Although Wendy finds herself emerging from the customary wall of rock, her vision colored by a familiar violet hue, she quickly realizes that that is the extent to which her new surroundings appear typical. For, exiting the portal, what she discovers is not the 250 by 250 feet large foyer that she has come to expect as the first room of any dungeon, but rather, a narrow corridor barely more than three feet across. In addition, the lighting is so poor that she can scarcely see beyond several steps ahead. Immediately, the unusualness of the location raises a flag in her mind, and her ocean-blue eyes subconsciously dart back to the portal, as if considering an early retreat. But then the wariness is outcompeted by her greed, and she shakes her head, steeling her resolve. “I have to at least find out what monsters and loot this place contains,” she mumbles to herself. And with the matter decided in her mind, she presses forward, turning her body sideways slightly as she begins to inch her way through the narrow tunnel.

Roughly thirty feet, and a right turn, later, she comes up to a fork in the path. This is highly unusual, for in every dungeon she has been in, the progression has been strictly linear: foyer to mob room to loot room, down the stairs to the next foyer. Here, she is actually being presented a choice of where to go. Uncertain, both of the direction and of the very act of choosing, she decides to remain on her current trajectory, continuing straight rather than branching left. This brings her into a moderately larger chamber, about twenty feet in diameter, circular in shape with a large central pillar. Here, the lighting improves slightly, allowing her to peer further into the dimness, but even then, the cavern appears empty, with no signs of dungeon mobs.

Wendy takes a pause, a look of consternation across her face. “What’s going on?” she mumbles to herself, “This feels too… raw to be a dungeon. Is this just some… cave?” She spends a minute circling the pillar, checking if anything lies on a different side, and as she rounds the final corner, something on the ground does indeed catch her eye. She stops, bending over to pick it up, the object feeling hard in her hands. She brings it to eye level, inspecting it, before raising an eyebrow. “A potato?” she wonders aloud. She taps it with a finger a few times, and a clink! sound echoes through the chamber, indicating the item is hollow. She begins to pace, only more questions arising in her mind. “Why is there a...wah!” Her thought is interrupted, for as she steps a foot down, she finds herself suddenly on something slick, and distracted by the item, she is slow to react, losing her balance and stumbling forward. Fortunately, her above average Finesse allows her to catch her fall. Unfortunately, the item in her hand goes flying in the process, crashing against the wall before shattering! into smaller fragments.

Catching her breath, heart now thumbing from the surprise, Wendy squats down to inspect what it is she has just slipped on. She runs a finger carefully across the surface of the floor, finding that it comes away both slick but also sticky, “... like some kind of ooze?” Before she can ponder the matter for long, however, a sudden noise causes her to jump to the ready, her body immediately falling into a defensive posture, her hand on the hilt of her sword. So there are mobs after all?

A splop, slosh, squish sound can be heard emanating from the tunnels, and a moment later, Wendy spots what appears to be a long board of wood coming into view, atop which a body is laid, definitely humanoid in shape. Wendy finds herself taking a reflexive step back, uttering, “A-A corpse?” Still trying to process what she is seeing, she then hears the sound of a man’s voice.

“Okay, Cy, you can stop here. Cy. Cy! Stop! Stop! You’ll overshoot it! Wait, put me down!”

Wendy watches in bewilderment as the man and the wooden board slug past her, continuing along the circular pillar that lies central to the room. The absolute strangeness of the situation prevents her from acting, and it is only when they round the corner again, after which the man leaps off abruptly, when the wood board dislodges, revealing the gelatinous creature underneath hiding underneath, that she comes to her senses, for gazing at the monster causes a message to show up in her vision, reading:

You have discovered Swamp Slime. Creature entry has been added to your bestiary.

A dungeon mob?!

Wendy draws her sword by reflex, shouting to the fellow adventurer, “Look out! Get away from it!”

To her surprise, however, the man just laughs. “Oh, don’t worry, Cy won’t attack you unless I instruct him to. He’s a good boy. Aren’t you, Cy?” The man bends over, giving the monster a pat, and to her continued bafflement, the monster actually seems to respond, offering some gurgling noises.

What… on Arcadia is actually going on… I’ve heard about classes with companions, but they’re usually wild animals like dogs…. A slime...? Wendy thinks to herself. Seeing however that the slime is indeed non-hostile, for the moment at least, she lets herself turn away briefly from the creature, looking to the man instead, giving him a close inspection for the first time. She finds that he is young, like she, perhaps just over eighteen, standing around five foot ten inches, with messy brown hair and the clearest blue eyes she has ever seen. Moreover, no message appears above his head when she looks at him, which just further confirms in her mind that he is not a dungeon creature, but a fellow adventurer. She calls upon her Contacts. Given that she knows little to nothing about him, however, much of the information remains unfilled.

Name

-

Age

18

Gender

Male

Height

5’ 10”

Weight

-

Hair Color

Brown

Eye Color

Blue

If she had had a higher skill in Perception, perhaps the issue could have been alleviated. As it stands, however, she’ll have to find out information the old fashion way, namely, through dialogue.

It’s unfortunate that another adventurer knows about this dungeon, but perhaps I can work out a deal of some kind with him to share the place. I’ll have to break the ice first, get on friendly terms. Maybe he can even provide me with some information he’s gathered about this dungeon. Okay, let’s go with that…