I sat up and rubbed my aching chest. The kid might not have been as heavy as a fully equipped Nora, but his bony ass had hit something important. My health had dropped even more despite the fact I’d yet to get into an actual fight yet. Nora dodged around Jacob in the cramped space and helped me to my feet again.

“Are you alright?” she asked.

The chime sounded again and this time I bolted, dragging Nora with me as Sob’s enormous bulk materialized in thin air. His hooves splashed down into the muck and his head grazed the ceiling. Lightning crackled around his muzzle as he snorted and shook his head. I couldn’t help but notice there were now just as many blue strands of hair as there were black ones in his mane.

For a moment I just stood and stared at the horse. Before now the great hulking beast had preferred to be outside, refusing to enter the smaller buildings we went into even when we could have used his help. I chose not to complain too much about it. A dungeon that literally had the word ‘challenge’ in its name seems like a place you’d want a damn powerful battlemage horse on your side.

“Hey, look at this.”

I turned and stepped up beside Nora, squinting through the dim light to look at the drawing on the wall. It was a crude depiction of someone’s family. A mother and a daughter hand in hand, drawn in what had to be charcoal.

It was an odd thing to find in a place like this. My mind flashed back to the child I’d seen in the doorway, the one that had lured me here. I’m not sure ‘lured’ was the right word but it was certainly beginning to feel like a trap.

Jacob pushed in between us and looked at the picture. “What do you think it means?”

“I don’t know,” I replied, running my fingers through my hair.

The high-pitched roar from before echoed down the tunnel again bringing with it a blast of foul-smelling air. All of us stiffened. Sob’s sparks grew more intense, lighting up the tunnel more than the measly mushrooms were.

“Well, no point just standing here. Let’s go kill the monster and get back topside,” Nora said.

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She took the lead, her axe held out ahead of her. Stella followed her then Jacob and me with Sob bringing up the rear. I flinched every time the horse's hooves smacked against the brick. There would be no sneaking up on whatever lay ahead.

As we walked I couldn’t help but notice there were more drawings on the wall. They changed as we weaved our way deeper into the tunnel. They started out as happy things. The mother and daughter playing. A teddy bear. Something that I’m guessing was a zoo because giraffes were far from native to Australia. Then they got a little darker. The mother and daughter weren’t holding hands anymore. There were dark clouds and then the mother was laying on a bed while the little girl cried. Then a dark shadow was rising out of the mother's face and the girl was suddenly all smiles again. It was both sad and creepy.

As we walked we passed a few adjoining tunnels but all of them were barricaded with thick iron bars. I tried to look down one but for some reason, the mushroom didn’t seem to grow down the other tunnels leaving them in complete darkness.

The monster we were looking for was oddly quiet now. I didn’t like that. Every sense I had was ringing alarm bells at me.

Nora stopped walking all of sudden. Jacob walked right into her and I walked into him. Thankfully, Nora was strong enough not to topple like a domino. I stretched to see over the many shoulders in front of me. Nora had stopped because the tunnel stopped. It opened up into an enormous cavern with a foul lake of sewage decorating the middle of it. The lake was fed by many tunnels just like the one we were in. Growing from the ceiling directly above the disgusting pool was a mushroom so big it could have been carved into a sizable house. Its cap reaching down toward the ground was covered in deep green splotches. The thing glowed like the others but much brighter and with a green hue, painting the cavern in a sickly light.

I pushed past Jacob so I could get a better look. Everything was silent in the cavern aside from the constant drip of water.

“This is clearly a trap,” I whispered.

“There’s not much we can do about it,” Nora whispered back. “We’re stuck here unless we defeat whatever is in there.”

“May… Maybe being stuck here isn’t the worst thing…”

I turned and lifted a brow at Jacob’s cowardice. “Seriously? We’re in a sewer. Would you really rather stay here than try to get out?”

“… yes.”

“What is wrong with you?”

“Joe, don’t be so cruel.”

“But, you heard what he…”

“He’s allowed to be afraid. We don’t know how bad this fight is going to be.”

“But…”

“No more buts. Just get ready. Stella and I are going to go out first. You three spread out around the walls and provide support, alright?”

A round of affirmations followed as we all settled in for what was bound to be, well, a challenge. Nora tightened her grip on her axe and stepped forward, Stella on her heel. The dog's hackles were raised as she bared her teeth at the pool.

The alarms going off inside of me were screaming now. I couldn’t provide ranged support, not without my bow and a clutch of arrows, but I could get around behind whatever it was going to be and hit it with some backstabs. I drew my swords and took off running around the curved wall hoping whatever attacked would be drawn to the two powerhouses marching in from the tunnel entrance.

By the time Nora and Stella had approached the pool I was at the far end of the hall, puffing a little from the sprint but ready.

We all waited. And waited. And waited.

Finally, I began to lower my weapons. Something wasn’t right. This was the ideal place for a monster to rise up, so why wasn't there one?

A sound from one of the tunnels near me drew my attention. Carefully, I approached it, glancing around the edge of the wall to see what was inside.

A little girl was there dressed in nothing but filthy rags. Her tangled mass of brown curls framed her slender spotted face. Her legs and feet were bare and covered to the knee in filth.

I looked at her in horror as I stepped out into the open. Tears were streaming down the poor girl's cheeks as she pressed back into the shadows.

“It’s alright,” I said as gently as I could, crouching down on a knee and sheathing my blades so I wouldn’t be so scary. “You can come out, we’ll keep you safe.”

“No… you can’t,” she said in a quiet whisper.

“Nothing bad will happen to you. My name’s Joe, what’s yours?”

“Emilia.”

“Well Emilia, why don’t you come out and meet everybody? There’s even a dog that will let you pet her.”

The little girl's eyes lit up at that. “Really?”

“Yes. She’s a nice dog.”

Emilia came out but was very cautious not to get too close to me. I gave her space, still keeping an eye on the pool behind me in case the tardy monster decided to rear its head.

The others were already heading my way, just as confused as I was by the situation we’d found ourselves in.

“Hello there,” Nora said as she reached us. “Who do we have here?”

“This is Emilia,” I said once everyone had gathered. “And this Nora, Stella, and…”

Emilia waited patiently with wide eyes as I introduced everyone. When I’d finished Nora knelt as I had done before.

“How long have you been stuck down here, sweetheart?”

Emilia shuffled until she was partially hidden behind me. “A really long time.”

“I’m so sorry, this is not a very nice place to be. Have you seen any bad monsters, or maybe a way out of this place?”

I waited even though I knew she had. I’d seen her in the doorway in Stanthorpe after all. Maybe this place wouldn’t be as challenging as it had threatened to be. I couldn’t rush the girl though, she seemed scared enough as it was.

“She won’t let you out you know. She doesn’t like you.”

I blinked at the odd statement and turned my eyes down to the little girl. She was slowly backing up back into the tunnel I had found her in.

“Who won’t let us go, Emilia?” I asked as calmly as I could.

The little girl smiled in a way that had chills running down my spine. Her teeth were an ugly shade of green and formed jagged points. “Mother,” she answered.

Fear swept through me as the ground began to shake and the girl disappeared into the tunnel. Her vicious laughter echoed back at us as we spun toward the horrid pool. A form was rising from the muck. It was big and hunched with green skin covered in boils. It turned its pure white eyes on us and screeched.