CHAPTER ONE

SMELLY MUSHROOM AND DIRTY BLADE

-I think I am going crazy...

Magnolia was in predicatement. Some of the strange shapes she tried to note down, gained life and moved around the paper. There were four of them. Shy one hid in the corner, and andventurous tried to get onto other page. Little glutton gnawed at one of the immobile drawing, doing no damage to it thought. And last one... Lets call it lively one. It ran happily in circle.

Surrounded by dozens of lights produced by unnatural mushrooms, she stared at them without blinking. It was just too unnatural.

When she tried to draw another one, lively shape stopped running and attached itself to its newest sister, tearing halfway done drawing away.

Suddenly, her attetion was diverted to something else.

[WELCOME TO BACKWATER CAVE DUNGEON]

[You have entered novice level dungeon. Threat level medium for current level.]

[Current location- safe zone. To leave dungeon, killing the floor boss is neccessary.]

She knew what an dungeon was. Her brother liked to play games, and she along with her triple sisters accompanied him everyday... until he dissapeared five years ago. After that, playing games brought them too much pain... So they had to find other means of passing time. For Magnolia, it was drawing and painting that brought her here.. and reading. So althought it seemed riddicolous, and with each passing second she was getting more nervous, she thought back , trying to remember few things about games and stories revolved around them. Her memory was murky, but she managed to remember something. Two years ago she was quite enthusiastic about few novels with gaming and litrpg theme, hoever their authors stopped posting new installations.

Usually, every character have.. status screen? There were classes and levels, there were also skills and experience.. .. Why cant I recollect more?

-Menu. System. Character. Bag. Exit. Escape. Dungeon details? Show my level! Status? Status window!

[Wrong command. Person not authorised.]

[Bag unavaible now. Finish Novice Dungeon for the privilege.]

Help support creative writers by finding and reading their stories on the original site.

[BACKWATER CAVE DUNGEON]

[Long forgotten one-time dungeon used to introduce children of [???] to the system. After an certain event entrace to it got destroyed. Now, only way out relies in teleportation circle appearing after defeat of floor boss. Blackwater Cave Dungeon posses three floors with different difficulty, each one giving different gifts. It is advised to complete the whole dungeon for better reward.]

[Status unavaible now. Finish Novice or Introductory Dungeon for the privilege.]

Young woman closed the sketchbook and hid it in the backpack, deep in thought. Althought she looked calm, she was actually scared. Her heart beat lound like crazy, and her hands started to shaking. After taking an deep breath, she picked up her backpack and stood up, wincing.

-It seems I dont have any choice, right? System called that cave an safe zone.. Is it where entrace used to be? Maybe I can find something useful here?

Noting down that thing on the ceiling that brought her here didnt have any more sense. With each stroke she understood less and less, like it was draining her concentration and energy. Also, her hand shook too much to note anything anyway. So she decided to explore the so called safe zone.

At first, nothing much gained her attetion. One time, she thought she found mentioned entrace. An big green rock with fluorescent veins stood out from the formation of the grey rocks. Poking it with her small knife gave no resoult. Hoever, an round and handy mushroom in golden hue and light growing near the rock gave Magnolia some inspiration. She cut it near the rock, and caught its stem with left hand. She waved it and shook, but it still glowed, so she decided to take it along. After all, she didnt know what kind of light sources were up ahead.. and that mushroom looked kind of special. Thats what she liked to think anyways. She put it in the bag, so the golden cap was visible.

Looking under monstroust shroom in the center of the cave gave her biggest suprise- an strange chest. Magnolia pulled it toward herself, and fumbled with the rusty lock. It didnt give her much of an fight, as it turned to dust with little pressure.

After opening the lid she was welcomed with another notification.

[Found hidden novice chest. There are several iron weapons inside. One weapon per person]

[Novice sword]

[Novice two handed greatsword]

[Novice bow and set of basic arrows]

[Novice dagger]

[Novice spear]

[Novie polearm]

[Novice hammer]

[Novice axe]

[Novice blunt staff]

-Its too much...

Suddenly drained of energy, Magnolia sat at the nearest object. Giant mushroom cap was quite comfortable, so she decided to lay down instead. The notification followed her, like usual.

She had an hard choice to make. Were weapons related to gainable classes? Or not? She reached her right hand toward letters, considering her options.

She knew her aim was not too bad, how was she supposed to get more arrows in case current ones ran out? Besides.. aiming in this darkness?

Spear, polearm, hammer, axe and greatsword sounded too heavy for her.

Blunt staff didnt sound like something doing any great damage. She also didnt know if it was an mage weapon, nor how magic worked. Were there spell casting books or wands? Was she even capable of it?

Dagger and sword howewer..

Sleek looking, iron sword materialised in her right hand. Caught by suprise, she dropped it with scream. Weapon fell onto cap near her head, cutting some of her fine dark hair and sticked into the fleshy cap right till the handle.

-It.. it was close... I am stupid.- Magnolia panted. -To hell with that! Maybe its enought of stalling.

Slowly, she pulled out the sword and stood up from the mushroom cap. An blue goo flowed out from the cut. Gagging at the smell, she cleared the blade swiftly with another unhurt cape and headed hurriedly for the corridor.

She definitely wasny running away from that smell. Absolutely not.

After some time when the young woman with long ponytail (now slightly shorter) and leather backapck left the room, teleportation circle had dissapeared. Mushroom that was hurt by newly acquired sword shook itself and started glowing ore intenselu. Soon, its cut dissapeared without any trace left, like it was never hurt in the first place.