Several orcs and I were holed up behind a rock, some 100 feet from the water’s edge in a scouting mission before I put some plan into action tomorrow. I looked through my binoculars, seeing nothing of the snake-necked hydra turtle lurking the waters. The claims of its clairvoyance—striking the moment anyone drew near—kept me on edge. I didn’t see any ripples or bubbles to suggest a large creature, but I knew that meant very little. I ducked back down and stowed the binos before addressing the posse I had accumulated.

“Well I don’t see it, but the river is definitely wide enough for a shed-sized critter.” I tapped my chin. “Can it be baited out with meat?” I asked, doubting it would be so simple.

Elder Rutor answered me. “Frustratingly, no. We have left carcasses and placed livestock nearby, but it only ever strikes people. The head shoots out and snaps you in half at the waist before you can react.”

“That fast, huh? Might be hard, but… I’m thinking the best route here is a full dodongo.” I pulled a 2 pound brick of C4 from my bag.

The warrior scoffed. “Feed it death? One of our own bathed in a barrel of poison before they went, but it withstood the brew. What makes you think this substance will be different?”

“This isn’t poison, this is high explosives. You know how magic is when used here?” They nodded fearfully. “That’s what this thing does, but on-command.” I pulled the clacker and the detonator. “When I put this little metal bit in the explosive and flip this switch, it becomes armed and I just squeeze this clacker and boom. The hard part is finding some way to get this into the turdra.”

Some discussion ensued as I passed the brick of C4 to a blacksmith after presenting the idea of a metal shell for fragmentation. I moved on to planning how to bait out the turdra without getting anyone eaten, which was a long, circular, not-so-useful conversation. After going nowhere, I decided I would have to rely on the good ol’ Gods' Chosen unnatural speed I had accumulated.

“Alright, smith, hand the C4 back please,” I requested casually.

“The elder has it!” he responded.

“Well, where’s the elder?”

Nobody spoke for a moment, then we all scrambled to our feet and looked over the rock in horror. Thanks to my accidental instructions, Rutor had armed the C4 and was sprinting toward the water! He held the charge high over his head and shouted battle cries.

“Honorable death! These lands shall be ours forever!” he bellowed.

I was about to jump over and go pull him back, but I was restrained as it seemed there was an instant consensus that he had chosen his fate. I could only watch as he crossed some invisible line and a gigantic turtle head shot out of the water and snapped him in three, leaving his two severed calves to fall over from their own weight. He was gone in an instant, perhaps even faster than I could reasonably react. We were all stunned by the suddenness.

“What are you waiting for, warrior? Activate the weapon!” shouted one of the scouts.

I cradled the clacker. “No, not until the explosives are deep in the beast’s stomach.”

……

Two minutes later, many more had gathered by the rock. All of us watched with an icy sense of dread. I dearly hoped my plan would work, since someone had died in executing it. I felt a small sense of gladness that elder did not equate to chieftain with this tribe. With a deep breath, I undid the safety on the detonator.

“Alright, Rutor, let’s make your sacrifice a worthy one. Godspeed you magnificent bastard.”

Clack

…

Clack clack cl–

BOOM!

A huge geyser of crimson water soared high into the air as bloody chunks spewed nearly far enough to splash us. The ensuing frenzy was… something. The whole tribe apparently had some nasty pent-up frustration with the thing, and boy did they take it all out while butchering up the remains. It was all a blur after that. Instant festival. They stoked fires, poured spices, turned hunks of meat, and jovially retold tales of Rutor’s exploits. All the while, there I was! The somewhat-undeserving subject of their admiration.

It was a busy mess. I was stuffed full of good food and introduced to the chieftain, who hadn’t even given me the time of day beforehand. He was nice, struck me as a mix of a grizzled military commander and a middle-manager doing his best with the shit corporate handed down. They gave me some medicine for the stings—something they apparently kept on hand—and then some tips for surviving the return trip. The day ended with me at the center of a large cuddle-pile of orc women (which are not amazonian waifus, you degenerates… well, most of them).

‘I have a special one awaiting my return,’ continued to be the key excuse to dodge favors, though I had to wonder which believably-attractive girl I would picture when using that lie on psychics. Maybe Pokle, I’m always happy to see her face.

I was off the next day with a full belly, a good rest at my back, and high spirits. Leave it to the most brutal land imaginable to produce such a cooperative people. Then again, the Colt Python .357 never left my thigh-holster the entire duration of my stay. You never can be too sure. I had refrained from telling them how to use most of my equipment for a reason, after all.

My mule—who had been pampered like a princess—and I forded a shallow section of river and moved on. The orcs didn’t know about the tomb, thanks to the Shimmerlands' ever-changing layout. The tomb never moves, so that meant the orcs were relocated. (Seemed like a bit of a shit location, but they kept the valley and that seemed to be all that was required.) Judging by Drominnus’ intel, I'd only be a day and a half out.

I knew we were getting close when I could see the little dots of light on the horizon, but they were indistinct and wavy in such dense mirages. They looked no different from the first sighting to sundown. Then were the UFOs. Fast buggers that sounded like those Endor speeder bikes. They were based out of the tomb and supposedly flew around grabbing new monsters to restock the dungeon. It was cold, impersonal, lazy, and automated, exactly what I would expect from the gods. We made camp in yet another small depression, a rare sight in the once-more endless, dusty flats.

That night I woke up to a tingling, like something wasn’t right; my body tried to cringe but could not understand why and therefore didn't. I peeked an eye and saw something truly terrifying. An indistinct cloud of faint red light had surrounded me, and then I recognized the feeling. It was the presence of something truly otherworldly, something exceptionally dangerous. My mule neighed, catching the light’s attention and it slid off me to investigate.

I figured the thing out: A psychic vampire. A creature so outside of normality that I had almost nothing that would affect it. It latched onto my mule and immediately tried to feed, but it didn’t quite work. It extracted some light, some sort of energy from my mule, but then it got bit. There was a noise so indescribable, so incompatible with reality that even recalling it induces shivering. And it screeched that terrible noise that scratches at the deepest recesses of my brain while it was slowly, deliberately devoured.

My mule finished dragging it down to be munched, then burped and laid back down. I felt relief once my senses stopped blue-screening. “Thank you, good boy,” I uttered tiredly. I laid back and tried to rest, then my head popped up again. “Is this whole trip just an all-you-can-eat buffet to you?”

……

Burnt-out trees, gotta love 'em. At least nothing was hiding in the leaves, which is a shitty consolation prize considering they were full of razorcrows… I thought they were extinct. Hell, I contributed to that effort when the league put out the order for a 100% cull. Little shits earned it since literally every single one has avian rabies from birth and they love to spread it around. All we had to do was not make a loud noise and they’d just sit there. Otherwise… well, I’ve got a cure disease potion back home with my name on it. I had birdshot loaded and the flamethrower out just in case.

My mule trudged along quietly, dodging them snappy-ass branches like a pro. It was all going great when the kicker showed up. I saw a pack of dogs stalking us between the trees. I busted out the binos and got a good long look at them. They were desiccated, mummified even. Sockets with no eyes, shrunken lips and shriveled tongues, tails hanging limp, and not one bit of fur. Dusthounds.

I shoved the shotgun into the scabbard and got the VAL out again. I bet all my chips on the integral suppressor, hoping it wouldn’t agitate the razorcrows. Despite many chances, I held my fire. I hoped to escape the thicket of trees before opening up, but that chance seemed slim. Still, it didn’t hurt to put more distance between us and the earlier crows, and it was clearing up ahead.

The dogs broke out into a run and I took aim through the reflex sight. The gun made a soft shtup shtup as it spat 9x39mm hollow points. There were dry thunks as the rounds impacted the hounds and put them down hard after about 3 hits. As each toppled to the floor, they disintegrated into the namesake dust. I carefully tapped out shots as the dozen hounds closed in, picking them off at a steady pace.

The last few closed in fast and started to duck and juke. I went full auto and began bursting at them. With five remaining, the gun clicked and I reloaded. By the time I had another one chambered, they were right on top of us. I sprayed the bastards down before they could apply their mummifying bite. There was thumping of hits, then a loud snap as a stray bullet hit a rock, sending splinters of stone everywhere. The hounds were but wisps of fine earth in the wind, but I had a new problem.

Cawing began as the first razorcrow took flight. Soon, the cawing cascaded and they all frenzied, flying angrily about. I hit the spurs and we hoofed it.

It was a familiar experience. I was backward in the saddle and spraying napalm at a pursuing swarm, but I quite liked it that time. It smelled like chicken as I absolutely laid into the fucks, and they didn’t even break off! They funneled right into their doom, sometimes plowing straight through and getting at me! I batted them away with one hand as I melted the rest with the other. It was a sweet deal; I was even doing my real job!

Eventually, the 700-some crows were closer to 20. We were out on the flats again and I picked them off one by one with birdshot from the A5. Once the dust settled, I checked myself for punctures. I thought I was clean, but then I felt under my sleeves… a tiny few dribbles of blood came back on my fingers and I knew it; I would be needing some cure disease. Goddamn it.

……

A rounded line of glass extended a mile to the left and right, a cue so obvious you had to be an absolute dumbass to miss it. The compass no longer pointed toward my destination, as I had passed the homing stone. Instead, my eyes traced up, right to the tall stone towers with glowing lights at the top. And at the base of those towers was the mound in which rested the Tomb of Instability. We stopped at a rock that had been melted in half, thanks to one side being in the glass zone.

I dismounted and popped my back, then rubbed my poor, sore butt. With a sigh, I tested the provided information. Tentatively, I stuck a literal toe over the line. A second later the tower lights flashed. I backed up and hid behind the rock as beams of light shot right where my toe was and turned the glass molten.

The final gamut, the last hurdle before entering the tomb. All one had to do was make the 0.8-mile run across smooth glass while dodging frickin laser beams; maybe with some discordant, stressful piano tunes playing in the background if you have good taste. The moment one touched the front door, they shut off for an hour. One last sprint, and I was about to do it…

…

Sike. Fuck that shit. It was time for one of the experiments Dro proposed. Apparently, nobody had ever been able to get into the towers, as there were no access points and attempting to scale them canceled the door-induced stand down. It was time to test a loophole. A .50Big-Mothafuckin-Gun loophole, to be precise.

I pulled the custom, lightweight, compact, break-action .50cal sniper rifle from the bag, then fetched some ammo and the rangefinder. I set up the bipod and laid prone beside the rock, ready to roll into cover at a moment’s notice. I checked the scope and it was good, though I could barely see my targets through all the haze. Then I set up the rangefinder and lased the target. 1465 yards. A helluva shot, but that’s why I asked for a .50.

I got readings from the wind meter, the inclinometer, and the weather meter, then plugged all that along with the range and specs of the .50 rounds into a ballistics calculator. It spat out some data and I started translating that into clicks on the scope. My mule laid down and put his head on the ground as I spent 20 minutes just sitting there and calculating. Finally prepared, I loaded a precision FMJ round and hoped for the best.

Inhale, exhale. Steady the hand, slow the heart. Inhale, exhale. Clear the mind, apply pressure. Inhale, exhale, hold.

KADOOM

A cloud of dust kicked up from the muzzle brake as I was drop kicked in the shoulder. More than a second passed as I waited, then, the faintest flash appeared as the bullet struck the bricks a few feet below the target. I took a breath and loaded another. It was a little left, so I corrected with the aimpoint rather than mess with the zeroing. Inhale, exhale...

KADOOM

A second more and there was a real flash of light. Beams of energy spilled from the cracks as the crystal glowed brighter and brighter before the top of the tower imploded in on itself then violently exploded, sending debris far in every direction. I sighed in pure satisfaction and lined up the next tower.

……

Following a nice brisk walk across a field of glass, I kicked aside some rubble and pulled the doors open. There would be no more laser towers for me, and possibly anyone else to visit the tomb after me, and it only took 11 rounds of .50! I peered down the steps to sublevel 1, smelling the musty scent of ancient dead stuff. I looked at my mule, who was nonchalantly scratching at the lumpy glass ground. Much as I wanted to get it over with, there was one thing I needed to do first.

……

Once more before the door—now with an empty bladder—I took the plunge into the depths, starting my run. I wanted to play Pest-Extermination-Tycoon with my life, but instead, I got Oregon Trail and now some shitty roguelike. I sighed. At least I have shotty.

……

Floor 1 was a breeze, but it’s always like that. They sucker you in with the thought of an easy, smooth run then BAM, difficulty spike! Thanks to the map changing every visit, I couldn’t exactly follow any detailed notes from previous expeditions. Instead, I cleared it room-by-room. It was such a mix of nondescript and decorated. Tall walls of stone brick leading to domed ceilings, all without a single intriguing detail beyond the frequent glow-lights on the wall. The actual interest was in the statues and decoratives strewn about haphazardly; like some game dev tipped over a box of prebuilt assets into his dungeon and set a few straight before going 'eh, good enough'.

The doors were the most interesting part, strangely enough. I’d stick a fiber-optic camera through the keyhole and see nothing, then, when I turned the latch, the door would actuate and swing itself open to reveal monsters! I lost the first fiber-optic cam to the mechanisms while trying to see what was happening, but no, there weren't any viable gaps to see through during the opening. Plus, it was only about 4-5 seconds between me retracting the camera and the door opening to reveal mobs, I was thoroughly stumped!

Of course, it was only hobgoblins and some other slightly-above-average garbage at first, but I knew it would get worse over time. The first staircase revealed itself within about 20 minutes and I headed on down.

Floor 2 was an entry-level puzzle-centric one, classic riddles that could stump you for hours until you realized the answer and felt dumb, or some good old lever and physics puzzles. I wondered where my H.E.V. suit was as I messed with a giant set of scales to create stairs to various alcoves in a tall room while whippy ceiling monsters occasionally annoyed me. It was there that I ran across my first pedestal item.

It was a tarnished bracelet made of smooth metal and quite thin all around. It had no standout features, but the pedestal treatment virtually guaranteed some sort of enchantment or purpose. I reached into my bag and produced a pair of thimbles, one copper, the other tin. I placed the tin one on my pinky and tapped the item seven times, then waited to repeat the process twice more. At the 21st tap, a small arc of static electricity jumped to the thimble.

Cursed, I thought to myself as I scraped it off the pedestal with my knife. It clattered to the ground and I moved on. I love the tinner-test! It catches 70% of all cursed items, and 96% of the really nasty ones. Thimbles away, I moved on.

……

Floor 3, a chase floor. I knew it the moment my mule and I made it down the stairs. There was a line of glowing runes in the language unique to the tomb (and related prophecies). It was the ‘starting’ line that’d boot up… whatever would pursue you. I didn’t even need to break out Dro’s field translation guide. Not that it really helped that often; I rarely got more than a few words without frying my brain.

I grimaced slightly. “Welp, I guess it’s Submerged Castle all over again. Oh yes,” I started to whisper to the wall. “Hey, dungeon, gimmie the water wraith, he’s like 4-inches tall!”

Of course, there was nobody to laugh along with me, and my mule gave me a slightly more disappointed look than normal. He didn’t like loitering on stairs. I uttered the legendary phrase of ‘well, fuck it’ then crossed the line. I got about 3 minutes to explore the maze of halls and rooms. I committed some layout to memory, noting the abundance of levers with a number displayed above them. They were all labeled 20, until I pulled one and they all became 19. I figured the gimmick out right as the big baddie showed up.

I heard it first. Harsh, grinding metal intermingled with blades carefully caressing one another for that sharp shing noise, all with a touch of chains dragging across the floor. I stole a peek as it passed down an adjacent hallway. I saw a mess of tattered fabric draped across a writhing mass of at least 30 metal arms, at the end of each rested a 5-fingered hand, except the fingers were blades. It had glowing orange eyes facing in every direction, casting spotlights upon whatever they saw and rarely being obscured by the tattered drapings. It floated through the air, dragging chains behind it.

I ducked back into cover with a chill running down my spine. That mech was freaky as shit. Regaining my focus, I stuck to the plan; explore quickly and if spotted, lose it in areas I already knew. DO NOT FLEE INTO UNEXPLORED AREAS! It worked at first. The thing didn’t seem to be alerted by sound, so my mule following along was no big deal. But then, as I whittled the levers down to single digits, it became more aggressive, and also started to guard the un-pulled levers.

Right as I got to the 13th lever I heard it coming behind me. It was a dead-end! I ducked into a corner and my mule positioned himself on the far side of the room from the door. Thinking quickly, I pulled out the rolled hammock and draped the fabric over myself. And not a moment too soon! Orange light seeped through the fabric as the warden passed me by to go look at my mule. He acted casual and bit off a chunk off a dilapidated table to chew on. The warden watched him fully, seemingly not programmed for livestock. With all eyes on my mule, we were in a nasty stalemate.

After some long, tense moments, I knew it wouldn’t just end neatly. So I acted. I folded down the hammock and stuffed it into the bag with one hand, while I raised the A5 with the other. There were 5 eyes on the nearest side, none of which were on me. I lined them up and blasted 3 before the warden turned around and lunged at me. I had to suppress the urge to reflexively hyperdash as I rolled out of the way just in time to avoid being skewered 150 times. I heard and felt my coat rip from the blades stuck in it as we booked it out of the room.

That was the birth of a new strategy. The hunter became the hunted. Not only did the eyes cease functioning when shot, but its lunge attack lodged those bladed fingers in the stone walls! It would get stuck for upwards of 10 seconds! It suddenly wasn’t as scary as I systematically knocked out its lightbulbs one by one until it only had front-facing eyes.

Rather than get in front of that monstrosity, I decided that I would blow it the fuck up with one of the claymore mines I was packing. One big-bada-boom later and it went blind the rest of the way, simultaneously renewing my tinnitus with the fury of a thousand angry marines. I still couldn’t kill it, however, and by golly it still tried to find me with touch alone. When lever #20 opened the way down, we got the hell outta there. Okay, that was worse than the water wraith.

……

Skipping over floor 4 (just a boring bunch of mobs) to floor 5 and I was beginning to get concerned. I only had so much ammunition, since the plan was to supplement my firepower with enchanted items that I found along the way, but there wasn’t much to go on so far. I stared at a very smooth golden ring. Not a gem to be found on it, and there was a strange luster to it. Tinner-test said wildly cursed and I looked at the ring with some degree of disgust.

“I bet if I threw you in a fire Gandalf would flip his lid. Fuck all the way off,” I said as I moved on.

There was a big locked door on the floor, but I had already found the stairs, so my interest was piqued. I’d mowed down some rolly-tentacle critters with the VAL and some birdshot in search of a key, and I had a feeling it was in the chest at the end of the current room. I hovered my hand over the chest, not quite touching it. I pulled back and talked to my mule.

“Man, dungeoneering is hungry work. I could really go for a STEAK!” I shouted, whirling around to stare directly into the keyhole. “Nice and JUICY with BROWNING on the outside and PINK in the middle, with GARLIC BUTTER and ROSEMARY!”

Nothing happened and I straightened up. “Well, maybe that sounds a little too fancy. I’m thinking WINGS!” I bellowed, once more into the keyhole. “With RANCH and BLEU CHEESE DIPS!”

…

A tiny dribble of salivation leaked out of the keyhole and I pulled back chuckling with an accusatory finger. “Hahaaaa, hard-shell mimic.” I knelt in front of it. “You want a snack? I got something you might like! Let’s see if the gods remembered to change the default password.”

I knocked twice on the topmost board of the chest on the left. The mimic opened up and stuck his tongue out, panting like a dog. “Aww, good boy!” I cooed as I pulled the pin and tossed a frag grenade into its mouth.

I dove for cover and felt the blast wash over me as splinters and viscera painted the room. I laughed maniacally at the sight. Mimics were kinda cute but 'bout dumb as shit and I hated their guts ever since learning about hermit mimics. (Mimics are supposed to be CHESTS! Not able to grow to inhabit HOUSES and reproduce by HOLLOWING PEOPLE OUT AND REPLACING THEIR INNARDS! I'm glad the league wiped them out.)

Internal rant aside, I dug out a dented key from the wreckage and skipped on over to the locked door. Oh BOY was it worthwhile! There were 4 items! First was a golden-hilted short sword with rubies in the cross-guard. It was good on the tinner-test, and the copper thimble produced a spark to suggest high quantities of magic! That was going in the kit fo-sho. Then was a pair of leather boots (one size too big) and a glowing blue glass orb, both of which were a no on curses.

I tried on the boots with an extra pair of socks on to see their effect. It was pretty clear they were a pretty simple +speed buff, but to a good degree; instant keepers. The sphere was labeled with the symbols and I took the time to translate. ‘The right side of time’ was the best I could figure, which suggested some Prince of Persia shenanigans and that was good enough to justify bringing it along. The 4th (an iron mask) was another cursed item; it stayed there in timeout.

I gave the sword a few swings on the way out and it slung thin sheets of red energy outward as if extending the reach. The enchantment was new to me, but I felt eager to see how it would make my life easier.

……

Floor 7 was another, harder puzzle floor… fuck puzzles, they make my brain hurt and I never have someone else to solve them for me when it’s needed. Plus there aren’t even any poor sods to test the sword on! I’d just finished with the odd picross maze puzzle and moved onto a lever-based riddle. Well, not just finished, that was an hour ago. I’d been at the levers for way too long. I rechecked the translated results on my notepad again with a different angle from the translation guide.

“And on the fourth day, the sun rose but the stars remained. The birds fled the trees and the rocks shook as the skies crumbled away to reveal the facade of Margonin, and all he created saw his true face. Nevermore could they feel peace, for from then on, they all knew the terrible truth... yeah, that all checks out...”

I walked back to the final stage, depicting the fateful fourth day of this odd legend. I started going through the levers again, moving the props around with each one I pulled. The trees went away and came back, then I flipped between day and night a few times. Then I made the birds land before returning them to the sky and pulled the final lever to make the sky split in two and reveal the elder god that created the fictional world. It matched the description to a tee, but nothing happened when I hit the solve lever.

When I pulled the finish lever beside the stage and heard the machinery behind the wall start and promptly stop. I rechecked it again, seeing EVERYTHING to be in the right place. Frustrated, I slammed my hand on the stage.

“FUCK! What am I missing?”

After some meditative breathing, I decided to pack it in for that room and try a different route before coming back later with a fresh pair of eyes. I went over to the first stage and patted my mule, who was angrily biting a lever and flipping it up and down as fast as he could.

“Come on, let’s try somewhere else.”

As we left the room, there was a clunk behind us. Then, a phone started to ring. I stopped and looked at my mule, wondering if he heard it too. He did, as he jerked his head telling me to go answer it. Tentatively, I went back and searched it out. My ears led me to a brick that had extended out of the wall, inside of which was a classic plastic-shelled landline. I cautiously picked up the call.

“Hello? … Um, hey, Grunnus. Quick question: What the fuck? … Oh I… I did it right? … Umm, yeah I can do that real quick, just a sec.”

I set the phone down and jogged over to the 4th stage where I switched off the solve lever, then jiggled prop levers 7, 24, 26, and 11 before pulling the solve lever again. Then, when the machinery started to click, I kicked the 5th brick left from the stage one layer up from the floor. The clicking then went on to become full-scale gears and mechanical noises as the wall opened to reveal the next room. I ran back to the phone.

“Hey, that worked man! … Uhh, you’re welcome. But, uh, aren’t you no-jurisdiction here? … Well I guess just talk is different enough. Anyway, why is this stuff, like, glitchy? God-built dungeons are specifically renowned for reliability! … Yeah, I know what a commit is, why? … Whoa, that’s a lot of ‘em. And that’s all just cuz of the Shimmerlands? … Then why did you build it here? … Yeah, I figured you’d say that.”

I put the phone back on the receiver and the brick slid into the wall. My last question was dodged expertly and I felt odd as I saw the 1:1 replica of Earth tech disappear. The gods had specifically banned electronics, but I guess it was quite easy to predict the conundrum. Rules for thee, not for me, I thought as we stepped into the next room.

And right as we walked in, the door shut behind us and the ceiling began to slowly slide downward.

“Ah, shit.”

I sprung into action, searching for a solution to the trap. The obvious one was the keypad of painted wall tiles across from me. I had seen three numbers scattered about the level, so I hastily smashed them in. 370… fuck, there’s a fourth digit. I scoured my brain for where I might have seen the last number but found nothing. I glanced up and saw I had lost about 15% of my time, then looked back down with a grimace. I realized that I didn’t know the correct order either. For the hell of it, I punched in fiction’s favorite password and the wall opened up a slot to fling a book at me, which landed on the floor and caught fire as the slot closed. Great.

A minute later, the time was 50% gone and I’d made no progress. I hit ‘fuck it’ mode and switched strategies. It was clear that I wouldn’t finish the puzzle in time, so I’d need to break it. Luckily for me, crush traps and chompers are so common that I had a plan for them. I pulled out the adamantine hammock frame in its disassembled state, then put it together in an alternate manner and built three struts. I stood them on their feet by the keypad and got out the crowbar to start prying open the keypad.

That went nowhere fast. The ceiling came down to rest on the struts and stopped cold. A nasty grinding sounded from whatever pushed the ceiling down and it all fell silent. Right in the middle of my relieved sigh, the floor gave out and the spars started to gradually sink down into the tiles.

“Fuck fuck fuck fuck.”

I scrambled around, searching for whatever looked like the secret door that would open to maybe blow it up. The goddamn problem with that is that everything looks copy-pasted! My mule nudged my arm and I looked at him in a panic.

“I dunno, man! It’s too late to blast our way out!”

The ceiling came lower as I failed to find any metal or hidden passageway hints. I got the new sword out and started sending the slicey-energy into the creases in the wall, hoping to do SOMETHING, ANYTHING! The struts sank into the floor ever deeper as I tried to see if I could fit in with them, but I couldn’t. I was crouching, then kneeling, then crawling. I fished out the time grenade thing and prepared to shatter it, but it slipped out of my sweaty hands and rolled away.

My helmet became stuck and I escaped out of it as the stone slowly closed in on me and my poor mule, who was already getting squished. I finished crawling to the edge to jam my knife in the side to no avail. The pressure came down on my ribs as I heard a sickening crunching noise. As I felt a rib crack, my mules squealing suddenly turned to something far worse…

The crushing stopped, then it reversed as the ceiling lifted rapidly. I gave myself three seconds to feel like shit from the cracked rib, then, as I was about to look up, tentacles snatched me up and set me down standing on my feet. My mouth fell agape as I looked at a gigantic (15 foot diameter!), goopy, dark, writhing mass of tentacles, teeth, and eyes. Two appendages had righted me, and about a hundred more were pressing against the stone ceiling.

I held up a finger to the myriad eyes, begging one more second as I produced and chugged a placebo-grade healing potion. It probably wouldn’t fix my rib, but I know for a fact that refind opiates are an ingredient and that’s all I ever need to know. Once that was done, I took a deep breath. That inhalation alerted me to a terrible stink that was rapidly filling the room; I almost gagged on contact.

“You broke cover for me?” I asked through uncooperative lungs.

One mouth on the indistinct mass became more detailed to speak. “Og’mukguknt. Ablorklt nek tek.”

I conceded slightly with my posture. “Well, yeah, but you could have done it even later, so you chose to do it soon enough that I lived. All I’m trying to say is… thanks man. You have been the best since the day I dug you up.”

Rather than verbalise, a single tentacle extended to hover over my head, then rhythmically, rapidly smacked my scalp in a vague approximation of patting. I wiped my head afterward and discovered a string of slimy goo stuck to my hand. I brushed the reeking slime off on my coat as my former mule finished gluing the ceiling in place with a repulsive fleshy material.

I picked up my helmet and felt out how badly it was cracked before putting it on. “Well, this room was a disaster, but it’s over and done with, thanks to you. Care to… keep going?” I proposed hopefully. “Since you’re out of costume we could, like, clear a bunch of stuff really fast.”

He held up an empty mule skin with a massive tear in the back. “Brauglak t’vvveckt inmp’t brekek tugh.”

“Aww, man, can’t you mend that later? I could really use your help!” I pleaded.

“Blaukchhhhhh shtock nablugh.”

I nodded sullenly. “Alright, if it’s that urgent and will take that long then go ahead. I can’t join you up there or the dungeon will reset and my ammo won’t. I’ll see you when I finish this! Wish me luck…”

“Tekeli-li!” he farewelled with particular care while turning to leave.

Just as he did, a secret door began sliding open and voices spilled into the chamber. “Smashed meat, boys!” I heard a crocodin say. And that was all they managed as the door finished opening to reveal there was one thing my former mule would be willing to detour for. There were brief screams as the crocodilian beastmen were snatched up and munched. All thirty-five of them in six seconds. Shoggy-boy burped and a few slimed-up weapons flew out.

I pointed with a wheezing laugh. “Ha! You can’t deny this being a buffet trip anymore!”

Thirty-some eyes looked at me, then conspicuously averted. “Ek,” he answered meekly.