Etched like a terrible scar upon the earth, the gaping maw of the cave roared against the sky.

The sword shook in its scabbard with each step against the hard ground and the ugly green gambeson gradually turned dark as the sun’s light was drowned in shadow. With no torch in his gloved hands, it was his determination alone that shielded him from the dark abyss.

“I’ll find you… Jubjub!”

And so he drew his blade and ran into the darkness, the dark turning black. His life had no meaning, no other purpose than to slay the big and terrible bird. To run into the darkness where the priests dare not go, to defeat the big unbeatable foe. That was all that mattered to him, and so he—

[Head Disabled]

—ran face first into the rocky walls and fell unconscious.

Katan Tanwa had failed.

The Cave of Beginnings was a cave for beginnings. It was one floor deep and so easy that it was not even classified as a dungeon. Not one Level 1 [Farmer] fell here. Katan made history.

His eyes opened again long after his initial entrance when dust covered him in a new armor. 

“Oh, Aratatara! That evil beast put me to sleep! Where am I?”

No light reached his eyes but rocky particles did reach his nose and the adventurer coughed a cloud of it. “Have I been swallowed by its terrible beak?!”

In darkness he took one step forward and stumbled six back. In darkness his back hit a stalagmite and he stumbled another four back. Like a pinball he walked and bumped and hit and fell.

There was nothing he could do.

He was five feet away from the corner that led to the exit.

[Health: Critical]

“To think that the stomach of the beast was of rock and stone… This is where I die…”

Without as much as a single foe, his body was battered, the gambeson torn, his sword chipped and sheathe hanging loose from the belt. 

He pushed on his knee and with all two of his strength and he tried to rise, a defiant stand against the beginner cave. But it wasn’t enough and his head landed against the rocks and his eyes blurred (though he couldn’t tell due to being blinded). 

“No… So soon after I set out on my quest… I’ve been felled…”

His lids closed and so did his tale.

Katan Tanwa was dead.

Stolen story; please report.

Almost.

The golem walked into the cave, its towering dark grey basalt barely small enough to fit inside the cave. In its giant hand was a burning branch of wood that lit up the cave. Its face was roughly molded to form a failure of a human face. Its eyes were even but pure black, and its mouth and jaw too large, as if it was made to devour a cow.

Its body was hunched and as wide as it was tall, though covered in a long-sleeved white button-up shirt with a black vest over its massive torso. Its bulky legs had black pants and the area to serve as his waist had a holster and in it were two large wooden pistols. A smooth curve from the handle to the barrel led to silver ornaments around them. 

The pitch black eyes scanned the cramped cave as it hunched even more just to fit inside. A deep, reverberating hum left its mammoth of a jaw. Its heavy steps rumbled the earth yet made no sound, as if it was a feather landing on a pillow. 

“It is here,” it said, its words drawn out and heavy. It avoided the growing stone spikes on the floor and ceiling with surprising grace as it went deeper into the cave. “Staircase.”

With a movement that might have been a nod, it looked down at the “staircase” that was just a slide down. It was short enough that the light of its “torch” reached the bottom.

Then it stepped forward and crunched.

Its head shifted down and its eyes stared at the leg its foot had crushed.

“Its maw… Its tooth is so large that it crushes me… I see the light…”

Katan’s bloodied face and shut eyes looked pathetic under the glow of the flame and the golem’s face was a stone. Its gaze was too.

The free rocky hand hovered above the near-dead man and near the palm manifested a blue screen. It was translucent but visible, bright but not illuminating. Only the torch granted sanctuary.

Name Katan Tanwa Health Dying

Again a deep hum left its mouth.

“In this place,” it said in the same steady tone. “Terrible.”

It waved its hand and the screen disappeared. Another blue screen appeared and its hand went inside of it and back out, now holding a bright violet feather between two of its fat fingers. The size of the herb was minuscule in its hand.

The golem let go of the leaf and scrutinized its slow but steady fall, no wind to blow it away. From its height, it took close to a minute for the herb to land on Katan’s neck. There it melted into a thick gooey goo that thinned as it spread around his face and under his gambeson and the shirt underneath and into his torso.

It stood as still as a statue as it watched the purple leaf-goo eat the blood from his body and slowly close the open wounds. He was still filthier than a pig, but he was alive. 

Satisfied (maybe, it’s hard to tell with a golem), the sentient basalt walked away from the body and descended that slide to enter Floor 1. The part with actual threats and enemies to fight.

Only minutes after did Katan wake and take a long, deep breath.

Only instantly after did Katan start choking and coughing from the large amounts of dust he inhaled. It was a violent fit and it would have been easy to mistake for a bloody murder.

“Toxic attack!” he cried out, wailing against his chest. “Blinded and,” he nearly barfed, “being choked…!”

To lose and suffer against nothing in search of a bird.

This was the daily life of Katan Tanwa.

Outside his colony, luck was the only reason the snail survived and luck would be the reason why he rose again.

Because no matter what, only when his blade pierces the neck of the greatest bird will he rest. 

In pieces, but in rest.