It was one of those things that would happen, but likely not in my lifetime. Now, however, I was beginning to suspect that my lifetime could be very long. It’s your lifetime now, bucko.
It didn’t change anything, not if I didn’t watch my step. I nearly stumbled and hit my head on an archway just before I made my way to the beautiful grassy meadow. The waterfall was tucked into the back of the Safety Zone, the soft hiss from the falls was comforting in a way.
I made my way toward the cluster of buildings, drawn more by memory than anything else. There, leaning against a porch railing and tipping an old cob pipe at me, was Samuel Goodfellow. It appeared he’d been updated again, or perhaps the original upgrade had more to it than I recalled.
He looked like someone had cranked his steampunk aesthetic up a few notches. Brass-rimmed goggles perched on his forehead, half-covered by tousled brown hair. His coat, once simple brown canvas, was now reinforced with stitched leathers and mechanical doodads that whirred quietly when he shifted.
He spotted me and straightened up, offering a wide grin.
“Heh, I’ll be damned. You aren’t dead. Mister Kevin, was it?” Despite the original comment, his voice had a soothing quality to it, when he spoke it resonated with hospitality and welcome. I suspected it was an aspect of being an innkeeper, though his was more prominent than the other innkeepers I’d met, there was an effect once a menu got involved. It was odd, but it was hard to think freely once you started a dialogue with an innkeeper. I had a feeling that this had something to do with my low charisma.
“I heard you’d been up to no good. Pixies are all gone, and you’ve got a nice new tunic I see.”
I smirked, “yeah, well you seem to be the one with all the new upgrades.”
Samuel tapped the side of his goggles. “Minor perks, lad. It doesn’t mean there aren’t drawbacks. Take food for example.”
I raised an eyebrow at that. “You need to eat?”
He waved a hand, “I don’t need to, but I like to. It’s one of the few pleasures we’re allowed.”
I grunted in affirmation, not really understanding where this was going. After a long moment, I asked, “care to trade?”
The man’s grin grew ear to ear.
After it was said and done, I was able to exchange a stack of my chicken and a stack of my steak for several stacks of basic assorted vegetables. I was able to get potatoes, yams, celery, bok choy, three different types of onion, carrots, lots of lettuce and spinach, various peppers and some spices. He didn’t have any flour, and if I was being honest, I wasn’t used to using it. I was always cooking food to fit my macros, adding in variety and spices didn’t cost much in the way of calories, despite what most people think. The real setback about eating right was removing all the delicious sauces and cheeses. Pretty much anything that tasted like heaven when you dipped something into it, well, it was off limits.
Now that caloric expenditure wasn’t a war for how quickly my belly grew, I seemed to end up with the same fare I was used to. It was almost like the game knew what I was looking for, or what I would be looking for based on how I was when I got here.
The distinction was thus: if it was based off me when I got here then there wasn’t much to worry about. If the game was helping me find things I actively wanted, then that meant the game had a direct wire to my brain, and it was tapping in. The thought was a disturbing one and honestly gave me a cold shiver when the revelation hit me.
This all occurred while we were exchanging goods. Samuel gave me a curious look, which made me just a little bit suspicious.
“Ain’t you gonna ask for the exchange fee? You did last time.” He smiled, seeming pleased about something.
I snapped my fingers, “I was getting there.” I grinned. “Five coins, and I’ll throw in a meat pie.”
“Meat pies you say?” I had only said a meat pie, not meat pies.
“Tell you what, I’ll give you 5, one for each coin. Savvy?”
“You are quite the negotiator. I’ll take that deal.”
I knew it was a terrible deal, I could tell just by how he acted about it. I didn’t care, I had a shit ton of meat pies hanging out in my inventory. Handing over the supplies barely dented what I currently had just sitting there. He handed over a small pouch that I was able to tie to my belt, I was grateful and hoped I wouldn’t lose it this time. “So, is this how you keep yourself sane from all the updates? Rip off new contenders after they first get here. Perhaps offer a free room that was already free as part of an agreement. You know, just speaking hypothetically.”
Samuel wasn’t offended in the slightest. He actually laughed, though it sounded foreign to him. He got suddenly serious, “You adapt with it, or get swallowed by it. As odd as I am, I’ve done better than most.” He smiled, but there was a tightness there. “Same as ever.”
He cleared his throat. “Speaking of oddities, have you seen the mimic yet?”
My stomach lurched at the thought. I looked at him sidelong for a moment. “The what?”
Samuel chuckled darkly. “Been lurkin’ over yonder by the falls. Looks like any ol’ chest till you get too close, then sprouts legs, scurries away. If you follow and stare at it long enough, it’ll wiggle its ass like a dog that found its owner after a long day. Not attackin’, mind you. Just… excited.” He made a rolling gesture with his hand. “Got himself this little gold coin somehow. Sits there, sprouts little arms and rubs it. Fingers it between his claws like it’s the finest thing in the whole dungeon. Bit sad really.”
I narrowed my eyes, curiosity gnawing at me. “You said he’s not attacking?”
“Nope, just watches. Plays, real eerie-like. Sometimes he’ll just sit and watch, local food vender keeps having to move because he’s got metal on display and the mimic gets real curious like. Check him out if you’re feeling stupid, or brave.”
One of those things was definitely my brand, I just wish I knew which one.
I headed over to the waterfall, keeping an eye out as I went. It wasn’t far, the falls were just up a minor slope after crossing a stream. I spotted the Vendor before I spotted the box.
The fellow, who looked like a friar of all things, was swinging a metal spatula back and forth and yelling at something. “Begone, foul beast! I have not whatever it is you seek! Have you not harried me enough?” He seemed to go from animated, to dejected, to self-pitying faster than I thought a person could. I called to get the man’s attention at his little stall on wheels. He sold soup.
Now, during the entire interaction with the NPC, the guy steadily got more pissed at me. Then it got a little out of hand there, but he inevitably relented. There was a little shouting, and I may or may not have extorted him for the fact that he was probably selling homebrewed ale. Tropes existed for a reason, and I honestly wasn’t above exploiting that. Brother Fredrick, on the other hand, wasn’t happy that I was aware of such tropes, nor was he happy that he did indeed have bootlegged ale.
Truthfully, I barely noticed the NPC’s anger, and not for lack of empathy. I knew he had to make all the food himself, it was something about how the game worked. All I could tell, so far, was that vendors were required to follow certain rules, and all of them seemed to want to have vast stockpiles of whatever they were selling. But really, I could care less about any of this bullshit, because what I was looking at had me completely captivated.
The mimic, being agitated by the vendor, was out on full spidery display. It had multiple appendages, and parts of those appendages seem to twist in and out of reality. Constantly shifting, its mouth had some of the same effect, as though the teeth coming out of the chest weren’t distracting enough. The entire image spoke of a visceral kind of horror. My skin crawled, and when I looked at the mimic some primitive part of myself made me tuck my chin and keep square with it. As though, now that I’d seen it, I could never look away from it.
So, despite the bemoaning of the man behind the cart window, I had little patience. At this stage, all I wanted to do was leave.
The creature began tilting the box back and forth, like the head of a giant spider from a horror flick, then it sort of gurgled as it pulled out its coin. My coin.
It began rubbing it, then holding it out and looking at it. Then it would embrace it, lick it, then rub it some more. It would flip the coin in the air and catch it, and every time it caught the coin it would kind of do a little gleeful squee. As though it were just acquiring it for the first time, it was horrifically elated. All of it together was fucking eerie.
The sight gave me an overwhelming sense that there was something very wrong. And I couldn’t look away. The thing watched me right back when it didn’t have its coin. Otherwise, it just kept playing. It was something out of a Lovecraftian nightmare.
When I finally left, I backed away slowly. I still thanked the man and apologized. I felt bad, It was probably an annoyance for the guy, NPC or not, but I also needed to take advantage while I still could. Regardless, the mimic had my full attention. I backed away out of the area and kept looking over my shoulder all the way back to the Inn.
Assuming I was in the clear, I got a room. It hadn’t been a day, not by half, but I had covered a lot of ground. If the room was free, what was wrong with a little nap? I relieved myself, and pestered PAI as to whether or not this bed would force me to sleep to the next day. Even if it did, what did it matter?
I could, indeed, set a timer. I hadn’t noticed it before, but it was built into the headrest. I set it for two hours, waking in the early afternoon.
Before you go judging me, I’d had enough of the burnt coffee over the last few days that I was getting sick of the synthetic energy route. Caffeine was great, but a good ol’ fashioned nap was just what the doctor ordered.
Doctor… ordered…
I dreamed then, dreamed of a doctor of veterinarian medicine. Dreamed of a dog crapping whole carrots, for whatever reason, and feeding the dog a soup of pills. That didn’t make sense, but Beth was there, and that’s all I could focus on. She was stunning as she carried boxes in from the moving truck outside. For a moment there, I was so content.
Another part of me, the dungeon part, snarled.
I woke. There, outside the window, a box floated in midair. Its tendrils had lashed out to the sides of the building, holding it up. It was watching me.
I leaped up faster than I thought possible. I stared at the thing, when it noticed that I had seen it, it consolidated and pulled into the ledge that sat out of my window. It was now just a box… with teeth. The coin protruded from its teeth, stuck there like a piece of meat. A long tongue came out, unhinging it and lapping it up.
I shook my head at the visage, I didn’t know what was going on with the thing, but something wasn’t right. I quickly gathered my things after stocking up on enough water to last a year, and scurried downstairs. I didn’t see Samuel anywhere, so I took my leave after scrawling a note and leaving it for him. I knew he was an NPC, but something told me there was more to that one.
As I came out of the inn, I saw the mimic immediately. It was about fifteen paces away, sitting there all nonchalant. I narrowed my eyes at the thing and started heading out of the area. I looked back and caught the tail end of its limbs retracting back into itself, the box shaking ever so slightly.
I glared again, then started turning away but stopped. I looked back, and the creature was once again retracting its limbs. I turned and started walking when I heard the heavy footfalls. I looked back, and that was enough. “Stop it!” I called as I pointed a finger at the thing. One eye opened slightly then closed just as quickly. I shook my head and backed up. When I turned and looked back again, the mimic was gone.
Not just gone, fucking gone gone. I looked around, taking it so far as to head all the way back to the waterfall. I never saw it.
Exacerbated, I gave up on looking for the little bastard. I wasn’t going to go all the way behind the waterfall again, too much effort and probably too dangerous. I shrugged, leaving the Safety Zone shortly thereafter.
When I got to my fast-travel tunnel, I caught the faintest sound of something squeeing in delight. My stomach dropped, remembering how dark the hallway was. I glared down at the blackness, suspecting the worst. I shook my head, and said out lout, “You’ve lost your goddamned mind if you think I’m stupid enough to walk down this tunnel!” I turned, deciding that I could probably make it to the next safety zone before it got too late. I started walking.
The narrative has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the infringement.
Respawns were a thing, and I ran into a few weaker opponents I’d missed the first time through the area. Despite this, much of what was in the area did little to scare me, and even less to challenge me. I did, much to my shame, activate my “speed boost” ability twelve times. Yes. Twelve. I tried some of the soup before I went to sleep, a white chili with plenty of assorted beans. I hadn’t thought on it much, but it was almost like the game was making a joke of it. Of course, when I asked PAI, her only reply was, “sometimes the Dominai reinforces your own cultural beliefs. We don’t want you to get too lonely.” I replied with an eye-roll and a “fuck you very much.” I then got an achievement, which I read immediately.
- The Magical Fruit! – You’ve eaten something that has a cultural reference to your home world! Now, you will pass gas once for every bean eaten! Also, every time you gain a stack of “Speed Boost,” PAI, THAT’S ME, will recite the Bean nursery rhyme! Yay!
I groaned as some kind of low-levelled Pac-man like creature lunged at me from the dark. I punched it once and ducked as it passed overhead. I passed gas again, and got to hear PAI cheerily recite the nursery rhyme as I finished pummeling the creature. It was cheery, loud, and annoyed me to no end.
Then, suddenly, I had something completely different to worry about. As Pac-man died, I caught something out of the corner of my eye. I ducked, ripped another one, and turned to see my assailant. It was the fucking box. I squared myself with the thing.
“You need to back off, dude.” I said it calmly, but my hands were already shaking. The creature defied physics, and I can’t express this enough, it was fucking terrifying. It was like watching a fourth dimensional object, the way it folded in on itself, except you didn’t always see the movement, you could feel it though. I know how it sounds, I’m not a coward. I wasn’t dumb either, this thing just got right into your mental headspace and somehow made you frantic.
The thing flipped the coin, gleefully caught it, then turned into a box. I could feel little tendrils of the creature’s presence all around me. “Fuck this!” I said, so I turned, and I ran.
I could hear it behind me. Its steps were loud and wooden sounding, despite its extremities obviously being fleshy, it still sounded like the thing was wearing wooden clogs. For more than an hour, I ran. I figured I could go back to the second Safety Zone and crash for the night, but being honest, I was plenty energized. Terror did that to a person.
So, instead of heading to the Safety Zone, I turned up the shortcut the game gave me and booked it at a pace I could barely maintain. Interesting enough, where there was dirt and shattered stone before, everything was now lined in stone. I was grateful for the better footing.
I could tell the creature stalled at the entrance to the tunnel for a bit. It was odd but I was certain that the creature had some level of intelligence. That scared me even more, so on a whim, I took out one of the bottles of glue the pixies had given me. As I ran, I intermittently emptied portions of the bottle until I was out. As I got out the next bottle, I heard a distant squeal, then it screamed in a way that shook any sense of bravery from my person. Though I was running at a rapid speed before, I kicked it up to a full sprint for about a minute. I could still hear it squealing down the dark tunnel when I began slowing. I listened as I caught my breath, then returned to my run, albeit at a more manageable pace.
It was a sure sign of my body changing as I leveled up. It was interesting to see how well I managed to move. I hated cardio, I mean, who doesn’t. The burning lungs, the steady onset of creaky joints, the slow burn of your calves and an incessant need to pay attention to your breathing. Though I’d been enjoying life these last few years, the dungeon was quick to correct my lacking drive for simple running. Yes, it was terrible for your joints, but truth be told, running the weight off was a lot better for your joints than keeping the weight on. Besides, running for your life from something that belonged in The Lurking Fear, or even worse, Dark Souls, was better cardio than you could imagine.
I put all my attention to my breathing, my boosted speed mixed with my recent levels put me at a speed I’d never imagined. At my lowest weight, I sat at 218 pounds and was absolutely shredded. That was ten years and sixty pounds ago, but I remembered how quickly I could move at that weight. Movement had never been so effortless, and part of me feared that I would never experience moving with that kind of carelessness again.
Now, I was moving down this tunnel in a way that defied my current weight and age. Every stride took me much further than it should, and the weight I carried seemed lighter than I’d ever known. I’d noticed I was changing but putting it to the test was exuberantly exhilarating. Most of my fights were in bouts, and though I’d grown accustomed to fighting, I hadn’t realized how many other aspects of my body were changing.
So, when I finally made it to the right tunnel, I was flying. I ran right past two of those rock bugs, inevitably losing them before approaching the whitewall.
I took some time then, drinking from my enhanced waterskin and catching my breath. Just as my heart began to slow, I figured it was time to get the fuck out of this place. I figured I was ready enough. As I approached the whitewall, I tried to pull up the menu that asked if I’d like to redeem that voucher. The menu I minimized because I didn’t know if it would force me to the next floor right then and there. The menu I’d forgotten about…
Just as a sinking feeling began to settle in my stomach, I heard, just for a moment, the sound of wood striking stone.
My heart jumped into my throat. The mimic…
I turned and walked through the whitewall.
The whitewall hissed as I passed through, like a massive curtain of static pulled back by unseen hands. I expected a fight, now that I went and ignored the Dominai again, I figured this would be bad. Veyda and Art had made it sound like the boss would be all kinds of hell, but the area was empty, much the way they had described before.
A cavernous, sloping hall stretched out in front of me, wide enough to host a parade of and dark enough to murder optimism. No monster, no boss, no wicked soundtrack to go with it. There was a smell to the place, damp stone and earth, and a different note that was off somehow. It was wrong, and once I realized that my mind seemed to seize on it. I felt extremely unnerved. I moved forward anyways.
From behind me, a wet pop. A squeak, then a scrabbling of too many limbs on polished stone.
I turned around just in time to see the mimic squeeze through the whitewall like a gelatinous spider wearing a treasure chest for a hat. Its body didn’t move right, it folded inward as it strode towards me.
I readied myself. “You want it that bad then?” I placed my feet and got into a fighter’s stance.
It skittered forward, not attacking, just stalking. Close enough to be invasive, but still under whatever invisible leash the safe zones provided. Except we weren’t in a safe zone, we were in a boss chamber.
Everything stopped.
A low groan came from the walls. The cavern pulsed, like a single heartbeat, and the mimic froze.
White energy bled down the whitewall, meeting the mimic. The light and creature merged, and the moment they touched, the mimic exploded outward into something else entirely.
It didn’t grow so much as unfold. Panels of chitin stretched open like blooming petals, revealing jagged rows of mismatched teeth and too many eyes blinking at once. Legs sprouted at unnatural angles. A tongue lashed out and slapped the ground.
A banner appeared in my UI. It read, “Contender refused boon. Manual bypass denied. Commencing First Floor Boss Encounter.”
I groaned. “You’ve got to be kidding me!” I ran, trying to get some distance.
Something hit me, hard, sending me falling forward. The stone floor was slanting upwards, which caught me off gaurd. I hit my face hard against the stone, hearing a little crunch. I scrabbled up, feeling my face filled with pressure. I kept moving.
I turned to square myself to the creature, and what I saw was something from a nightmare. A web of limbs had covered the entire entry area of the boss chamber. Like one of those trap spiders, except its web was made of additional limbs. They all moved in and out at odd angles, and there was some kind of translucent webbing between them.
It made me think of a kind of carnivorous plant that secreted a gel to entice and capture its prey. Except random limbs seemed to appear from nowhere, then blink out of existence. Like a lightning strike, but with spider legs. I shivered.
Then, the limbs were on me. I started backing up and accidentally activated my shielded block. I guess binding it to a facial expression was good advice after all because my shield was struck three times before I had a chance to think. I had used the skill, but I was always careful of that stun effect. If I was stunned right now, I’d be demolished in seconds.
I deactivated the ability.
Blows started raining in. I parried the hardened flesh as they struck at me, each blow seeming to appear from nowhere.
I was hit twice in my body before being bashed in my face. I felt myself get pulled. I wasn’t expecting it when the thing surged forward, wrapping me up in its spiderweb limbs. Just as I was lifted in the air, I activated my Crushing Hold.
The limbs fell limp around me, and I hastily crawled out of its grasp. I looked over at the chest, started to walk towards it. Its head was the only thing it could move.
It looked like worms coming out of its mouth, I was guessing the tongue would be a large threat, until the fucking thing sprouted new limbs from its throat.
Oh, that’s some bullshit right there.
I called out, “Oh, what the hell do you want from me?!” I was already backing up, but I paused. A thought occurred to me.
When I shouted, I wasn’t talking to the Mimic, rather the AI, but now that I’d said it out loud…
I reached into the pouch at my hip, palming two coins. I presented a coin to the chest, even though it a solid twenty feet away, I could see its gaze lock on like a homing beacon. The limbs growing from the throat of the monster just disappeared. The chest, presumably the head, drew the tongue in and closed shut. It side-eyed me. I pulled out the second coin, rubbing them together.
The mimic shivered. The sound of the coins rubbing together did something to the thing. It was like the entire writhing mass of the creature pulsed to a beat, and every iteration of the coins rubbing together made the creature’s limbs vibrate unconsciously. I lowered the coins to the ground and backed away slowly. The timer on the Crushing Hold was wearing off just as I was approaching what I thought would be the exit to the next floor. I was this close.
The Crushing Hold debuff indicator disappeared from my UI. The entity surged forward, then shrunk down. Its limbs now resembling a man rather than an array of spiders, it picked up the two coins. It rubbed the two coins together in stubby little claws with a sound like a goblin purring over a casino chip. Then it let out a long, keening squeal of delight that made every hair on my body salute in terror.
And finally, it snapped shut. Became just a chest. Plain, unassuming, lid slightly askew.
A ding echoed through my UI.
[System Notification: Boss Encounter Bypass]
Behavioral anomaly recorded. Reward tier adjusted. Exit enabled. You may now leave the boss chamber.
I stood there, staring at it. “What… what in the hell just happened?”
PAI responded in my head, “mimic life-cycle protocols temporarily suspended. You did great, champ!”
I shook my head, looking away from the placid box. Where there was a wall before, a doorway somewhere had opened. Stairs let up to a hallway, the hallway dim with a bright outline of a door. I looked behind myself once, and the chest just sat there, Idle. I came up the stairs and walked to the wooden doorway. The light behind it was just the same thing as the whitewall before. I walked through, the whisps of white dissipating into me. I found myself standing in a room full of people.
I looked at them, confused. “What’s up?”
“Finally! Gate’s open boys!” Some wolfman-looking guy said. Another guy, a knight wearing some over-the-top plate ensemble, started walking up to me, glittery gems and all. It reflected light in a way that made him luminescent. It literally blinded me as the man walked up and pushed me over. I could hear the heavy greaves plodding off. It sounded like he had tool chests for shoes, and it smelled heavily of axe body spray as he walked off. “Fucking noob.” When he said it, little comic book text appeared behind him that read “NUB!”
“I wouldn’t do that.” He just kept walking, and several other people followed him. “Seriously, it really wouldn’t be a good idea!” They weren’t listening, crowding the hall as they went. Suddenly, a white wall appeared before the door. It was different, though. Immediately curious, I walked through the wall and nothing happened. It was partially transparent, above it read “Access” in green. I heard screams from below. There were sudden explosions, and vicious noises, like chewing and gnawing. I started to walk down when everything grew suddenly quiet. Then the slurping noises started. I stopped moving. Stopped breathing. I could smell bodily… things. There had to be ten or more people that had walked down there. They were all dead. I backed away, borderline running to the second floor.