I opened my eyes and found myself in an foreignly large room. In my sleepy haze the first thing I noticed was how the walls glowed. They were dull grey but contrasted by light blue lines glowing softly and spanning over the surface. It was beautiful actually but felt slightly unnerving with how unnatural it was. I spent a good 10 minutes just transfixed by the continuous pattern and luminescence before I snapped out of it and realized I needed to figure out where I was.

You wake up in an unfamiliar place and zone out looking at the walls? Get some sense in you Grant!

Though I told myself that, I wasn’t too hard on myself with how pretty the view was. Still I should have really been far more cautious with the circumstances. Internally chastising myself I quickly glanced over the rest of the room, which ended up being not near as remarkable as the walls. In fact, it was pretty much empty.

Well, it was empty save for an plain looking sheathed dagger beside me and a wooden door on the far side of the room with a giant sign hung above it. My heart began to race as I made out the words written in thick black ink.

The world waits, take your gift, travel and grow

What is that supposed to mean? The world waits? And there's only one thing it could mean by gift.

I turned back to the small dagger and picked it up gingerly, surprised at how well it felt to hold. I hadn’t focused on it before, but after serious inspection it was alluring to say the least. The hilt was same iron color as the walls and pocked with empty circular indentions. Honestly it looked a bit plain, but once unsheathed the blade shone with the same blue patterns that captivated me earlier.

The sign and "gift" made me anxious about what sort of situation I was in, but I decided that I needed to go through the door to figure out where I am if nothing else. With an effort I slid it back into its sheath and made my way to the door to grip the handle. Opening it, I was baffled as a blue screen appeared seemingly out of nowhere.

Welcome to your first dungeon

With this screen appearing right in front of my face it’s needless to say I freaked out and fell flat on my butt swiping at the air. After about five seconds of flailing like a child I realized that I wasn’t being attacked. The lack of hostility didn’t make me any less upset at being caught off guard though. A dungeon? What the hell even is that? And how did I just get a message out of thin air? I have far too many questions, but I tried to calm down so I could keep moving. No matter how hard I thought about it, I don’t think I would be able to find any answers about these mystical occurrences.

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At least everything else was pretty straightforward. Past the door there was an unbranching corridor leading to another door. I was still tense and confused, but there was only one option available to me at the moment. I walked the thirty or so feet and let my hand hover above the handle.

Last time I opened a door I got that weird screen. Who knows what will happen this time

My carefree attitude towards doors was gone with the last one, probably never to come back. I wouldn’t be surprised if I spent the rest of my life unable to touch a door without fear. I was more than slightly afraid at the prospect of what I would find past the door frame. I took several deep breaths and tried to convince myself that I would be fine.

Adrenaline started to take over and I clenched my fist for a bit before I worked up the nerve to grab the handle. With a jerk I opened the door and before I could change my mind rushed in-

-Only to become frozen in fear as I locked eyes with a large set of dulled black eyes. What was in front of me resembled a pig except every part of its body was smooth and bulbous, almost like a balloon animal. It was laying on the ground staring back at me curiously with ears perked, probably just as confused as I was. We both stood still for a minute at a staring stalemate, but as time wore on the tension seeped out of me.

It had been a full minute without any movement, and the the ovaled eyed pig creature looked relatively harmless the longer I stared at it. After all, how dangerous could a such a tiny fat looking animal be? I felt a bit at ease, though I’d never seen anything like this thing, whatever it was.

I’ll just walk around it I guess.

I thought i was safe, but as I stepped out from behind the wall, the pig decided to stand with a huff. I quit moving to resume our little staring contest with my head cocked.

Its moving pretty slowly, thats a good sign right? It doesn’t seem upset.

It shook its head roughly to wake itself it up and then narrowed its eyes at me. Without breaking eye contact it huffed again and I dropped into a crouch as I heard it take a rasping breath that dragged on for way longer than sounded normal. I then watched in horror as the air around it began to visibly shift while it's already round stomach grew to three times its original size.

What the fuck is it doing?!!

I got my answer in the form of a condensed air bullet rushing out of its mouth and straight towards my chest.