I haven’t been entirely honest with you, guy.

Well, no. It’s not that I’ve been lying to you or anything, but there are just some things that I haven’t told you. I want you to like me, you know? That’s really important for me. I want people to like me. I truly, deeply want people to like me and in order for that work, I have to be likable.

But you wouldn’t like me if I told you all of my secrets. If you knew all of the things that I knew and if you knew how selfish I really am, I don’t think you’d like me at all. So that’s why I’m not going to tell you everything. I have a few secrets, okay? Let me have them, they’re part of my irresistible feminine-mystique. Though uh, don’t look too deeply into that. I don’t know what I’m ‘supposed’ to be. It’d be easier if I had a name to guess off of, but I guess I don’t.

I run up towards the next staircase, having left so many others behind myself already. Ones that I haven’t told you about.

You see, the thing is…

The thing is, that I just haven’t been telling you everything, guy. I haven’t been dictating every single step that I’ve taken. I’ve maybe closed my eyes once or twice so that you can’t watch me.

I wasn’t doing anything sketchy or seedy, I swear! But I haven’t been describing every single step of my journey to you. I’ve been keeping some of it for myself. But that’s only because I care about what you think!

The truth is, well… okay, listen. So, I remember one time, a reeeeeally long time ago, I kind of remember respawning as a different trash-mob. A slime-girl to be exact. What? No. It was before I met you, guy, okay? So don’t get offended or anything, it has nothing to do with us and what we are now. I’m just trying to clear the air, will you let me do that?

Anyways, so I was a slime-girl, right? All wet and jiggly and squishy and soft and stuff, I don’t remember the details, but I think it was pretty great. Slimes don’t feel pain, you know? They’re just very primitive creatures, but they have great hearts and personalities. So it’s a lot of fun to be one. Humanoid slimes are a little more advanced, but that brings a downside with it. Their emotions are much more intense and they take the loving, bubbly personality to the extremes. Slimes make great friends because of how loving and nurturing they really are inside. You’d have to be a huuuuuuge dumb, grody jerk to have a slime get really mad at you. Anyways, what was I saying?

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Oh yeah, so I respawned as a slime-girl, right?

- And remember this was before we met.

Well, you see what happened is that the hero-party was coming down the dungeon, heading through our floor and I was just busy being all slimy and stuff, you know? Wiggling and jiggling as one does and -

Uh…

Hmm…

You know, now that I think about it, I don’t actually remember anymore. Hmm. Oh well. I don’t think it was so important. What matters is that we’re here together now. Right, guy? Yeah, I think so.

What floor am I on again? I haven’t been paying attention.

See, the last time we talked, guy, I was down with the goblins, remember? They were all dead. But I’ve gone through a couple of floors since then that I haven’t told you about. I need a little alone time now and then too, okay? But they weren’t anything super important. I mean, there was one with a bunch of dead minotaurs and there was this really cool one that had the slime-mother in it, but don’t worry your little head about that stuff. The others were just kind of boring and vague. I think they were trying to get across some metaphor or life-lesson, I dunno why the dungeon likes to do that, but it does. Well no, that's not true, I know why. But we'll talk about that later.

But they didn’t really work too well, the metaphors that is. Because most of the entities and constructs that are required for the metaphors to work are already dead. Plus, the dungeon is really designed as a one way trip, you know? Most of the ‘story floors’ only work if you come in from one specific side and go out the other. But it gets all screwy if you take the back door. So I’ll spare you the details. You don’t mind, right? Yeah, I didn’t think so.

Oh and we ran into the rat-king again, but I wouldn’t worry about it. He’s just mad because of our communication issues. I have a lot of those.

I pat the bag on my hip. I even got a present from the dungeon-master! It’s just a rope though, I don’t really know what the point of it was. I was just standing in a forest on one of the floors, looking up at a really nice tree, when all of a sudden I got a bag with this in it. Maybe they wanted me to make a swing? Or maybe they want to foster my adventurer’s heart. All good adventurers have rope, you know? You never know when you’ll need some rope. Thank you again for the rope, dungeon-master! I’ll treasure it forever!

I still haven’t found my angry friend or the hero-party, which is surprising to me because of how fast I’ve been going. I’ve basically been running this entire time through empty floors. You would think that I would have caught up to them by now, but nope. It’s just little old me all by my lonesome.

Maybe they’re waiting for me at the top? Ah! That would be the best. Do you think so, guy? Imagine if the hero-party is at the top of the dungeon. Maybe… maybe if I get out of the dungeon before they go inside, we can be friends? Maybe we won’t have to fight then, because I won’t be a part of the dungeon. I’ll just be some guy standing outside of the dungeon.

Wow!

That would be nice. Do you think they have food? Maybe they’ll invite me to eat with them? Adventurers always have food, right? I’m not able to taste anything, but maybe if I make a lot of satisfied, happy noises while chewing they’ll believe me. Maybe my new friend will join us too? Though he seems really angry at them, I’m not sure what his problem is, really. He should learn to forgive a little. Dungeon life can be hard, you know? For everyone. I guess not everyone is as built for it as I am.

I think I’m close, guy. I think we’re almost there. It’s not much further now. Ah! I can hardly wait, I’m so excited. Haha! Hey! Stop that, guy, that tickles!

I know, I know. Don’t worry, we’ll get there soon! I can feel it in my bones!