…Yeah, thanks. Appreciated.
The second I’m back in the lobby, I collapse to the floor. Carefully, I place my head in my hands.
I don’t know what to do. I don’t know what to say. Is there anything to say or do?
your inventory has been sold for 9 points.> 61 730 points.> Oh, yeah, there’s one thing I can say. These gods are all kind of douches. Alright, okay, uh, um… Onto the next floor, I guess? I don’t know. I feel kind of nauseous, even though any injury I got on floor seven has technically been recovered by now. It just doesn’t feel like it. It still aches. But it’s not like I can just stop here, right? I need to keep going. That’s it. That’s my only choice. <22:30:21 Day 150> 1:29:39> 23:59:54> At least I was able to clear the floor right on time. As long as I clear a floor within 24 hours of the next attempt beginning, I won’t have to go back to the lobby to redo the whole thing. And, sure, it’s not like I actually lose much of anything by having to redo it, it’s just annoying and tedious. Besides, the longer I stay in the lobby, the more willing I become to engage in the act of senseless auto-asphyxiation. All and all, it’s best for me to just try to keep going. I briefly consider sending Moleman a message, but I’m sure he’s still busy, so I’ll just leave it be. The lobby waiting period goes just the same as it always does. Paint the room, mutilate myself, and after considering how best one could kill themselves in a room where everything automatically regenerates within seconds, the floor finally opens. Do you want to enter?> My hand shoots out like an arrow to press the yes button and I almost cry with happiness when the floor shifts beneath my feet and the endless RED and WHITE is replaced by a foggy darkness. This place is…? Unauthorized duplication: this tale has been taken without consent. Report sightings. It’s dark, but I can still see well enough to make out my own position. I’m standing at the shore of what I think is a river of mud. I can’t see the other side of the river, neither can I see from whence it comes nor where it goes, and the entire area behind me is so foggy it looks like it came straight out of Silent Hill. It looks pretty spooky, but there’s no real wind and it’s completely silent otherwise, so at least I don’t think I’ll be accosted by any spooky ghosts. The only real area of interest is that right next to the shore, just beside me, is a single flickering street lamp. It looks gas-lit and old, but I can be sure. I look back at the river. This has to be the thing I’m supposed to do, right? It should be… Hell Difficulty Eighth Floor: The Muddy Sluice.> <[Clear Condition] Pass over the river of mud and reach the shore.> Yeah, as I thought. Still, this river is… I mean, it isn’t going by very quickly or anything, but it’s still made up entirely of mud. Thick, slimy mud. Hunching down, I stick my hand into it, and even though it moves slowly, the mud is so dense and strong that I almost get pulled along with it just by my hand alone. And then I feel something bite my hand. I pull my hand out of the river to find a little sharp-toothed, eyeless fish trying to bite my finger off. And, miraculously, after a second or so, it actually succeeds, letting it drop back into the flowing mud together with my finger. Hm. Interesting. So, in other words, not only is it muddy, but it’s also infested with weird piranhas? I guess that makes sense. Standing back up again, I look out at the river. It sure is broad. The fog lies so heavy over it that I can’t even make out what lies just a few metres ahead. Oh, apart from that shadow, of course. …Shadow? I squint at the fog. Yeah, I wasn’t hallucinating. That is absolutely a shadow. Pretty big one, too, moving slowly and smoothly towards me. If the shape hadn’t been so weird, I would have assumed it was some muddy sea monster, but as the shadow passes closer, the silhouette becomes clearer and clearer. Finally, it comes close enough for me to easily make out what it is. It’s a guy, standing in a little boat. I don’t know how he’s doing it, but he’s paddling along, standing upright like a gondolier, without the stream of the muddy river seeming to have even the slightest impact. It’s a strange sight, but I’ve seen weirder things in this tutorial. As I watch on, he lets his boat touch the shore, and even though most of the boat remains in the muddy river, it isn’t moving even slightly. It’s like it’s nothing but a shadow. While I look at his boat, the man stretches out his hand and I look up, first at his open palm, and then at his face. Or, rather, where a face would be if he didn’t look like a fuzzy shadow. …No level, huh? Is that supposed to suggest that he isn’t meant to be killed? “A piece of metal,” the Ferryman says, “for safe travels across the river.” I open my mouth and close it again. Deftly, I open up my inventory. Let’s see here… Leopard hide, wolf hide, boar hide, squirrel hide, bird hide, shade hide, gombie hide, bat hide, deer hide, elk hide, bear hide… Nope, no metal. What a bummer! I hope he accepts alternative forms of currency. “How about if you take me across I won’t kill you and wear your skin like a pair of overalls?” The Ferryman looks down at me. I can’t really tell his expression since he’s in lack of a face, but for some reason, I think he might be a little shocked. After almost a full minute of silence, he finally speaks again. “No money, no travels.” Ah, is that so. Shame. I shake my head. “No travels,” I say. “No life.” I leap at him before he has time to set back out into the river. I’m able to get a pretty good grip on him, hooking my legs around his midsection, but apparently I underestimated him, because after only a short quarrel, he finally pushes me off enough to smack me across the head with his oar, sending me into the muddy river below. Everything is cold and slimy and gross and—oh, there goes my hide again. Great. Within just seconds of entering the mud, I can already feel numerous mudswimmers biting into every bit of my exposed flesh, so to keep them from annoyingly blinding me, I begin to wheel my arms in an attempt to breach the surface. Swim Lv.1> After a few seconds of paddling through heavy mud, I finally get my head to escape the mud, where I take a deep breath and pull off a mudswimmer stuck to my ear, ripping off half my ear in the process. For a second or so, I just look around, trying to catch a glimpse of the ferryman. No luck. He’s gone, and I don’t think I’ll have too much luck trying to find him again. He didn’t have a level, so I don’t think I need to defeat him or anything, but it still feels empty. What a guy, huh? Who would smack someone over the head with an oar, just like that, completely unprompted? Total lunatic. Anyhow, now that I’m in the mud, it’s not like I have any other choice but to start swimming. Swimming in mud feels weird. Since it’s thicker than water, it’s thicker than me, so I don’t sink as easily and rather bob at about chest level, but at the same time, it’s also so thick that taking a single stroke through it leaves my arms tired and trembling. And that’s not even mentioning the current. I’m lucky I only have to get to the other shore or this would have been a practically impossible task. It’s very close to it, but not quite there. I begin to doggy-paddle my way towards… towards… Huh. Which way was the shore again? It’s the same mud whichever way I look, and I can’t see any shore, be it the one I came from or not. It’s just the same mud and the same fog on both sides. No way. Did I…? Did I already get lost?