I can’t help but find it a little ironic as I rise up the staircase, listening to the thudding of metal boots from up far above myself as I pursue the hero-party. Those dummies apparently think that I’m ahead of them. I suppose there’s a lesson here somewhere about… I dunno, paying attention to your environment or not just rushing blindly onward without thinking about it or something. But I don’t really know. If this is a metaphor, I’m not really feeling it right now.

How long have I been alive now? In this body? Three hours? Four?

It’s pretty exhausting. How long is someone usually alive for? Someone who isn’t me. I bet a human lives at least two or three times this long. Maybe even four times as much? I wonder how they do it. I mean, don’t get me wrong, they still piss me off. But there’s something to be said for the resolve of living that long. Not that there isn’t always more to do, more to strive for, more to run after. But I’m used to swapping out bodies every odd hour or so. So this is weird for me. I feel like my soul is digging in roots, I feel like it's stretching out and wrapping itself around my bones, much like the slime filling my hollow core. I don’t know if I like it. I mean, this is my strongest body ever by far. I’m making progress like never before. I’m able to stand toe to toe with the hero and fight him like never before. But…

Something about it makes me uneasy. The… settledness, the quiet. Being in ‘one place’ for so long. I feel a need to move. I feel a desire to be something else, be someone else. Maybe that’s just what I’ve become used to? Perhaps I am simply a wanderer in my heart of hearts, a nomadic spirit, too frenzied and unsatisfied with the world to belong to one body alone. I want more. I need more. I feel… itchy. My eyes feel itchy, they are twitching in their sockets, the humming buzz of energy in my body almost too much for them to contain.

It’s complicated. I feel complicated. But what I want is simple. I want to be a lizard. I want to be a fish. I want to be a slime and eat rats.

“Crunch!”

Crunch. I sigh. Maybe I’m just never happy no matter what? Maybe no matter what body I get, no matter what powers I get, what friends, what experiences, what feelings, maybe I’ll just… never be satisfied. Maybe I’ll just never be happy outside of the instant moments of gratification. Like in a fight, I’m always happy in a fight. But… even if you live your whole life to fight, how often will you be able to? How often will I be able to lift my lance and strike towards the hero’s heart before I die and the fun is over? Three times? Four? Will that be the sum total of my existence? A few sparks and a loud clambering of metal over the course of a few hours?

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Whatever. I wonder what there is to fight outside of the dungeon? I bet there are a lot of humans. Maybe they’ll want to fight me? That’d be nice. I wonder if there are more heroes? That would be neat. But also a huge pain in my ass. But fun. Imagine getting to fight two heroes at once? Or three. Or a whole adventuring party full of nothing but heroes. I clutch my hollow eye sockets in excitement, pulling down on them. That would be great! That would be so much fun! Imagine the anarchy. Imagine the chaos and the screaming. The screaming. Haha. I can hear it now. Ah… ~

I sigh.

It’s nice to dream.

Slowing down, I listen to make sure that the coast ahead of me is clear before I exit the staircase. I don’t hear anything, do you?

The slime quietly shakes my head, having her goo pressed into my skull. What about you, guy? Eyeyoume? No? Okay.

Carefully rising up onto the tips of my toes, I stare out of the staircase and look out into floor forty-three.

It’s…

I narrow my eyes in suspicion.

Carefully, quietly so that he doesn’t hear me sneaking around where I shouldn’t be, I exit the staircase and set foot onto the grass of the next floor.

A loud rustling of leaves next to me causes me to jump back a step, holding my lance at the ready. But nothing happens. I watch as a small creature erupts out of the green, flying away in a flurry, apparently scared by my presence. A bat? No. I watch as the thing vanishes into the crown of a tree. Some kind of drake? No, it looked too fluffy and soft. Wait. Isn’t that…

“Bird!”

I narrow my eyes, looking at the bird sitting on a high branch. I remember birds. Didn’t I meet a bird before? I think I was mad at him about something, but I don’t remember.

Hmm…

Looking around at the floor I find myself on, I quietly walk around, listening to the sounds around myself. There is a gentle, sharp toned hum that resonates up and down, stemming from a source that I can’t identify. There is the sound of water. I hear… whistling. Birdsong, perhaps? They sing in an unmelodious manner, which also feels oddly familiar. I think I used to know a bird who sang like that.

Something laughs. I stop and listen. The voice echoes around the forest that I find myself immersed in. It bounces from the strange, thinly trunked, but very tall trees all around myself. It sounds…

Another voice giggles from the other side and I narrow my eyes in suspicion as I push in deeper into the wood. They sound like humans. But… they’re smaller. Higher pitched. Something snickers off to the side and I twitch together, hearing the oddly soothing voice. Madison? Madison, is that you?

Madison?

I look around, confused at my own thoughts. Who’s Madison? I look at the slime who is dribbling out of my arm, she just shrugs, not knowing either. Hmm…

The forest is filled with the sounds of the natural world and the quiet laughter. I hear it so clearly and I can’t help but feel like it is at my expense, but… I see no-one here. There can’t be anyone here. This floor is cleared. Wait…

That means if there is someone here, they aren’t a threat. Otherwise the hero-party would have taken care of them.

I sigh a breath of relief and loosen my posture, continuing to walk forward in pursuit of the hero-party.

As I walk on through the forest, I can’t help but notice the many scraps of red cloth, tied to the low hanging branches of the forest, always dangling above the ground where clusters of red-capped mushrooms push out of the dirt. Something about them makes me so angry.