Statement: Dungeons are a concept which started around the thirteen hundreds. Originally, it was used to refer to a “great tower of a castle.” This is strange because many people imagine underground torture pits when the word has nothing to do with underground at all. In fact, towers were easier to store people in and easier to guard.

Modern terms turned dungeons into places where players go to fight bosses and get loot. I did not know this personally, I’d never gotten that far in games. The others insisted they were there as challenges for us. I suspect something more sinister, such as a place that wants us to die inside of it. It was simply another chain in the process which encouraged us to die.

The three of them whispered. I strained to hear them while studying our surroundings. It wasn’t that I cared about them as people, but every single sentence they said could be helpful later on.

“This is Kent’s son?” the one with a huge sword asked. She’d put that weapon away and was polishing two much smaller blades.

“Mayor Kent,” Leon said firmly and took a shuddering breath. “And, I think so. He was at the house.”

They were silent for a moment and exchanged glances. I stared across the main street and wondered how a landscape could be familiar and alien at the same time. The street lights resembled lamps. The large signs which used to advertise food places were mostly gibberish aside from a few key curves or arches.

“It’s gotta be him. Kent’s pet murderer wouldn’t let anyone else in. He follows orders even better than you,” the Goth responded.

I didn’t like referring to her as that. She reminded me of someone in high school, but the name Callisto didn’t ring a bell. Her hair had to be dyed because that level of black was unnatural. She might have an Asian background but only her pale skin color matched.

It was hard to guess because none of us were the same as we had been. Even Leon was nearly alien compared to his prior bus driver uniform. The plate certainly impressed me, when it wasn’t loud.

“He looks weak,” Callisto said.

“Maybe,” Leon responded.

“Well, we’ve got enough to carry him. With you and Allegra we should be able to navigate this place quickly.”

I didn’t want to admit ignorance and instead worked to figuring out what they meant. Carrying me implied I couldn’t pull my own weight. We were headed into a place with monsters that were probably tougher than the children-sized mini-orcs. Pretty much everything would be.

Callisto sighed. “I don’t know why we’re bothering. We need to run tougher places. We barely get anything here because of the diminishing returns.”

Allegra snorted and shook her head. “We can’t, and him’s listening to us.”

I stiffened. She’d noticed me despite my staring across the street. I’d actually been trying to understand why monsters weren’t roaming the city streets. It was too quiet out here. The sky overhead had been peaceful and barely clouded. Afternoon was turning into outright night.

There was a deep groove in the road. It dipped along the middle lane and was at least fifteen feet across. It went down the entire street and curled into a round pocket in the middle of an intersection.

Something had made that indent in the ground. It hadn’t been there while I lived in the neighborhood. Hair on the back of my neck stood as I imagined a serpent or other huge creature sliding along. Snakes did not travel in straight lines.

“Excuse you.” Allegra pulled her clothes tight.

I shook my head and stared at the dumpy blonde with too many bathrobes. She was in her mid-thirties. The way she wrapped her clothes and stood right under my eyes served to distract me.

For a moment, all I could think of was bending her over a table and figuring out how loud she could get. I suspected loud, and that those bathrobes covered up a thick set of curves that would give me more than enough to grab onto. My eyes fluttered for a moment and I swear she blushed.

It was sudden, and out of the blue. I thanked God for the book being over my crotch and clenched my toes.

“Hello,” I said.

“I’m Allegra. I’ma mender of sorts. Callisto is a warrior—”

Which I’d already gathered but Callisto cut her off anyway. Her annoying way of interrupting triggered further memories.

“I’ll be helping Leon keep creatures off you. All you need to do is not touch anything purple.” She had a tickle to her voice and couldn’t be much older than me. I didn’t look over, for fear of being washed with more uncontrollable thoughts. The rush of thoughts had to be related to this form. If I stayed in this shape for too long, I’d end up running through a neighborhood’s vibrator collection.

Leon took a deep breath and shuddered. “And I’ll be taking the beatings.”

I closed my eyes briefly and took in a number of scents. Fresh air blew through which contained wild flowers, dampness, and that same sweaty sour smell that had been in the giant’s house. I’d lose my mind soon unless I found a place to peel off this disguise.

“So, in game terms, tank, damage, and I’ma healer,” Allegra said.

My eyebrows scrunched. They must have felt introducing their roles was important. Turning this into a game made no sense in terms of self-preservation.

“They’re five or six places like this across the city. They spawn monsters inside that are tougher than the ones outside. But those only stay inside.” Leon nodded then continued. “If we can kill the boss inside, it’ll slow spawning monsters here and in this neighborhood.”

That meant they could defeat these centralized locations and take pressure off supply raiding. I saw the advantage of fighting inside easily.

“They give more rewards too. Lots of orbs. If we’re lucky we can get a few hundred dollars between us. We’ll need it.” Leon glanced at the girls then at his feet for a moment. “Mayor Kent believes we’ll need to ration as much as we can.”

“You can ration. I get hungry. Sometimes I just can’t wait to stuff my face with a full sausage.” Allegra slowly glanced toward me then went wide eyed and red faced.

Callisto distracted herself by checking over the weapons she’d grabbed again.

Leon looked at me and smiled weakly. “You’ll get more than we do.”

“Are you catching any of this? Or did you come back with half a brain?” Callisto asked. Metal clinked softly. Her shirt muted some of the chain mail’s noise.

“Maybe he got something else to make up for it. I can imagine all sorts of mmhm…” Allegra happily mumbled the last part.

I blinked and pretended neither of them had insinuated anything. It didn’t help that half a conversation ago I’d imagined bending one of them over. They might be entranced, like I had been back at the giant’s pool.

“You told me that the world is a God forsaken mess,” I said calmly. My religious upbringing made me wince upon using god in a sentence.

Allegra snorted, laughed and covered her face while searching the bushes for enemies. She stomped a foot and checked the rolls of paper at her side. It wasn’t obvious at first glance, but she had a satchel with a dozen rolled up pieces of poster paper sticking out.

Callisto chewed on a cheek and set down a huge sword while shaking her head. She kept making trips to the cart and switching weapons but still retained the two shorter blades.

Leon put on his helmet and grabbed a riot shield and sledge hammer. How he expected to lift it repeatedly was beyond me. Maybe he’d grown stronger, or these orbs they gathered gave them more muscles.

So, it was a game to them, but death was final. They were clearly outfitted and comfortable with their abilities. I didn’t even have a knife or sword like the one that turned into a black orb.

“Come on! Load up before you head in. But don’t touch the spring loaded weapons. I’ll be using those to guard the cart if our powders run out.”

Springs functioned. That was helpful to know. I hadn’t really thought about it, but when weapons needed to be made, springs could allow all sorts of options. It should have anyway, without the internet or books in English I couldn’t figure out how to craft a gun. Maybe I could get a crossbow and attach explosive runes to it. Ping pong balls could only go so far.

They were talking and I needed to pay attention.

“This is Arson.” Leon waved to Arson, who stood on top of the wagon staring down at everyone. “Arson, you know the mist will last long enough to clear this dungeon. After that, you know the rules, if we take longer than two hours, you get back home. We can’t lose resources.” Leon gestured to the donkeys.

“Uh huh,” he said. “Nice to know you smart asses care about clearing my dong.”

The newest person was a thin black man with balding hair. He wore a thick sleeveless jacket that might have been from the hunting section of a sports shop.

“So, what are we calling you? Kent didn’t say anything, but that you were his son,” Arson asked.

The first response didn’t come out. “Err…”

“Ear? Nice name but it might be confusing during a fight.”

I debated what to call myself but all the false names that came to mind died somewhere between my brain and vocal cords. Maybe one of the unwritten rules of this would prevented me from lying. It might be this shape, but I hadn’t spoken to many people since ‘The Event.’

“Hawthorn,” I said. It wasn’t technically a lie. Being able to speak my middle name meant something. It was likely I could have chosen any one of the three names. Hawthorn felt oddly fitting for a brown-skinned form with dark black stiff hair.

“Blow horn?” Arson asked.

“Hawthorn.”

“Ha Porn, got it. Weirdo,” he said. “Who knows what your search history looked like back before.

“Hawthorn,” Callisto repeated. “He’s deaf.”

“Bee’s death?” Arson asked and shook his head.

Callisto shook her head too, and turned to me. “All right. Thorn, because I’m not shouting Hawthorn in a pinch. Your job is to stay in the back and throw whatever you can find at them. You can aim, right? Enough to toss a ball or something?”

“Correct,” I said. Throwing stuff was easy.

Callisto pulled herself over the cart’s edge. Her arms lifted her breasts as she reached for a weapon on the cart’s other side. I managed to close my eyes and ride out another wave of awkwardly ill-timed and certainly filthy thoughts.

That failed. I thought of anything distraction I could. We were all fairly dirty. Not one of them looked like they’d been to a barber any time recently and the ladies probably had other ideas on their mind beyond shaving.

Arson pointed to a pile. “Maybe give him the foam guns. Those worked last time, right? We had that one guy using them, and he was getting orbs. Tell me we can give him the tennis balls. I’ve been dying to use them. You know that Kit’s idea of filling them with gasoline won’t pan out. Those bastards probably turned all the gas into plum wine or something.”

Kit had to be another person from before my time. I hoped they were still alive.

“They’re useless,” Callisto and Leon said at the same time. Callisto continued, “Unless we can light them on fire or something.”

“Actually…” I said slowly.

“What?” Callisto said.

I hadn’t wanted to give away any secrets but my mouth simply opened on its own. Only confusion stopped me from shouting my skills. The third spell was still beyond me. My first, the explosive, could be reused fairly quickly, provided I was okay feeling dizzy every single shot. Using explosives indoors also sounded like a bad idea.

“Never mind,” I said.

“Figures. Hey, Leon, your esteemed Mayor’s son is a dud.” Callisto shook her head and tucked away four separate blades she’d picked out of the cart. She fit one along her leg, another behind her back. The other two went by her belt. I suspected she was left handed since every single blade could be grabbed from that direction.

Arson held out a plastic casing with small pellet balls inside. “No, they’re onto something. Take the knock off. It’s got thirty shots, twenty feet, and it won’t kill them if you miss.”

I opened my mouth to ask a question and he shook his head.

“Don’t ask me why toy guns work but real guns don’t. At least not for us. Those stupid goblins can use guns. Everything about this world is fucked up.”

“Those demons took out explosives too. Mayor Kent sent us into a house of a guy that had dozens of guns and other weapons.” Leon pulled off his helmet and checked the inside. He pressed padding into place and continued talking. “None of the stuff worked. Even his grenades. We tested them a dozen times and finally cracked them open. Someone had replaced the gunpowder with candy. Literal candy. The bullets had caramel in them.”

“That’s weird,” I said.

“Tits beard?” Arson asked.

“Take the non-lethal stuff. That’ll keep you in the game and getting credit, and won’t kill us,” Leon said. He walked to the front door. The sliding doors opened, like any supermarket location would.

I couldn’t even begin to question why these doors worked when nothing else did. They probably weren’t being operated by technology, but instead functioned like the vending machines. I reminded myself not to shake them, in case they grew spikes to attack offenders with.

“Stay in the middle. I’ma be right behind you,” Allegra said. She pushed me forward while her hands took a moment to wander. I thought inappropriate things and walked a bit stiffer.

The inside of the supermarket was absolutely nothing like it used to be. It was larger on the inside and that made no sense at all. Which, naturally, meant that the supermarket’s bare shelves and eerie music fit perfectly. I found myself staring at the ceiling wondering what sort of intercom could perfectly drop notes and make pop music sound creepy.

Allegra pinched my rear and pointed to Callisto. The sword wielder waved her sword around as though snakes were going to leap at us. I could have helped by explaining snakes didn’t leap, but this place felt wrong. There were a few items at the end of each shelf, pinned on strips of plastic.

“Welcome to supermarket hell. Where the music is always terrible and the monsters are just, weird. We’re here to run you through some place easy so you get stronger, but make no mistake, death is permanent. Stay in the back and throw stuff. Don’t let anything attack you.” Callisto shook her head after the long speech. “I mean, even Allegra is probably tougher than you. She can kill four goblins on her own.”

I was not impressed. I’d accidentally blown up three mini-orcs and they were probably the same creature. There was a possibility they were talking about some super soldier breed of creatures but I wouldn’t know unless they told me more. As it was, I’d been woken up, dragged out of bed while hungover, and taken along for a dungeon raid. Sunday mass was kinder than this.

Leon paced across the four aisles and studied each one. He stopped near the hanging strips. One had a dollar sign and piece of meat depicted. Two had children’s toys. Three had a pizza with ice cubes around it. Four was a baby picture.

“Which aisle, Allegra?” Leon asked while shaking his head.

Behind me she was looking at an unrolled scroll. I searched for a cash register but found nothing. This was extremely weird.

“Two?” Allegra said.

“One had the produce packer that almost killed us last time.” Callisto pointed with her sword down the row.

“Never again,” Leon said with a shudder. “I’d rather do the frozen food aisle.”

“No. I’ma say two,” Allegra insisted.

The four rows were clearly different, but I still was still adapting to the difference in size inside and slowly turned my attention to the choice of rows. These aisles went on for ages. I couldn’t see an end. In fact, the entrance wasn’t there either. My companions ignored that part and kept their eyes forward.

“I hate the toy section.” Leon ground his teeth, causing the helmet to shake. The other two shook their heads, and Allegra pinched my rear, again, to get me moving forward.

I lifted a tennis ball in what was hopefully a threatening manner.

We walked forward. There was a corner to what should have been a straight path. They ignored the absurdity and tiptoed around it while glancing around repeatedly. I stepped after and wondered if my knives would do a darned bit of good. No one had noticed them, or my book, which also struck me as weird. Maybe the alien features were distracting, in the same way I’d barely noticed anything besides the women’s curves.

“They’re here,” Allegra whispered behind me.

I shivered. She had to say that with a hand on my rear. The world really had gone to hell. No one, before the accident or this reality shifting nonsense, would have been so blatant with a new person. Something about life and death situations might be impacting her sanity.

She pushed me to the side. “Keep positions! Cali, go!”

Callisto stepped forward. “Leon, daze the right!”

I was pretty sure I’d gone insane. The reason being was simple, in front of me were four overwhelmingly large foam noodles with sharp teeth. They had to be at least twenty feet long with doll arms on their tails.

Post Note: This is not a euphemism. There were really four long noodles oozing slime. They were brightly colored and apparently ‘possessed.’ No one took time to explain this to me until much, much later, after we’d nearly died a handful of times.

“The world has seriously become fucked up in my absence,” I said.

“Mmm-hmmm,” Allegra said. She pulled out a rolled up parchment, and held it in front of her face.

While she did whatever, Leon lifted his sledgehammer. Its top had a tinkling light that grew bright. The four serpents hissed in unison. Callisto took the least complicated approach and dove in slashing. The monsters focused on the illumination from Leon’s weapon.

I threw a tennis ball. It bounced between two of them and got lost in the long aisles.

“Good!” Leon shouted.

His rustling armor still annoyed me. I saw past him to where Callisto cut into the monsters. Her swords moved strangely, as if they were going fast and slow at the same time. They had a trail that blurred after them.

As for Allegra, her roll of thin paper filled with pencil markings. A sketch formed that looked exactly like our enemies. She licked her ring finger and poked one of the foam monster tube snakes. The corresponding monster yowled. Its companions hacked up smaller snakes that swarmed us.

I threw another tennis ball which collided with a few of the mini snakes. An explosive rune would have taken care of all those smaller creatures. Part of me wanted to show off, but I also remembered the stewardess whispering in my ear to keep my secrets close.

As I hesitated, the other three managed to bring down all four tube snakes. They turned into bright yellow energy. The orbs zoomed into my book, Leon’s armguard, Callisto’s forehead, and Allegra’s satchel. Their flashing lights reminded me why we were here.

Traveling together would get me power. I needed more of those orbs to survive and they were sent by my dad—apparently—to help do exactly that. No matter how much I wanted to bed both women, as a result of this stupid form, I didn’t trust they were telling the whole truth. My fingers stayed curled a single step away from the explosive spell. I didn’t know who I’d end up using it on.