I tried my best not to panic but didn't make too good a job of it.

A deadly dungeon? What the fuck?!

I took a few deep breaths and steadied myself. I slowly accepted my fate and, expecting the worst, I braced myself and pulled the door open. Nothing immediately jumped out to eat my face, which I took as a good omen. The feeling quickly faded after I saw what was on the other side of the door.

The next room was a mostly empty oval chamber, far larger than the one I was currently in. It appeared to be more a case of a natural cave that developed in some reddish brown rock being adapted into a room than something that was purposefully built. On the wall to the left of me, there was another sconce with a burning torch dimly illuminating the chamber. Below it, there was a pile of what looked like broken shelves, next to which a skeleton sat slumped against the wall. Under the right wall lay an overturned table and a chair. I was surprised they were intact, given the state the shelves were in. Finally, I could see an outline of another door in the far wall.

Carefully, I stepped into the room, eyes all around my head. When nothing happened, my first idea was to check out the table. After a few steps, I heard the altar chamber door creaking and then slamming shut. I looked back at it and saw there was no handle on this side.

No way back now, I thought.

As I approached the table, I noticed a cruciform object lying on the other side of it. I hurried over there and confirmed my suspicion that it was a sword in black scabbard. I picked it up and looked the weapon over. It had a simple metal guard, a leather-wrapped hilt long enough that you could comfortably hold the weapon in both hands and a pommel with a dull sea-green gem in it. It didn’t look like any precious stone I knew from Earth, but I was so deep in the interdimensional travel rabbit hole that if I found gems walking around on spider legs I would treat it as normal. The blade looked to be around ninety centimetres long. I unsheathed it and gasped in marvel. The metal was covered in a series of intricate carvings, not unlike those I found on the chamber wall. Upon closer inspection, I saw that they definitely were a similar kind of runes, but once again the script had a different quality to it than the others. This time around the letters were extremely flourishy. At least some of them… the rest were very subdued. I couldn't make heads or tails of it. Why did I find four different alphabets here in less than thirty minutes? Three of these seemed to be related too in the way Polish, Turkish, English, German and most other European languages all use roughly the same set of characters, but each has their own spin of them. Like the ß in German, ż or ź in Polish or ç in Turkish.

In the end, I’ve decided to put that mystery on the ‘way later’ pile. I had more pressing concerns. Like getting food. Or surviving this shithole. That being said, I did check out the stats of the sword.

Item: Inscribed Steel Bastard Sword

Class: Weapon - Special - Bastard Sword

Rarity: Very Rare

Quality: Good

Durability: 50/50

Does "special" refer to it having some sort of extra properties OR is it just due to me being able to wield it in two different ways? I wondered.

I gave it a few test swings first with one hand and then with both. I had a much easier time with the latter probably due to my Kendo experience. That and I wasn’t the strongest person out there, to begin with.

Now that I was armed I’ve decided to allocate my perk points into learning how to use those things.

Note: There are two skills that much the description of ‘Bastard Sword’

* Bastard Sword - One-Handed

* Bastard Sword - Two-Handed

Which one do you wish to learn?

I thought ‘Two-Handed’ and felt my mind flood with knowledge of some basic stances, strikes and parries.

New Skill Acquired: Bastard Swords - Two Handed - Current Level: 1 (0% total progress to level 2)

You have spent 2 Perk Points (Current Number of Perk Points: 0)

I checked my skillsheet and saw that a new table has appeared there.

Martial - Swords

Name

Rank

Level

Progress

Bastard Sword - Two-handed

Novice

1

0%

I resheathed the sword and, out of curiosity, decided to check out what the scabbard did, if anything. In video games, they sometimes had cool properties. Alas, this wasn’t one of them funky ones.

You could be reading stolen content. Head to the original site for the genuine story.

Item: Leather Scabbard

Class: Utility - Sheath

Rarity: Common

Quality: Average

Durability: 10/10

There were some loops attached to the leather on one side of the sheath, so I took off my pants belt, pulled it through them and then put it back on in a way that the scabbard would be on my left side. I took a few practice steps. It felt awkward to walk around with it and I didn’t like how my legs now felt a bit lopsided, but I supposed I would have to get used to it. I chuckled. There were a LOT of things for me to get used to about the new situation. I just hoped I would live long enough to do so.

Business of getting armed taken care of, I've turned my attention to my hapless companion and the pile of broken furniture next to them. From my current position, I noticed there was a long thick stick in the pile of broken furniture. My curiosity piqued I walked over there to investigate. I pulled it out and saw that the stick was, in fact, a quarterstaff.

Item: Wooden Quarterstaff

Class: Weapon - Two-Handed - Polearm

Rarity: Normal - Uncommon

Quality: Good

Durability 39/40

Traits: Sturdy - 50% slower durability loss

That trait certainly looks nice.

The staff was slightly longer than I was tall. I tried to remember what I knew about using those, but the only thing I could recall was some Robin Hood movie. You know, the scene where Robin and one of the Merry Men duel over a river. I also dimly remembered seeing some trailer of a Polish fantasy movie that I don’t think ever came out. Some scantily-clad chick was using a quarterstaff to beat up some dudes in front of a tavern. That wasn’t a terribly good base to even start trying to figure out how to fight with a weapon. Then, something occurred to me.

Don’t you fight with those cotton-swab-looking staves kind of the same way?

It’s not like I ever actually trained with those, but I did see way more movies with those. That, and I sometimes playfighted with a broom. So, I grabbed the staff at about quarter-length from each end and did a sweeping motion like with one. It felt really awkward, so I assumed I was doing something wrong. My first thought was to try to find a better way to hold it. After a few tries something clicked and I found a way to hold it that best matched my height and body. From that point, I was quickly able to figure out some basic attacks, though without anyone to train with defending would be an issue.

I held the staff in my hand for a moment and pondered whether to take it. After agonising over it for a moment, I decided to leave the staff behind, as I didn’t have anything to help me carry it around. I could remember seeing people in martial arts movies having some leather harnesses that let them strap staves to their backs. Unfortunately, those were fresh out around here, and I didn’t feel like holding this thing constantly in my hands.

I stood the staff against the wall, but it immediately slid sideways and clattered on the floor. I shrugged and left it lying there. It wasn't like I had to keep this place clean and orderly. I turned to examine my silent roommate and knelt by them. The skeleton appeared to be quite old as there was not a single scrap of meat or clothes left on it. Other than that it looked to be in excellent condition. Too excellent in fact, as there was not even a speck of dust on it. None of the objects in the room were dirty, I realised. I would say it was very weird, but, given what happened to me in the past hour, this was barely a blip on the radar.

'I wonder what happened to you,' I said to them. 'Were you like me? Just another random soul ripped from their world? What happened to you I wonder? Did you see you were in way over your head and decided to wait here for the end?'

The skeleton didn't respond. I nodded, stood up and started heading toward the exit when out of the blue I heard scraping behind me. I turned around and saw the skeleton was now intently staring at me, red orbs glowing in its eye sockets.

'WHAT THE FUCK!’ I screamed while stumbling back. I tripped over my own legs and fell on my ass.

I stared in dread fascination as the skeleton started to slowly rise, its bones quietly chattering. On its way up, it picked up the quarterstaff lying on the floor next to it. Then the bony bastard slowly began shambling towards me. I started crawling back, but I stopped once I felt the scabbard hitting my leg.

The sword.

I scrambled to my feet and with shaking hands unsheathed the blade and assumed the stance I remembered from the skill increase. It was just in time because the monster was upon me, the staff raised over its skull. It swung the polearm at me with surprising speed. I barely had enough time to raise my sword to block the strike. The staff hit the blade with terrible strength and bounced off it. I could feel pain spreading throughout my arm, but I somehow held on to my sword. My lack of experience was showing, as before I had time to reset my stance the skeleton was already swinging again, this time from the left. I didn’t manage to react and the staff connected with my side with a loud thwack. I screamed in pain. The paper doll once again appeared but I quickly dismissed it. I knew where I just got hit. No need to tell me.

At least I don't have to worry about internal damage, I thought grimly and started backing away from the skeleton.

Thanks to that, I barely avoided another overskull strike. I could feel the air movement from the swipe on my face.

‘Fuck,’ I swore and raised my sword again to parry another swipe from the left. This time I managed to block it, but I couldn’t just keep defending, I needed to attack. The skeleton raised its bony arms to attack me from above again.

Hang on, I thought as I watched the staff descend. I somehow managed to deflect the attack with a swing of my sword. I was starting to get the hang of the knowledge I got.

The next strike should come from the left.

And it did. Despite me knowing about it I wasn’t fast enough to defend against it, which won a painful hit to my hip. I swore again, but at least I had the beginnings of a plan now.

That thing is fucking mindless. Just programmed with a specific pattern.

I had to act. The next strike would be from above again. I would have a brief window of opportunity to attack afterward. I carefully watched the skeleton raise the staff. As the weapon began its descent, I tried to dodge to the side, but my poor physical condition once again showed its face, as the monster managed to hit me on the calf.

'God fucking dammit!' I screamed in pain

I had to continue with my plan, as I would die if I didn’t. I swung my sword sideways at the skeleton. My blade got between its ribcage and pelvis. My heart sank as I thought I missed, but then my sword hit the monster in its spine and shattered the old bone. The skeleton, now in two parts, collapsed onto the floor.

I fell to my knees in a mix of pain and relief. Then, I heard scraping sounds again coming from the direction of the felled monster. While the severing of its spine caused the skeleton to lose control of its legs, its upper half was, apparently, still operational. It was lying on its back and trying to claw itself upright with its bony fingers.

‘Oh, you motherfucker,’ I muttered and with the rest of my strength dragged myself back to my feet. I limped towards the undead monstrosity, gripped my sword in both hands and drove it into its skull, shattering it with a loud crack. That, finally, did the trick.

Level 4 Skeleton has been slain

You have received 400 experience points. (400/500 total experience points progress to level 1)

I grabbed the quarterstaff that was still gripped by one of skeleton’s hands. Then, I started smashing the bones of the undead monster with it, punctuating each hit with a scream of anger, frustration and pain.