I took a glance around the room. Nothing seemed particularly out of place. There was another doorway on the opposite end, but I was suspicious of the emptiness.

Taking a single step forward, I eased my foot onto the ground, expectant that at any second I would hear the click of a pressure plate or the snap of a tripwire.

Nothing happened.

I sighed in relief, before striding forward, far more at ease.

SNAP!

I felt a thin string break against my ankle, then I dived forward and rolled, unsure of what would be coming but positive I didn’t want to be where I was standing.

A crash alerted me to the fact that a particularly large stone had dropped from the ceiling precisely where I had been standing before.

A small shiver made its way down my spine. I proceeded to carefully inspect the ground in front of me, paying attention to any small strings. I noticed a couple that were relatively obvious and stepped over them.

I continued making headway through the room, progressing - slow as it was - before eventually finding myself in front of yet another doorway. As soon as I stepped past the threshold, I heard screams and crying. Taking in the room before me, I saw many prison cells containing a wide array of people, some of which I didn’t recognize as being from Earth.

They stood in the back of their cells, looking at me with suspicious gazes from the shadows. I strode through the darkened halls lamenting over the fact that I couldn’t do anything to save them for now.

Eventually, the sound of footsteps began to echo through the prison. I searched for a place to hide but found none. All I could do was ready my weapon and douse my torch.

In the darkness ahead, I could make out a faint light approaching me. A few seconds later, it was revealed to be a relatively large goblin, garbed in leather armor and holding a lantern of his own. A metallic jingle alerted me to the keychain at his hip, a large ring holding what could have been hundreds of keys.

As he came closer, he suddenly stopped and raised his lantern higher, noticing something was amiss. I stood stock-still and prayed to Chronos that he couldn’t smell me. A few seconds later, he brought down his lantern and continued forward. I nearly sighed in relief but caught myself.

He passed directly in front of me. I waited until he was a little bit past me, then struck.

A slash to his unprotected nape incapacitated him, and a quick snap of what remained of the neck guaranteed his demise. I quickly dropped to the body and began rifling through his belongings, searching for anything that could be useful. A few coins of questionable usefulness and a rusty dagger were all he had on him, so I left them and grabbed the keys.

The prisoners, noticing what had just occurred, rushed to the front of their cells and moaned to get my attention. I fought with myself to not free all of them as soon as possible, but logic won out. There was no way I could afford to feed all of these prisoners, and I was unsure of how the dungeon worked. Were they dungeon creatures, and freeing them would lead to getting stabbed in the back? Were they some sort of bonus objective, and I would receive more rewards for saving them? Or were they just people that had been captured by the goblins?

Either way, I had to make a decision. And my guess was that I couldn’t stay here for too long before goblins would fill these halls to the brim trying to find and kill me.

I checked through my pack and took note of how many rations I had. ‘Enough for three people for three days, or one person for nine. If we have half, I could double the amount of time they last.’

I re-lit the torch and began to survey the people in front of me, analyzing their bodies for any indication that I should select them to be free as opposed to all of the other people surrounding me.

I finally settled on two, a young lady and lad that showed a bit of resolve when I glanced at them and had retained some of their muscle mass since they had been forced into here. I had to try several keys on each of their doors before I found the correct one, wasting a couple of minutes.

The boy had short, dark hair and pasty white skin. He was looking slightly gaunt, but that, along with the skin, was likely due to staying in this prison. His clothes were worn ragged, but I could still notice some muscles concealed beneath the rags. Judging from his build, he was likely in his later teens or early twenties.

The girl had long, straight brown hair. It was very messy at the moment, given that there were no combs in the cells, but it retained some of its sheen. Her skin was a toffee brown and her clothes were likewise threadbare, but miraculously covered the important bits. She similarly had a strong muscle definition and appeared to be slightly older, perhaps early to mid-twenties.

“What should I call you?” I asked the two after freeing them.

“Hale,” the boy responded. “What are you going to do to us?”

The girl remained silent, staring at me with questioning eyes.

“I am going to get out of this dungeon, but I can only take a couple of you in here with me,” I replied.

Several shouts of, “Pick me instead!” and “Why them?” came from the cells surrounding us.

The boy, Hale, looked at the dead goblin before looking back at me.

“You will protect us?” he asked tentatively.

“Yes,” I responded simply.

He nodded, then bent over the dead goblin, stripped him of his armor, and relieved him of his weapon. I turned to the girl.

“And you are…?”

“Camille.”

“Alright, I need both of you to stay silent. And here,” I fished out my dagger and gave it to Camille.

“Use this to protect yourself.”

We continued down this pathway while arms reach out from the bars around us, grasping at our clothes and pleading with me to let them go. It pained me to leave them all here, but there was no way I could bring any more of them.

As we walked, Hale piqued up with a question.

“So...who are you?”

I gave him a sidelong glance and replied,

“Seamus”.

He stayed silent for a couple of seconds, then asked,

“What are you doing down here?”

“None of your concern for the moment. We can discuss this later.”

That shut him up for a while.

We continued on in silence for a few minutes, the pleading eventually dying down. I was honestly amazed that there were so many people that the goblins had captured. ‘That reminds me…’

“So where did the goblins capture you all?” I asked.

“I got taken from my apartment in Miami,” Hale replied.

“I was taken from my house near the same place,” Camille echoed.

I was taken aback. ‘They both came from there? How did the goblins get that many people from just Florida?’

I was cut off from my thoughts when I spotted a distant source of light up ahead. Once we got closer, it was revealed to be a doorway.

“Is that the way out?” Camille inquired, hesitantly.

“No, far from it. We have to go deeper before we can leave,” I reply.

She simply nodded her head and continued walking. Eventually, we made it to the doorway. I took the lead in stepping through into a completely dark room, and as soon as I entered a screen popped up.

Toodles the Mad challenges you to a game.

Accept?

As soon as the other two had gone through the doorway, I heard a loud gasp behind me.

“What is this?” Hale demanded, searching for answers

“A System prompt. You saw it earlier, didn’t you?” I responded.

“No,” he replied, which I found puzzling. I pushed the thought away, upset at the growing list of questions I had.

“I saw it,” Camille whispered, as if hesitant to speak up.

“Okay, we can address this later, right now we have to accept this prompt,” I declared, “Both of you, think ‘accept’”.

‘Accept’

In front of us in the vast darkness, I heard a sharp nasal voice scream in delight,

“Oh, I’m going to have fu~u~u~n with you!”