Stretching and yawning, I kick out the last few embers of my fire. Just under an hour had passed since sitting down to rest, and my status bars had just finished filling up. The meat was… strange. I haven't had the opportunity to eat food like that much before, and it probably could have been prepared better than the charred thing I ate. Nonetheless, it did its job and filled my bars.

Grabbing my staff from where I left it leaning against a spire, I begin to walk to the staircase down from the island- then pause. How am I supposed to get down from here anyways? I really want to avoid having to use those stairs again, there must be another way.

Wandering around the island, looking for a way down, I eventually find myself back at the tallest spire, where the wind whips like a tornado around the pillar of stone. This must be it, I mean- it's the most interesting thing on the island, and the developers wouldn't put it here for no reason, right?

Slowly, I begin walking around the spire, looking carefully for anything that might give away its purpose. Peering through the leaves, I notice something small, hidden even- that I hadn't before. Spaced randomly throughout the rock, small, perfectly round holes lead into its centre. Using my staff, I fight through the vortex of wind towards the closest of the holes.

It's only a couple inches wide, and seems to lead into a larger, hollow space inside the stone. Pressing my face to the rock for a closer look, I notice a dull, whitish grey light seems to illuminate the chamber beyond. I’m not sure if that's just light from the other holes, or something else.

Suddenly, I'm sent recoiling from the spire as a cold gust of air gushes out, stinging my eyes and blurring my vision. Blinking, I steady myself on the stone. There's something beyond there, I'm sure of it.

Circling around the spire, I search for a way in. Maybe there’s a cluster of holes, or a thin spot in the rock that's weak enough I could break through. Without any easy way down, this is the only place I could look.

Testing the depth of each hole with my staff, I find a small area at the base of the rock that I might be able to break through. So bracing for pain, I swing my foot back and slam it forward into the rock.

*crack*

For a second, it's hard to tell what broke. But as the pain begins to creep into my foot, I look down at the brittle, now shattered stone. That was a lot easier than I thought it'd be.

Bending down and using my hands to push away the cracked chunks, I eventually clear a space large enough to where I can just squeeze through.

The small space inside the spire is tiny, but relatively tall. Getting into a standing position, my shoulders just barely bush against the cold walls, and the ceiling is about an arms reach away. The wind whips and dances inside the space, whistling as it flies through the new opening I created. Looking up, most of the light in the space is from the circular holes, but at the in the centre of the ceiling a palm sized white gem glows with a grey light.

Reaching up towards the gem, the wind grows stronger and stronger, to the point where I have to fight to push my hand closer. Whatever this is seems to be the source of the wind. Straining my muscles, I push harder through the relentless rush of air. This has to be my ticket off the island.

With a last push of strength, I jump up and grab the gem. As soon as my hand touches it, the wind just stops. In fact, everything just stops, as my vision briefly goes dark.

---

A flash of light. Steady piercing beeping. My thoughts feel sluggish, my consciousness weak.

I look down to an IV in my arm. I look up to a white ceiling, no longer blocked by clouded grey, and to the face of the doctor.

“Hmm. Interesting.” She adjusts something on the wall behind me. My vision starts to fade. “Don't worry, everything's okay. You just need to head back to sleep...”

And I do.

---

I open my eyes to the first room of the dungeon. Disoriented, confused, I shake my head. It's like waking up from a dream. I could vaguely remember it, but the more I thought of it, the more I felt like I forgot. One thing's for sure, that horrible heart monitor was there again.

These episodes are getting more frequent, and stranger each time. I only hope they don't pose me any harm. I just want to play this game, dammit.

Speaking of the game, I look down at my hand, where I now clutch a cold, white, faintly glowing gem. Perfectly sized for one of the slots in the central pedestal.

Stepping up to the marble podium, I gently place the gem into one of the divots, where it snaps into place with a soft, satisfying click. The white crystal glows brighter, but otherwise does nothing to indicate anything happened. It probably needs all three gems for it to do something. Shrugging, I move onto the next door, the far right one this time.

Engraved onto the centre of the stone door is two chameleons. They mirror each other's stance as they climb the same branch. After a brief inspection, I push open the door and step into the space beyond.

Actually, I step outside? A lush green forest spreads out in front of me, and through the branches I can see glimpses of a bright blue sky. Vines and other vegetation hang off every branch, and wild flowers add splashes of colour to the green space. Wasn't I just inside? I turn around, the door is nowhere to be seen. Worried, I step forward to where the door was.

BANG

White pain flashes across my vision as my face slams into the wall. Confused, I step back. Waving my hands around, I feel a wall there, but visually it looks like the jungle just continues onwards. I fumble around and eventually manage to push the door open. As I do, I see the other room begin to appear before me. It looks like how opening a door normally would, but without the door...

Dungeon logic. I shrug, and walk forwards into the jungle. There's something eerie about the green expanse. But I can't quite put my finger on what it is.

Funnily enough, my question is immediately answered as I go to brush a cluster of vines out of my way. Instead of meeting the leafy vines, my hand passes straight through the vegetation.

Stunned, I stare at my hand for a second. Did that just-?

I wave my arm in front of me again, marvelling as my hand phases through the illusory vines. So is it just these vines that are weird or..?

I kick a couple shrubs and swipe an arm towards a tree. To my satisfaction, they pass right through the strange illusions. Alright, so I've figured out why everything's so weird. There's no movement, wind, sounds or anything else you'd expect from a jungle. It doesn’t feel like I’m actually standing in a real environment. Everything about it is muted and dulled, as if I’m seeing through a screen or hologram. I suppose that's to be expected from illusions though. But, now what?

I guess the only thing to do is to progress forwards. So, holding my staff at the ready, I walk forward through the forest of illusions.

The experience of just passing through seemingly solid objects is quite strange, but so far this room has been a lot easier than the first one. Although that may seem like a good thing, it only proves to escalate my nerves. No ingame dungeons get easier as you get deeper. The only possible explanation would be that these illusions are hiding something dangerous.

I pause mid step. If there really are dangers around, I ought to be more careful. I don't want a repeat of last chamber’s near disaster. More cautiously than before, I open my senses and use my staff to feel the ground in front of me. There's really only two possibilities for what could be in here, monsters or traps.

I freeze as an echoing crack rings out throughout the space, my staff colliding with something hard in front of me. Looking up at what I hit, it appears to be a tree, but it stands almost unnaturally straight and stretches up out of view. This doesn't appear to be an illusion, at least not entirely. Hopefully that noise didn't alert anything of my position.

But just my luck, it did. A shift of movement on the otherwise still tree sends my instincts into a panic as something slams down onto my shoulder.

All I see is a shimmer of movement as whatever the thing was suddenly retracts to where I saw movement on the tree. Something is there, and that something is definitely invisible.

Spinning away from the tree, I run through the jungle back towards the entrance. If I can get the thing to move, I might be able to figure out where it is. Sure enough, I hear a skittering, slapping sound as the creature jumps from tree to tree.

Looking around, it seems like there is a lot more of those weird trees then I had previously thought, and the creature sounds to be jumping between them as it chases me through the jungle. Being sure not to slam into one of those trees, I skid to a halt and try to pinpoint the creature's location.

There! Following my instincts I summon my spear’s blade and hurl it towards a spot on the nearest tree. A shriek pierces my ears as a spatter of black blood sprays onto the tree, disappearing under the illusion. For a second the creature is visible.

Like the engravings on the door, this creature appears to be some sort of large chameleon. It's scaly skin is a dark purplish black and streaks of blue glowing energy pulses underneath its skin. Its name tag flickers into view for only a moment.

Nox Chameleon - Lvl 2

The chameleon quickly disappears as my spear clatters to the ground. Running for my weapon, I groan as another shimmering form slams into the side of my arm. It feels wet and very sticky, nearly pulling me off my course as it returns to its place of origin. In the very opposite direction of where the other chameleon was. Of course there's two of them.

Grabbing my spear and turning on my heel, I dash through the forest once more. If I can draw one of them out I might be able to take them down.

Breaking out into the clearing where I came in, I spin and hurl my spear towards where I heard movement. I mean, it worked once…

And it worked again, as this time it hits the same chameleon straight in the side. It's invisibility drops as it falls to the ground, landing with a hard thump. Its form flickers as it attempts to disappear and escape up the tree, but I'm already diving towards it to pin it down.

Kneeling on the creature, I grab my spear from where it lies at its side as it struggles and screeches. I slash at it with my spear and it lashes its tongue, slamming the side of my head with the slimy appendage.

Rolling off the lizard creature, my vision spins as we both struggle to our feet. A tense moment passes as I shake my vision into clarity and the creature flickers and fails to turn invisible. Tightening the grip on my staff, I lunge forwards to finish the creature off.

Two things happen. First, the tongue of the second chameleon (which I had completely forgotten about) slams into my back, sending me flying forwards towards the first chameleon. Second, propelled by the impact of the blow, my spear plunges straight through the wounded creature's side. It falls limp against the pillar.

Spitting out a mouth full of dirt, I push myself to my feet just in time to see a shimmer of movement out of the corner of my eye. Pulling my spear from the first creatures corpse, I swipe its blade out to intercept the second creature's tongue.

With a wet slap, a chunk of the chameleon's tongue flops to the ground as it flickers into view for the first time. This one looks similar, but still very different from the other. Like the first chameleon, glowing streaks of blue pulses through its scales, but instead of a purplish black, this one’s scaly skin shimmers a golden white.

Lux Chameleon - Lvl 2

The creature quickly vanishes and moves to change position. Trying my best to follow the shimmer of movement and sounds, I stand still as I formulate my plan.

This creature's tongue is too fast to dodge, especially not being able to see it. But once it hits me, it takes a second for it to unstick and retract. Maybe I could just cut it completely off, like I tried to do last time. That eliminates the creature's weapon, but doesn't actually take care of the lizard. Glancing at my status bars, my stamina is pretty low, but my health isn't doing too bad. Either way, I need to finish this soon.

Suddenly, the creature hits me hard in the shoulder. Urg, I wasn't paying attention. As it hits though, my plan clicks into place.

Reaching around, I drop my spear and grab the slimy appendage. The thing’s tongue flails and tries to pull out of my grasp but I dig in my nails and pull as hard as I can.

It's not a pleasant experience, grappling this thing, but giving it a hard yank, I hear a thud as the creature falls to the ground.

Dropping the tongue and grabbing my spear, I run toward the flickering chameleon. The fall seems to have stunned it, and a few well placed slashes of my spear quickly finishes it off. It doesn't seem like these things had that much health.

Holding my breath and glancing around at my surroundings, it doesn't seem like there are any more of these things. And so with a triumphant grin, I kneel down to claim my loot.