The HP bar fills up before finishing the search of this room.

The sounds calm down after a while, except for the quiet ping whenever the counter goes up or down. It flickers between zero and one sometimes.

This means more people wait around the twenty-five-meter mark.

Or do they fight each other on a different level?

The last thing to check is what the wizard dropped. He went down in the corridor beyond the hall.

Slow and steady, that's the next step. It's better lit yet has the same shattered glass, broken concrete, and crates as this room.

One of them floats, so this place wasn't spared from the weird glitches either.

It hovers at shoulder height, and as the character is slow to explore, it doesn't cause any issues.

Had I run through the hallway, it would have been easy to headbutt into the thing.

There's no visible loot where Magic Dude died, it's a bit disappointing after such a tough fight.

At least there are a few bandages and an orange box with the word 'medkit' by the door.

They have Cyrillic letters on them so rather than the guy, they must belong to the vault.

"Yes, you can use them." Spinning around or not, there's nobody around.

"Wha... Who?" Fuck, that came out of the blue.

Was it even real? The loot, let's keep going. The system has no issue putting them in the inventory and they don't weigh much either.

Will the medkit behave like the potions?

While the bandage is very different from what the Textile Workers made, it stacks with the rest so it's a good sign.

"All right, pick up everything that might keep me alive longer." Great, now I talk to myself. Well, it's still better than listening to random voices.

The corridor is perpendicular to the hall's entrance and continues both ways.

The place looks dead empty, and quiet, apart from the diesel generator's sound.

"It's not empty, you're here." Fuck, this whispering will lead to a stroke.

Am I getting high on energy drinks, or are the Guardians using scare tactics?

The guide suggested they occupy the first rooms of each dungeon.

There was one to start in, one with the checkpoint station, the elevator shaft, and the red one, so which first?

"Aren't you curious?" Gah, cold chill once again.

"Who's there?" It came from... Ahead? There's nothing that way and nor behind.

It's all the corridor's broken floortiles and flickering neon lights.

When was the last time someone used anything other than LED or halogen in the real world?

Unauthorized usage: this tale is on Amazon without the author's consent. Report any sightings.

The hallway splits, going down some stairs or turning left.

The corner is in pieces, a wide gap in the wall reveals a dark room behind, and the wind whistles between the cracks.

"You want to go down."

"Who... I'll be the judge of that." Fucking creepy whispers.

Well, if it said down... The stairs continue for thirty steps before a heavy steel door blocks the way.

It looks like the ones you'd see in old bank vaults or ancient warships.

A large wheel turns the locking mechanism but won't budge unless you enter the code on the numpad to the left.

"You have to find the code, Noob." Ugh, fine.

Going back up the stairs, a brick floats in the way, again at shoulder height.

Glitching or not, it wasn't there before, and it creates a jumpscare when it drops to the ground with a loud thud.

"Fuck, are you doing this shit?" No response.

The air is thinner, inducing a sudden, sharp headache.

"Argh, what's going on here?" As fast as it comes, it passes.

Continuing to the left, a door ripped off its hinges leads to the room at the corner.

The walls are dirty and red, but it's more of a rusty color than that of blood.

A pictogram shows it was a dressing room.

"You won't find it here, not yet anyway."

"Well fuck you then." It has a few rows of lockers, and the tall and narrow metal furniture got twisted and deformed and knocked over.

It's as if a tornado swept across the place. If he says it's not here, get the fuck out. The next few doors are in better shape and also locked.

More Cyrillic letters explain whatever's inside, in case someone can read them.

Not me, nor the avatar, and the voice remains quiet.

Then they must be unimportant. The hallway splits again, further left, or right into a toilet area.

"Left, it's down this corridor, the place you want to see."

Ugh, what the hell is this place? The headache is almost gone then gets much worse and the voice is louder than ever.

"Go all the way to the end of this hallway." It echoes within the skull.

A crackling noise like when the Wizard Dude electrocuted the avatar passes by.

When it's the loudest, the headache becomes the worst, and the stamina bar drops to zero out of the blue. The sparks are visible.

[Status effect: Exhaustion]

"Yeah, and scared shitless." It's impossible to breathe.

A metal crate starts floating in plain sight, then drops as the crackling passes it.

This isn't a glitch, this must be something this place has. Are the voices coming from the same thing? The stamina recharges fast and the headache's gone, but the heart rate increases.

"Come on, down this hallway." Whatever that thing is, it goes straight ahead, calling for the avatar.

Following it is a bad idea, though where else can you go?

Damn this place, at least the minimap shows the area and not a random part of the forest above.

It doesn't show anything beyond the corridor's walls.

"Okay, good, keep going." And here it comes again, a crackling sound on its way to the toilets.

Deep breath, the headache is back, junk floats into the air, and it all drops when it's gone.

The stamina doesn't reset this time, holding the breath was a good idea.

"Go, go." There are more doors on the right side, all locked as before.

The hallway splits into three directions, but the voice urges me to keep going straight.

"Yes, that way, that way." How far did I come? Unless there's some spatial anomaly in this place, it should be right past the red room.

At this point, that wouldn't be surprising either, this place defies logic anyway. Here comes the crackling again, and more junk floats into the air.

Okay, let's take a deep breath until it passes, and... It stops right in front of me.

"I said go, you are too slow." If the lightning bolt from that Magic Guy was bad, the electric shock this gives is a hundred times worse.

The entire body cramps up in a seizure from the high voltage, even though the HP bar won't budge.

The crackling passes as if nothing happened, leaving me writhing on the floor.

There's a new status effect in town, though the brain is about to get fried.

"Argh, who the fuck are you?"

It's gone, no answers, not even crackling.

"Answer, shithead." I'm going to mess him up so bad. And anyone else that might appear.

What is there to murder in this place? There has to be something.

Oh right, what did that system message say again?

[Status effect: Insanity]