We started making our way down the hall. The torches were spaced out far enough apart that there were long stretches with dim light. As we slowly moved between the dim patches, I really wished my Light Orb was normal. The walls were stone, and besides passing the fork in the road where the Gym Rats had turned down, there wasn’t anything of interest.

I pulled up my map, which was pretty useless. Everything was black except for the area right around where I was standing. Jace didn’t even appear on the map unless I stood right next to him. When I did stand next to him, he showed up as a green dot. As I moved, the black came back, covering the area where we had been. I was really hoping for a map like in games where it showed everywhere you had been permanently visible.

After a few minutes of experimenting with the map, we continued down the hall. We walked for several minutes down the stone corridor; our scenery unchanging from the basic stone. Jace saw them first halting when they came into view. There were bodies on the floor up ahead. There were three, and as we inched closer, we recognized them as the group we had talked to on our walk to the cave, minus Diego. One lay on the ground, and the other two were propped up against the stone wall. They looked like they were frozen, minus the moisture. It was more like they were suspended, as if someone had clicked the pause button on them.

“Hey, you guys, okay?” Jace said, taking a step towards them.

There was no reply.

The women had the same loincloth I had but also a strip of fabric around their chest. As we got closer, we saw three grave cross sticks, like you see on the side of the road. The lettering was in glowing blue against the sticks slate black.

[Isabella González]

[Denver, Colorado]

[Slain by enslaved orcs]

[Sofia González]

[Denver, Colorado]

[Slain by enslaved orcs]

[Sara González]

[Denver, Colorado]

[Slain by enslaved orcs]

I didn’t see Diago. I hoped he had made his luck roll and was now alive with a powerful class.

“Fuck,” Jace said.

It was eerie. All three faces showed anguish. It was pretty messed up. Each had various gruesome stab wounds. I had never seen a dead person in real life, and it gave me more of an emotional reaction than I had guessed. Especially seeing that I had just met them a few hours ago.

I had an idea and took the bottle of mini heals from my inventory. I plucked a pill and tried to shove it in Isabella’s mouth, but it struck an invisible barrier. I didn’t think it was going to work, but I had to try.

Jace bowed his head.

“We are going to make this right,” Jace said under his breath.

We kept cautiously continuing down the hall until we came across a wooden door. The door had a wreath on the outside, like you would have on your door for Christmas. As we got closer, multicolor Christmas lights began to blink on the wreath.

“Wait, what month is it?” Jace asked. “It’s a long ways until Christmas. Think it’s a trap?”

“Probably, but there is only one way to find out,” I said, quickly turning the handle and pushing the door open, jumping back as it swung open.

The door opened a few feet and then slowly closed shut with a creak and a click of the handle. I didn’t notice anything out of the ordinary, except for general unordinary situation I was in. I now had the upper half of a bodybuilder, wearing a loincloth, while in a dungeon, as some sort of shitty wizard with charm power. Thinking about it, I realized my probably fit right in on one of those drama vampire shows my wife liked.

“I should probably go first, having more than two health and all,” Jace said opening the door.

We entered into a cozy room. A fireplace roared, and there was a comfy couch with Christmas decorations covering the room from head to toe. A large Christmas tree stood in the corner, with presents of all different wrapping paper under the tree. It looked like Christmas day in a Duke’s British manor, where a blonde-haired boy, that I would assume was named Charlie, would be opening every present imaginable.

“This is just weird. Why is there a room full of Christmas decor?” Jace said. “I don’t get it.”

“Beats me,” I said. Is this a fire thing like you talked about?” I asked, pointing to the fireplace.

“Not sure. Interface made it seem like we had to be level 3, and it called it a campfire though, so I don’t think so,” Jace replied.

“We’ve only been in this dungeon for a little bit, and this place seems pretty fucked up,” I said.

We started going around the room looking behind things and nudging them with our foot. We figured out that nothing could be moved except for the Christmas presents. After a few minutes, the room seemed to be empty.

I went over to the Christmas lights.

“These could be useful,” I said.

The lights were frozen in place. They wouldn’t move no matter how much strength I used. I first thought it was because of my low stats, so I called Jace over. We both heaved, but they didn’t budge. My interface finally spoke.

Weren’t you paying attention? Didn’t you hear the whole thing about all non-quest items being frozen? If you can’t pay attention to these kinda details, you are screwed. And not in the good way.

We both finally walked away from the Christmas lights.

“Wonder if there is any loot in the Christmas presents? Only thing that can move.” I asked.

I walked over and kicked a bright green present. To my surprise it actually moved a few inches unfrozen like the other Christmas stuff. Fucking game is lying to us now, telling us that non-quest items are frozen. I lifted it up and gave it a shake. The box seemed empty, with nothing moving inside. Until something did move. Large teeth opened up on the seam in the wrapping paper, and a long tongue protruded. Large eyes popped into existence now locked on mine. I dropped the package as an exclamation passed my lips. I looked to see all of the presents under the tree coming alive.

“It’s fucking Christmas present mimics!” I said, running towards the door.

There were at least 20 presents using their long tongues to move their bodies towards us. One of them leapt towards me, and Jace slashed out, severing its tongue. As it fell to the ground, Jace caught the tongue midair. It disappeared from his hands, going into his inventory, while Jace gave the box a kick, sending it soaring into the fireplace. I took position behind Jace as the presents started jumping towards us. Jace quickly had ten latched to his body biting down. Jace screamed in pain.

Reading on this site? This novel is published elsewhere. Support the author by seeking out the original.

Best time as any to try something new. I lifted my hand and sent out a Light Orb. The orb exploded, but this time it only seemed like someone turned up the brightness a few degrees before it went back to normal. The mimic presents dropped to the ground, now stunned and unable to see. Jace went to work, one by one slicing off their tongues, which quickly disappeared into his inventory. I started picking up the ones he had already cut and was throwing them into the fireplace. The boxes crackled in the fire, creating an acrid purple smoke. After a few moments all the mimics were burned.

“Are the tongues really the priority?” I asked as we rested.

“Yeah, man,” Jace said. “There are some good things I can do with those. There are a few recipes I’m already itching to try with the Gym Rat meat and now these tongues. Doing the collection during combat gives me this chef mojo stuff too. Also, I’m up to 50% till next level. Halfway there.”

I went to my Character Overview, looking at the experience bar. The bar did not show an experience point number, just a bar that had ‘40%’ center aligned. In video games and tabletop games, I was used to knowing exactly how many experiences points I had and how many I received from killing monsters. This place didn’t seem to be that transparent.

“I’m only at 40%,” I said. “Looks like my non-participation with that Gym Rat I didn’t get any experience. But, I don’t get how the experience works. I don’t see how much I got for doing what. Does that mean beating one Gym Rat was 10% of a level?”

“No idea. I can’t see anything on my screens about how much I get for what. All I see is a percentage,” Jace replied.

I needed a short break. My now frail body was loving every second of lying on the couch. A couch that we had thoroughly poked and prodded for a good while before we felt confident in places our defenseless derrieres.

I knew it probably wasn’t healthy that my mind was drifting to the negative, but it was hard not to in a fucked-up place and fucked up situation we were in. How the hell was I going to get my family back with just two fucking health and these weird ass classes?

Jace had his travel cooking stove going as he diced up the tongues and Gym Rat love handles. As Jace muttered to himself about needing more ingredients, I was trying to think of good excuses on how I could avoid putting any of that in my mouth. Even with the chef outfit, I was not feeling confident about eating it. Even if it was delicious, it was still monster meat.

I scrolled through my interface tabs, landing on my inventory and forgetting about the Noob Level Loot Box of the Coward I had received earlier. I opened it, two things popping up in my inventory, my interface talking with text scrolling before I could get a good look at what they were. One of them looked like a green box.

Congratulations! You are a total coward. You have gained a five-pack of Depend’s adult diapers. Now with MAXIMUM absorbency, absorbing 25 times its weight. What a relief it must be to know next time you are running in terror, letting your companions do all the work and a monster jumps out, and you shit yourself. Depend’s has your back.

Additional reward: One large tube of IcyHot to help with that sick burn I just gave you.

I rolled my eyes after the message finished. This interface was a total asshole.

“IcyHot isn't even for burns,” I said aloud. “It's for like muscle pain.”

I'll show you some muscle pain when I bend you over.

Jace handed me a plate, giving me a confused look at my seemingly random spoken words. I realized that I was indeed pretty hungry once the aroma hit my senses. It smelled pretty good, and even knowing where this stuff had come from, my hunger finally overcame my disgust.

“Alright. So, I used my once-every-24-hours-ability. I have imbued the food with health. I assume this is one of the reasons we are complementary. Let’s see what happens,” Jace said.

I took a tentative bite. It was a bit chewy but overall, it was pretty good. But I wouldn’t say great. Well, I wouldn’t say it to Jace. A meal, if not hungry, I may have skipped though. After I finished, a notification popped up. I selected it, and my interface spoke.

Would you look at that? You just ate human flesh. While it did have a rat-like head you knew the rest of it was human, right? Hannibal Lecter move out of the way, here you come. You have gained plus five temporary Health Points or HP. Temporary HP is lost before permanent HP and will expire after 24 hours.

Hey, before I go, I have a joke for you. What did you get when you came home late for dinner? The cold shoulder.

Get it? Get it?

“Yeah, I get it,” I said out loud.

Then why aren’t you laughing?

“Dude, that was a huge bonus,” I said excitement building. “Going from two to seven health is going to be huge for me.”

Things were looking up. Maybe we could do this. So far, so good. One step at a time.

Jace packed up his cooking supplies in his inventory. As I found a corner of the room to relieve myself, I thought about how there seemed to be an unforeseen advantage to Jace’s curse. I hadn’t seen Jace have to pee since we got here but I didn’t think he would consider it much of a silver lining. It was a bummer we couldn’t add anything from the room to our inventory. Having a string of Christmas lights could help later. Hey, don’t judge, it could. What if we had to swing from a ledge over a large crevasse like Indiana Jones?

Once we were all packed up, Jace went to the door. He cracked it open just an inch taking a peek, then quickly closed it.

“There are fucking frog or toad looking guy’s right outside the door,” Jace whispered. “Like a lot of them. This place is weird as shit.”

“What? Frog guys?” I asked.

“Yeah, they are like in a row of three filling up the hall. Looks like a lot of them. Like a huge fucking army of toads,” Jace said.

“I’m I hearing you right? Did you say an army of frog or toad people?”

“I did indeed. I think more like frog people. But god damn there were a lot of them,” Jace replied.

“Do we wait it out? They will have to find like water or something to jump into soon, right?” I asked.

A few seconds passed as we strained to try and hear any movement on the other side of the door. Then there was a loud creak, and then a heavy bang, and then the ground started shaking, and the walls started closing in around us.

No bullshit. It looked like we were about to live the trash compactor scene from Star Wars. But our situation also including the ceiling all pushing towards the door. And we were also not the main characters in a story, so we had no writers looking out for us to live.

“Oh, shit!” Jace exclaimed.

Furniture started to smash along with the popping of bulbs. We only had a minute before all the contents in the room were going to shove towards us, making opening the door impossible.

“We have to take our chances. Open the door, and I’ll shoot my Light Orb, and we’ll make a run for it,” I yelled over the deafening noise of moving furniture.

Jace opened the door wide, revealing a frog man who was now jumping multiple feet in the air in surprise his mouth agape. The frog men or maybe I should say frog people, as I really had no idea what gender they all might be. I don’t even think I would know if I was shown any of their gender-specific parts, not that I wanted to see any of their parts. The frog people were wearing thin loose leather unitards that were tinted red and makeshift spears with a bright red strip of cloth at the transition from wood to stone tip. They stood around three to four feet tall and looked like humanoid frogs.

I threw out the Light Orb, the brightness turning up for a few seconds until it faded. The hallway we were in before was now packed just as Jace had described. The hallway was three wide of frog people as far as the eye could see in either direction. There were at least 50 that we could see. I started pushing them out of our way going back the way we came down the hall. The frog men in our area were all stunned, clutching their ears, with some of the closest ones to the blast on the ground. It didn’t take long until we started pushing frogs that were less affected. We were finally faced with frog people that had turned and faced towards us waiting for us to push through their line and confront us.

Things were not looking good.

I was useless. Utterly useless. I had already used my spell, and my mana was not even back to 1% of my max. I would have even contemplated using my fists if I didn’t feel so frail. I had zero doubt my wrist would snap as my fist made contact even on their flubbery faces. Jace started swinging next to me getting one on the neck green ooze pouring down the frog’s throat as fear and pain were expressed on its face.

It was then that I felt a stab from behind looking back–a spear was now plunged into my side. As the frog people were quite small, so too were their spears. Even with the limited strength of the frog people and the small size of the spear, it still pierced through my thick oblique a few inches.

My vision went dark.