I made a mental note of things that could go wrong and slowly descended. Despite being so far down, there were actual stairs. Carved into the earth. It did make me wonder whether this whole thing was man-made or if people just came down here for some purpose and made it easier for them to explore. The walls weren’t crude. They were like actual corridors. And this place could change layouts and regenerate places? ‘Who the fuck even built this?’

But one thing was easy to understand, people in the past definitely used this place for something. Yet they had to abandon everything. Hmm…

I reached the end of the stairs and another hallway spread before me. This time, there were about five or six different paths, all going down. But why? Why was I just keep going down and down and…

No, this wasn’t good. At this rate I was just going to end up lost so-

So, I had to turn back and just stay put in the first room… or so I thought as I turned. But the stairs had disappeared.

“What the fuck…” the words leaked out. And it reverberated.

Trickle!

More and more pebbles tricked. Something was definitely above. But nothing on the ceiling. The stairs leading up had vanished and I could only go down.

I could of course stay here but I wasn’t sure how safe it was. It was warm, it was quiet but I had a feeling I couldn’t stay put, an instinct of sorts. And this baggy damp shirt was really getting annoyi-

Wait… the cloth had more or less been stuck to my body like it was wet. Which it kind of was but… I gently looked into my shirt, and stared at my arm. ‘It’s recovered?’ The scars were still there but the meat had regenerated. Somewhat.

Something dawned on me… a little too late, but… the aerated water was a healing spring. “Argh…” I sighed hard. How the hell did I forget common game sense, I had no idea.

But wait, I did pack in a liter worth of the stuff. That had to be worth something, right? Considering how Mom used herbs and bandages instead of that stuff, this was pretty rare….

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So yeah, with a bit more confidence I drew a random number in my mind and went with descending stairs number 3.

Same with the next floor. The previous stairs disappeared and more and more stairs led down. Almost as though the dungeon itself wanted me to go down or something. However, the thing above just… got closer? I mean, we were still separated by a floor at least but it was definitely getting closer in a sense. After all, I could actually hear its steps and even some growls. I considered it could be Mom. And though Mom was sort of a beast when it came to raw strength, she wasn’t a literal beast. That thing above was quadrupedal and I could bet my unborn children on that thing being vicious. And I had no issues with betting unborn children on anything, cause well, they weren’t born yet.

Anyway, descending was a good choice. Leaving behind the healing spring probably wasn’t but what’s done is done.

And despite going down a few more floors, the scene didn’t quite change. It was almost as though I was just running around in circles. At least until I went down exactly 13 floors.

All of a sudden, the stairway leading up didn’t disappear and the corridor opened up in a big room. Yeah, I didn’t like where this was going. Not one bit.

But wait, there were stairs on the other side. Stairs leading up. Tempting as fuck…. ‘No risks no merits…’ I really wanted to punch my subconscious but I took cautious steps. Confirming the floor wasn’t going to break I made it into the large open room. I waited to hear any slithering or other sort of noise but nothing. Not even the growls or trickling from before. Which was good but… wait, this room wasn’t empty. Something was here. Something … above.

Uh-uh…yeah- totally made sense. It stared at me as I stared back. Big red eyes, a perfectly white body that almost blended with the ceiling and scales. No, it wasn’t a snake… four legs and a tail. Yeah, totally made sense…. But I wished it didn’t.

Wham!

It crashed before me dusting up a cloud, but I jumped back just in time. I had to cover my eyes so I didn’t get dust in. “Cough! Cough!”

A lizard.

A big lizard, bigger than a monitor one: probably double. The scales were oddly similar to that of a Nile croc. In fact, it was basically the size of a salt water croc.

‘Well, that’s not good.’

I pulled out my knife and kept an eye on the exit so I could run? ‘What exit?’ Both had disappeared.

Yeah, okay, so, this was definitely a boss room. “WAHHH!” I cried… nothing happened.

Nothing other than the lizard thing cackling. Oh yeah, thing was intelligent. “Stay away from me. Or my Mother would torch your fucking head and feed it to the fish.”

“Ke k eke!” It kept cacking and in a split second drew in lots of air and… “FUUU!!”

Blew it out in a yellow fashion. Houston, we had ignition!

“AHH!” I screamed and rolled.

Fucking hell it was a fire breathing lizard. No wings, and small as fuck but that thing was a dragon.

A DRAGON!