After seeing I'm faster than her, Berta gets tired of chasing after me. She stops to catch her breath, sending me a glare.

“Haa… haa… just you wait, Carles… I’ll make you pay when I catch you.”

“Hahaha!” I laugh. “You wish! With that tiny wings and body, you’ll never catch me.”

“Grrr…!” She growls.

This is what happens with game stats: you’ll never catch up with somebody who has a higher speed than you. In real life, you can get the upper hand by using tricks, but they won’t work here.

Meanwhile, Matta has been looking around, inspecting the area. When we stop running around, he takes a paper from his pocket and unfolds it, revealing a map.

“Let’s see where we are… Hmm… the entrance is here, so we should go in that direction…” He points with his finger.

“Hey, wait! I want to see it too!” I run to his side and take a look at the map. Why are there so many interconnected lines? It’s a mess! Even with the map, it’ll be extremely easy for us to get lost. “Hmm…? What are the red areas with a skull on them? They look dangerous. Do you think there will be lots of monsters?”

“I don’t know,” answers Matta. “This is the first time I’ve seen the map…”

“Hee? Where did you find it? Not many dungeons have a map this detailed…” I try to snatch the map from his hands to take a closer look.

“Shush!” He moves the map away, pushing me to the side. “I’m trying to answer your question, so stay put.”

He turns around, hiding the map from me.

“Hey, hey! I want to see it too!” Berta says, flying in our direction. But instead of going for the map, she grabs my horns and starts twisting them while flying around. “Ahaha, I got you! Now you’ll have to pay!”

“Aaah! Stoooop!” By pulling my horns around, she makes my head spin. “It doesn’t hurt, but it’s very annoying…!”

“No! It’s my revenge for calling me a child.”

“B-but… it’s true!” My retort only makes her fly around even faster than before. “Uugh… aaah, o-ok! I surrender! I was wrong, I won’t say it again…”

“Do you regret it now? Ahahaha!”

She finally stops pulling my horns and sits on my shoulders, her head resting on top of mine.

See? Like a child. This is how I carry my ten-year-old little sister when she gets tired.

Now that Berta stopped twisting my head around, I peek over Matta’s shoulder, trying to learn as much as possible about this dungeon.

The map can’t show three dimensions, so those areas that are on top or below other areas are drawn in another place, with annotations that show where they connect with the other areas.

We could also use the simpler, less cumbersome, game interface to display the map as a screen in front of us, but then we would miss the whole point of this: to have a paper map on our hands!

What kind of explorers go into a dungeon without an actual map? It’d be too lame.

The best part of this map is that it’s impervious to damage. It doesn’t matter if we lose it, it gets soaked in water, or burnt to ashes; Matta only has to ask the game to create a new map and it will appear in his hand.

The most extensive area displayed on the map, the one that first caught my attention, is composed of an extraordinarily high number of interconnected tunnels. Some areas are painted red with a skull drawing, but since Matta didn’t tell me what they mean, I have no idea what they represent.

“What a mess… We’re sure to get lost there...” I mutter, unconsciously. But nobody reacts so I continue looking at the map.

The next area that catches my attention is a wide, open area with… an underground lake? It should be a lake, yes. Ah, no, wait. Some partitions divide the area into several parts, so it isn’t an open area. Or is it…? It isn’t clear, but we will see when we reach it.

From there, the map shows a path that leads to the dungeon portal.

If we look at it the other way around, this means this wide-open cave is the first area we will find.

There are some square rooms next to the big cave too. I wonder what will be in there. They certainly aren’t natural, which contrasts with the other areas I’ve seen so far.

At their side, there’s another part that seems to have grass and trees. I thought the whole dungeon would be underground, but I was wrong.

Finally, at the bottom of the map, there are two more manmade areas. The right one looks like a multitude of weirdly shaped rooms clumped together, like a labyrinth. The left one has several interconnected paths with a multitude of rooms on both sides.

“A cave, some tunnels, a… secluded valley? Then, some artificial rooms…” I talk to myself. “It sure looks like an interesting adventure. Hey, Matta! Did you find what those red areas are?”

“Hm…? Ah, yes, sorry. I got distracted by something else… Here it is! ‘WARNING: Here be mushrooms. Stay away if possible!’ Huh? Did I misread it? Mushrooms…?” He checks the annotations on the side of the map. “No, it says mushrooms. How weird…”

This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road. If you spot it on Amazon, please report it.

“Hahaha!” I laugh. “How dangerous are those mushrooms for the map to warn about them instead of the monsters?”

“Maybe they’re giant mushrooms, that make an enormous explosion when you get close? Like… BOOOOOM!” Still sitting on my shoulders, Berta hits and shakes my head as if a bomb exploded.

“Hey, stop it already!”

“Ahaha!”

I move my hands around, shaking her off. She flies away, sticking her tongue out, and moves to Matta’s front side so I can’t catch her.

“But, giant nuke mushrooms… you sure come up with weird ideas.”

“Hey!” Berta complains. “It makes sense! Can you think of any other reason why they should warn about the mushrooms!?”

“...hmm… now that you say it…”

“But this sure is weird.” Matta’s voice catches our attention. We leave our fighting behind and look at him again. “The one who made this map added quite a few weird annotations. I have a bad feeling about this.” He raises his sight from the map and looks at us. “What do you think? Should we use the full guide?”

“Bad feeling?” Berta puts a hand on her chin and starts thinking. “Hmm….”

“Berta, don’t think so hard or smoke will come out of your head. Hahaha!” I taunt her and start laughing.

“Gununu…” She gnashes her teeth together. “Stop acting like a child and listen to Matta.”

You’re the child here! But ok… I’ll think about what he said.

“Use the full guide?” I say. “No way. It’ll spoil all the fun.

“I know but I have a bad feeling–”

“No buts.” I interrupt him. “We use the map so we don’t get lost, waste time, or miss important areas. What’s fun is to explore the unknown. If we use the full guide, it won’t be interesting at all…”

“Hmm, hmm.” Berta nods at my words. “The blockhead is right.”

“What did you say!?”

“I only said the truth, ahaha!” She sticks her tongue out and hides behind Matta.

Matta ignores us and folds the map. “All right. Let’s do it as usual, then. Follow me! The fat goblin will lead the way! Gihihihi!”

----------------------------------------

There’s a path in the forest that starts at the dungeon portal. We, of course, follow it.

As usual, there’s no support mob following us. We like it this way, as it makes us feel as if we were the protagonists of some fantasy novel.

“You can relax and enjoy the views. I’ll warn you if danger comes our way.” Walking a few steps in front of us, Matta says to us while swinging his stick around.

Yes, a stick.

Not a sword, not a spear, not an axe, but a stick. It can’t even be called a club, because it’s too thin to be one. A stick. A fucking stick. Matta likes to bring the ‘extra challenge’ to the limit by using a stick instead of a proper weapon.

Thank god this is a game where equipment doesn’t matter that much, and that the focus is on the dungeons and skills, because otherwise… he might be completely useless with his stupid stick.

I tried to make him change his mind and use a sword like me, but he’s too stubborn.

In comparison, my weapon is so amazing that his stick can be considered less than garbage. Look at this perfect katana! It’s so beautiful with its reddish color and the edge that looks like it’s on fire! Don’t you agree it’s the best fit for a dragonborn like me?

“He, he, he…”

“There he is, drooling over his sword again…” Berta says something but I’m too focused on my sword to listen to her.

As we move forward, I notice a change in our surroundings: the plants have a red tint, as if drenched in blood. It was barely perceptible at the start, but it’s more noticeable the further we go.

Matta continues moving forward without saying anything. This means there are no monsters nearby.

“How weird… in most dungeons we would have found at least one or two monsters by now,” I mutter.

“Ssht!” Berta puts her index finger on her lips. “Don’t jinx it.”

“He’s right. It’s certainly weird.” Adds Matta before suddenly stopping. “Oh, here’s the cave entrance!”

We quicken our pace to reach him as soon as possible.

The path opens up and we leave behind the red plants to find a huge mouth in front of us.

“Whoaa…” I exclaim.

“This promises adventure! Ahaha!” Says Berta from my side.

The mouth, or should I say the cave entrance, evokes a sense of dread. It’s so realistic, but at the same time, so natural… For some reason, I imagine a giant guardian, eternally guarding the entrance. Not to prevent intruders from coming in, but to prevent what’s inside from coming out.

I jump inside the mouth. “Let’s find out what’s ahead! I’m itching for some action.”

“Wait!” With his large belly flopping around, Matta runs in front of me and raises his arm to stop me. He takes his map out. “It says here that there’s a quick path there.” He points at a dark hole inside the cave. “We can skip directly to the action if we use it.”

“No way,” I shake my head. “We’re here to have fun. It’s our first time here, so I don’t want to skip anything.”

“Me neither,” adds Berta. “We never skip anything unless we have no other choice, why should we do it now?”

Matta shakes his head while folding the map once again. “All right, all right. It isn’t like I wanted to use it… I was just asking.”

We ignore the dark hole and choose to follow the normal path. It has a slight slope, going down. On the way, we find some weird screaming and glowing mushrooms, as well as claw marks on the ground and walls, left by some incredibly big monster.

Matta gets fascinated by the screaming mushrooms, saying it’s the first time he’s seen something this bizarre. Since he can’t bring them with him, as they’re part of the environment and are thus indestructible by any normal means, he has to settle with a few screenshots.

Finally, after about five minutes since we started walking, we reach the entrance of the cave-like open area.

“Screaming mushrooms, giant claw marks, nuke-like exploding mushrooms…” I say. “How exciting! What else do you think we’ll find?”

“Who knows?” Matta shrugs. “We can only go and see!” He steps inside the cave and immediately sticks to a rock before inspecting the area around him.

“Let’s go! To the unknown!” Shouts Berta. “Blockhead, don’t make a huge mistake like always, ok?”

“What did you say!?”

I raise my fist in anger, but she reacts on time and flies away.

[https://i.imgur.com/ZGSK4Pl.png]

There was always discussion between the players about when you should use the slide to skip the entrance and when you shouldn’t. As with these kinds of things, they never compromised and thought they held the absolute truth, calling the others stupid and way worse things.

But there was one thing all players agreed upon: you should never use the slide the first time you enter The Mad Rat’s Lab. The main reason was that you would miss most of the warning signs, and not know what to expect from the rest of the dungeon.

Of course, this didn’t apply to a certain group of cultists.