Mystical tendrils of the moon-glow dead-light sicker through the waving boughs of the haunted forest, reaching and extending forward only to always falter and fade back a moment later. Only to dissipate as if they were puffs of smoke that were blown away by a sudden, sharp gust; rejected from going further by the force of the cosmic rules that control the dungeon. The thing that keeps us at bay until the event has been triggered. That unseen, unexplainable force that we all know is there. That we all adhere to. But the dead-winds are impatient, the dead-light is impatient. It is tired and it continues to reach further forward, more and more tendrils creeping out of the midnight wood only to vanish and dissipate as they breach the line of the trees. The dead-light is not like us, it doesn’t see that its attempts are futile.

  It doesn’t feel or sense or taste or know. It simply does as it wills, it is a mechanism, a machine cobbled together not out of steel and bronze, but out of the twisted fragments of hundreds, of thousands of dead souls coming together into an amalgamation that only wants one thing. Quiet. Forever quiet. Forever darkness. So it creeps further, creeps on, seeping energy out of itself only for it to be destroyed and only for it to try again a moment later. The dead-light doesn’t feel pain, it just reaches. It just burrows. It just creeps.

  We all look towards the house on the hill, the single cabin from which emits a warm, honeydew glow out of the thin glass windows which are tinged yellow by radiant firelight. By life. It is nothing like the outside. Like out here where everything is stained and dead. Out here where everything is bleak, purple, blue, cold. Where everything is empty. Where it is rotting and hollow. A single silhouette moves around inside past the windows, a single, last person living their days out in whatever fashion it is they do in a place like this. Whatever life is like in the last warm hole in the winter of souls. I am not sure if I envy them or not. They live, but they live alone. At least we are many. Even as these rotting shells, at least we are together out in the forest.

  I had forgotten floors like this existed. Gimmick floors. See, not every floor is just a plain 'go from point A to point B and kill some mooks on the way with a sub-boss at the end' setup. There are other floors, floors that have special requirements of the hero-party. Special rules that they also must adhere to, laws made by the cosmic governance of the dungeon that even they must obey. Even the hero must play the part. That is the true power of the dungeon. This floor, the midnight graveyard, is one of those special floors. Once the hero-party arrives, they must enter the house of the graveyard-keeper, the last survivor of our many, ironically enough. They must escort them down the road, through the forest, through the many traps and pitfalls and the many dead things that reach out from the shadowy underbrush.

  Only if the graveyard-keeper reaches the far side; only if the graveyard-keeper reaches the dead-light, the crystal, can they pass this floor. It is the only way, otherwise even they can’t take the stairs down to the next floor. Not even the hero can destroy the dead-light. Not even him with all of his divine blessings and heavenly benedictions is able to destroy the dead-light. That is the power of many. That is the power of the dungeon. There are rules that govern us all and this is one of them. Whether this is by the will of the dark-lord or from the hero’s own gods, or if this is just by an agglomeration of the dungeon’s very own essence as a trial and its will, I can not say. It is what it is, tell you what.

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  I look to my side and see another face next to mine, another face looking towards the cabin with hungry, tired eyes. “Ah, Piotr! How are you?” I groan, asking my rotting friend from another time. Moaning in an agony only the dead can feel, he slowly turns to face me with the left half of his jaw and lower skull missing entirely, his rotting, purple tongue drooping out and hanging freely against his neck.

“My head is killing me, Miika,” he somehow dribbles and drools out. I’m not sure how exactly, but I understand him even if he isn’t really making any coherent sounds.

  “Mm, you don’t look so good, Piotr! Maybe have a nap, yes?” I ask my friend jokingly, the dead-light squishing and churning my stomach extends it outwards and forward, the meat compressing wetly as if I were laughing.

  “Very funny Miika, very funny,” he shakes his head, his tongue slapping around. Ah, I actually feel kind of bad now. Maybe that was rude of me, I didn’t really think about it before I spoke. I opt to change the topic.

  “Ah, sorry. Well, how is the family, Piotr? Are your wife and children well?” I ask, not really thinking about it either, only realizing after I finish speaking what the words that I had asked really meant in this context.

The dead man turns to me again and looks me in the sockets of my hollow eyes.

“Miika,” he says.

“Yes, Piotr?” I ask.

He presses a rotting finger to my lips and shushes me. It’s disgusting, but fair.

  We both turn to face the cabin again. Awkward. So we stand in silence, both of us just waiting for the hero-party to show up so we can start. I know I shouldn’t, I know the dead-light wants us to be quiet. I know Piotr is angry with me, but I just can’t help myself. I’m just a talkative person, okay? I speak again.

“Hey, Piotr?” I ask, barely containing my grin behind my rotting lips.

“What is it, Miika?” he sighs and asks with some curt agitation now clearly visible in his dead eyes as he looks at me.

“You’ve lost a lot of weight, new diet?” I joke.

“Miika, I swear! Shut up!” he yells now, breaking the silence of the forest.

A voice cries out from behind us in the darkness. “Shut up, Piotr! Stop yelling! I’m trying to focus!”

Piotr turns around and yells back into shadowy wood behind us. “No! You shut up, Dmitr! I’m trying to get Miika to shut his yap!”

A fourth voice calls from the side. “Will all of you just shut up?!”

  Everyone goes quiet as the dead-wind begins to howl around us and we stand there for a minute longer. A minute longer until the winds pick up, until the strands of light begin to glow, shine and writhe quicker through the air, having come upon some new disturbance in the darkness. A new living presence. A single golden silhouette crests the hill followed by many others behind it. The priestess, the wizard, the monk, and in last place the thief, follow him towards the cabin.

Before entering the house, the elf stops and looks into the forest towards us. Towards me. Lifting her hand to her mouth she blows me a single kiss before vanishing inside with the rest of the hero-party.

“What the hell was that, Miika?” asks Piotr.

“Shhh, Piotr, I’m trying to focus,” I say and quickly duck down to dodge the kiss that I feel fly right past me in that second.

He sighs.