Revealing Project Green

A litrpg with slime and spiders and bottomless pits

By Nolan Locke

CHAPTER 8- Welcome to the Dungeon!

The dungeon we head down into is as wet and slimy as it is brightly lit. It’s surprising really how bright an underground space can be. It makes sense only when you understand that somehow, in this underground space, there are windows letting in copious golden sunlight.

The place is scummy with greenish algae stuff growing all over it everywhere. It’s a thin film on the water, it’s crawling up the walls, and it’s on the four columns that make up the room we walk into. Where it gives way, there’s gold stone beneath, way up high. The room itself is huge, like our classroom big, with a doorway at each cardinal direction.

“This… is gross,” Ritchie says.

“Doy,” Maya says, and heads further into the room to check out what might lay beyond this room. She calls out, “Hallway!” each time she reaches one of them, while Ritchie busies himself with the space around us.

Honestly, it’s boring. Four columns, an inch of slime-covered water on the ground, and nothing else. I don’t get why–

Ritchie has spent a Characteristic called Observant and rolled up his Insight again, for a result of 15. Apparently these two factors are enough. He mutters, “There’s something here, isn’t there?”

He’s lost his marbles. Why would anyone–

“There’s something here,” he says, and retrieves a t-shirt and a hand towel from his backpack. Soon enough he’s scrubbing away at the green stuff on the wall before us, and then after that, I’m helping him.

“What exactly are we–“ I stop, because what’s been revealed is clearly a map. One with crude symbols etched into several of the rooms. One holds a key, another a treasure chest, one has a skull shape, but one with angry brows.

“You got the Polaroid?”

“Yup.”

I take it out and snap a picture. “What do you think that X means?” I point to the X where a doorway should be, connecting the treasure chest dead end to another, larger room.

“One way to find out,” Maya says, and taps on the wall. Then she strides off down the hallway straight across from the stairwell we arrived from.

We follow, and doubly fast when she lets out a shriek.

“What… oh.”

It’s a floor to ceiling spider web, and a spider probably the size of a labrador retriever. I peer down the hall we came through to get here, and note the thick sticky webbing stretched across the ceiling at about ten feet. It’s clear the occupant of this room likes to make its way around this dungeon on the ceiling.

For now it’s crouched in the middle of its huge, ten by twenty foot web, staring at the three of us a good twelve feet off. It doesn’t move, maybe hoping we won’t notice it if it keeps still.

“That’s one nasty boy,” I mutter.

“Gimme your hatchet,” Maya says quietly.

“I lost it at the old man’s house.”

“You’d better hope we come up with some equipment in this dungeon,” she responds. “Knife?”

Ritchie’s still got my locking blade, and hands it over without even a question. In the next few seconds, even with the brightness in here, Maya’s hand and the knife begin to glow with energy. It’s another psychic power, and I can see her Will roll a pretty bad 7. The glow stutters and begins to fail, so Maya whips the knife at the huge arachnid.

She might have just used up 7 of her Psychic Power Points, but she expends her Scrappy characteristic and rolls 4d6+2 instead of 3d6+1, and sadly doesn’t get to see if her Domain works here, because she doesn’t end up with a 6. She gets a 5, 4, 3, and 2, for a 16. The spider doesn’t stand a chance, with its Moves roll of 9, and doubly doesn’t stand a chance with the damage of the knife increased by 7 psychic power. She does 10 total damage, enough to kill it and send a sheen of burning over its whole body, then the webbing as well.

In no time the webs have quietly burned away.

“That’s how it’s done,” she says, and burps. The smell is atrocious.

“Gross, dude.”

“Cowabunga. I just killed that thing so you guys wouldn’t have to get pummeled half to death.”

“Yeah yeah yeah,” I grumble, and head past her to where the X was marked. It looks like a normal wall to me. No doorway or anything.

The game auto-rolls my Insight for a measly 9, which doesn’t help in the slightest, but Ritchie is of course there to help out. He ends up with a 14. Just kidding: his total jumps to 20, then 26, and finally 30.

“Holy crap,” we both breathe at the same time.

He traces his fingers over the wall and end up on a slightly raised brick. A sharp press later, and part of the wall folds back. Revealed behind this is a hallway with slightly less moldy, mildew smell. But still very bright.

At the end of the hall, the intensity of the glare is even stronger. It’s not possible to see the massive treasure chest before we’re actually in the room and blocking some of the light to it.

“Treasure, baby,” Maya says.

The chest is thick wood, and huge. Like nearly three feet wide, two feet deep, and nearly three feet tall. It’s resting on a raised stone platform so it’s kept dry. Curiously, it’s not locked, and all three of us rolling Might together (me a 10, Ritchie a 5, and Maya an 8) to slowly pry it open. The hinges scream and metal comes flaking off as fine dust, but eventually the lid comes open.

We stare down… at practically nothing.

“I don’t get it,” I say.

“It’s a ladder,” Ritchie says.

“I can clearly see that. I know it’s a ladder. It’s a garbage ladder, honestly. Look, it’s nothing but two rails and three rungs.” Though on closer inspection it appears to be of good quality, and stamped at one end with a complicated impression, like a monogram. Ten year old me has no idea what a monogram is, but it knows how a craftsman signs something.

I still don’t get it, but Ritchie has more faith in it, and stuffs it in behind his backpack, between his back and the pack.

“Okay, so…” I say, deflated a bit. This is hopeless. If every room on the map has more baddies, Maya’s going to be out of Psychic Power purple energy stuff before we get near the end, and then what?

“You want to take on the boss?”

“With what? A pocketknife and some glowing purple energy? If a nice little ladder is the best this dungeon has to offer, I’m pretty much done, thanks.”

“The boss is going to have a loot drop,” Maya says.

“We don’t get loot drops if we’re dead. Look on your character sheet. You see that little box with the word ‘dead’ in capital letters? I don’t want to chance it. Dead sounds pretty final.”

“Wuss.”

“Don’t care. Living wuss is better than brave and dead.”

We both turn to Ritchie. Clearly he’ll choose my side. He’s only got a skirmish of 2d6, and a Might of 1d6+2, so he’s not up for more unequipped danger seeking.

He shrugs. “I think we can scope out a couple more rooms, and see if there’s more for us in there.”

Unreal. I also shrug and follow after Maya, who’s not going to just stand around her debating with me, like she should.

I rush ahead and pick up my knife. My knife, then wipe the spider goo off it before I trot back to the place where we started. Okay map, I think, show me the best way… probably to the key, right?

It shows that the path off to the right is indeed the best way to get to the key, but leads to several other rooms first. Okay, that’s okay. I just hurry off ahead of Maya, who’s egging me on by just shrugging, and Ritchie, who actually doesn’t like this and calls for me to stop.

Well that’s what he gets when he sides with a girl. Yes, it’s stupid, but hey, I have plenty of stupid ahead of me, given that I’m ten. My entire twenties remain in the future, a time of unprecedented idiocy.

I take the hallway cautiously to the bend, then peer ahead to find nothing barring my way. In the next room, though, are a pair of zombies like at the game store. These ones are just standing and staring off in different directions. I did not enjoy being bitten, but my pride is at stake. And though it goeth before the fall, I’ve still got some right now, and I’m ready to bank my life on it.

I charge in and engage my Quick Characteristic, then begin the Skirmish. My first roll is unbelievable: two 6’s and a 4, so a total of 17. Here the knife deals 4 damage, enough to kill it. The other zombie immediately turns and groans in anger before attacking. It has a good Skirmish, 3d6+2, but it’s slow, like some characteristic for being a low level monster, so I have the opportunity to get in another attack before this one can grab at me. This time my Quick has run out, so I end up with a 7. Still, its Moves is terrible, a 1d6+2, and it rolls a 4. I eek that one out and deal only 3 damage this time. And while that’s one short of killing it, Maya flies in and delivers a kick straight out of a… video game. It’s at least one extra point of damage, because the zombie goes flying off and lands hard. The first one has already dropped some loot: a copper coin and apparently a garbage looking sword? My Luck has rolled for some reason: three 4’s. Apparently it’s not enough to turn this into Excalibur, or Glimfang or whatever those swords are named in Dungeons and Dragons.

“Huh.” I pick that up and give it a once over.

First of all, it’s heavier than I thought. That’s probably good, because if I’m going to be hacking apart zombies I need something that’ll have some heft to it. Second of all, while it’s rusty (the words RUSTY SWORD appear above it, with 1d6 below that), it’s more than we’ve got now.

“Okay, okay. I like where this is headed.” I hand my knife off to Ritchie who probably won’t end up using it. Still, he’ll have the opportunity.

The next room consists of three zombies, which we’re able to dispatch with similar ease. Of course, I’ve burned my Quick too fast, but there’s nothing for it. I’ll definitely keep it longer if we end up facing zombies. They’re easy peasy. Between Maya running up and kicking the devil out of them, me with the sword, and taking one damage here, and four damage there, we’re gold.

The copper pieces don’t exactly pile up, but I give one of them a closer inspection once we take a breather. They’re stamped with a king’s face on one end, though most of the features have been buffed off with time. The reverse side has a strange arrangement of what appear to be stars: one near the top but a little off to the right, one sort of central but again a little off, with another at the maybe southwest point, and the last dead south I’d guess. There might’ve been others, but time, corrosion and rubbing against other coins in somebody’s ancient change purse have made it impossible to tell.

“How far are we from the key?” Maya asks.

Ritchie closes his eyes and traces his finger through the air. I can see phantom dice rolling over his head for Insight, which doesn’t go terribly: 12. It’s enough, I guess, because he smiles and says, “It’s two rooms off.”

The next room doesn’t have anything except a huge, bottomless pit straight through the center. Like, seriously, no idea how a film of scum-covered water rests atop the floor here, what with a three foot gap running the length of the room. Sunlight pours in, but the greenish coating of slime lets up a good six inches down, revealing the golden stone bricks beneath. Then, another foot or two further, pure blackness.

I can totally take this. Without pausing to think, look at the others, or ask for their input, I head back, turn, and take off at a full sprint. I get to exactly the last step I need before my foot lands on the slippery part. I fall, land hard, and my momentum takes me right into the godforsaken hole in the floor. I scream like Maya’s four year old sister.

Well, neither Rich nor Charismatic are going to work here. My body jams itself into the hole, with one elbow up on the side I started from and one leg against the opposite side. The rest of me is inches from death.

Lucky for me, Maya’s right there with her arm wrapped around mine, except I’m now half-covered in this green slime. It’s already slipping.