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Have you ever just laid there on your back, staring up at the sky? Just wondering what the hell happened? How did I end up here?
Well...
That's where I am right now.
Staring up, trying to find just a teeny glimpse of light from the sun above. Annnnd there's nothing. Just a big ass hole in the ground or "mineshaft" that I fell in after finally finding a team that wanted me. A really fucking shame... It's always been hard for me to make friends, even before the system. They always thought I was some weird kid in high school because I liked hunting more than basketball. Who cares man? Its a ball in a hoop. Hunting was a pasttime my Dad loved before he passed away. Basketball, football, baseball, track, all great in their own rights but I knew I'd never go pro. I just wanted to hang out with my mom and keep Dad's traditions alive.
I sure wish I was hunting right now..
Out in the crisp air and beautiful sunlight, but noooooooo I had to find the only damn hole that lead to this dark place. The sound of chains or some kind of metal scraping against the rocky floor jolted me from my thoughts.
"Alright Doug, it could be your imagination." I said to myself calmly as the noise pinged once more, a bit farther away.
"Thank god!" I whispered to myself as I got up and dusted myself off. The blood sticky on my pants and my hair matted to the side of my face. I tried to check my health, but my health bar was gone. What the hell?
I tried to access my map. It was gone.
"Fucking. Great." I said loudly, stomping a foot to the ground. "Why the FUCK is nothing working? The whole team did a gear check before I fell, I was ready to raid dammit! I had packed and repacked and checked and rechecked for the past two days. What the hell is going on?"
Even my mana crystals were only faintly lit on my belt. I pulled one out and cast Torchlight. To my delight, it worked!
A small orb floated its way to above my head and flashed. The flash wasn't as bright as usual. The light dimmed until it was barely useful.
I squinted, trying to make out anything around me. Jagged stone walls loomed on every side, some slick with moisture, others marked with claw-like scrapes that definitely weren’t made by pickaxes. Great. So either I was losing it… or I wasn’t alone down here.
"Okay," I muttered, pulling the mana crystal closer to my face. It pulsed like a dying firefly. "Real helpful, buddy."
I shoved it back into my belt and took a shaky step forward, boots crunching on gravel. My legs protested—probably from the fall—but I ignored it. Pain was good. Pain meant I was still alive. And if I was alive, I could figure this out.
Step one: Don't die.
Step two: Figure out why the system is acting like a broken vending machine.
Step three: Get the hell out of here before I starve or something eats me.
Simple.
The scraping came again, this time closer. Not the echoing kind of close—no, the right behind you if you breathe too loud kind. I froze, every instinct in my body screaming at me to run, but my legs wouldn't budge.
I reached for my weapon.
Gone.
I patted my hips, chest, even the small of my back. Nothing. No sword, no knife, not even the rusty dagger I kept hidden in my boot for emergencies.
What. The. Actual. Fuck.
There was a sound like breathing. Wet, gurgling breathing.
“Okay Doug,” I whispered, swallowing the lump in my throat. “New plan. Step one: survive this specific moment. Step two: all the other shit.”
I ducked into a crack in the wall, barely wide enough for my shoulders. The torchlight flickered behind me, casting my shadow in a hundred twisted directions.
The sound grew louder. Whatever it was… it was hungry.
I clenched my fists. My heart was pounding like a war drum. I had nothing but my fists, my wits, and a slowly-dimming orb of mana light. But damn it, I wasn’t going to die cowering in a cave like a lost noob.
"Come on then," I hissed, stepping back out into the tunnel. "You want a piece of Doug? You better come with a bib, 'cause I bite back!"
The shadows shifted. A low growl echoed off the walls, metallic chain dragging behind it.
My fists went up.
A shape lunged into the light—and I damn near fell over from how hard I blinked.
It was... a poodle.
A tiny, fluffy, white poodle.
The chain was just a leash, rusted and too heavy for her little legs. She barked once—a high-pitched yip that echoed like a cartoon sound effect in the grim cavern.
“What the...” I lowered my fists slowly. “You have got to be kidding me.”
She trotted right up to me, tail wagging, tongue out like she didn’t just scare two years off my lifespan. The chain clanked with each step. She looked up with those big, dumb eyes like I was her new best friend.
"Hey there, girl," I said, crouching down. “Let’s get that off you, huh?”
She licked my face, nearly knocking me over with excitement.
“Easy, easy,” I laughed, trying to wrestle the chain off the collar. It was wedged in tight, the links fused with rust and something else... something sticky.
Finally, with a hard twist, the chain snapped loose.
The poodle stepped back.
Smiled.
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And then her face split open.
No, like, literally split open. Her snout stretched like taffy, jaws peeling back to reveal rows—rows—of serrated, twitching teeth. It was like an octopus had swallowed a blender and decided to cosplay as a dog.
"Oh shit!"
She launched.
I stumbled back, barely dodging as she clamped down on the air where my ankle had just been. Her whole body was like elastic fury, bouncing off the cave walls, biting at anything that moved.
"You little demon muppet!"
I kicked out. She latched onto my boot, gnawed furiously.
"NOT THE BOOT!"
The boot came off.
And she ate it.
Swallowed it whole.
I screamed in sheer disbelief.
She burped.
That was it. I snapped.
Grabbing the chain, I whipped it around, catching her mid-leap. She slammed into the wall with a yelp, tried to lunge again, but I was ready this time.
I swung her like a furry yo-yo into the floor. She hissed—yes hissed—and curled up like she was going to explode.
One last slam, and she stopped moving. Her jaws slowly retracted into normal dog-shape. Like none of it ever happened.
Panting, I collapsed next to her.
A soft ping echoed through the cave.
[System Notification: --nnec--ion Establi--hed... Pro--ssing -- --]
It flickered. Glitched. Then vanished.
My heart skipped.
“HO.LEE. SHIT."
DoomTown wasn’t lost forever after all.
There was still a way forward and dammit I intended to find my way back to the surface. I wriggled my toes on the foot that was missing the boot and bottom quarter of my pants. "Man, this is gonna suck." I said curtly as I lifted myself to stand. Luckily, since the system, our skin was a lot tougher and my defense stat was pretty average. I'll be fine, but losing the speed boost from the boots is the worst part. It was a measly +2 to speed and agility but sometimes that made the difference in the tutorial. The tutorial I was supposed to finish today. With my team. With my friends.
Despair came down on me as I thought about the raid team. We were so pumped to finally be finished with the tutorial and start living our lives. DoomTown might have been a shithole, but it was my shithole. All the stupid basic training, fetch quests, and system guidance seemed so distant...
I took off my other boot since the boost only came from wearing a set, tightened my belt, and started making my way down the dark corridor. It really wasn't too bad down here, yeah the air might be stale and everything was damp. And if the creepy jutting rocks and broken boards didn't trip you or look like scary monsters, everything is fine.
A distant water drip could be heard ahead of me. If I knew anything about water, it's that things like to drink it. I'm one of those things and I'm betting there are other things down here. Shit.
I wrapped the rusty chains over my right fist, hoping for a brass knuckle effect, and the sticky substance was still on the collar piece. I thought it was blood at the time but it was... it almost feels... electric, when I rub it between my fingers. I brushed away the thought as I wiped in on my pants and angled the collar piece to use as a makeshift mace.
I crept toward the dripping sound, every step a squish or crunch. My bare feet stung against the cold, damp ground. I was trying real hard not to think about what I was stepping in. Probably just water. Definitely not poodle guts. Still, it squelched.
The tunnel curved left, and the light from my mana orb finally caught something—stone smoothed out by centuries of water flow. The drip became a steady trickle as I reached a narrow underground stream. I knelt beside it, cupped my hands, and sniffed the water.
Didn’t smell like sulfur or death. Good enough.
I drank greedily, letting it roll down my throat and into the pit that used to be my stomach. Hunger clawed at me, but water helped. For now.
Something shimmered on the other side of the stream—something embedded in the stone. I raised the dim orb closer.
It was a glyph.
Old. Faint. Glowing a sickly blue. And pulsing.
The moment my light touched it, the glyph flared. Bright, almost blinding, then it dimmed down like it was embarrassed.
[System Node Detected: Localized Activation - Permission Pending...]
I jumped back.
“Permission? Permission from who?!” I waved my arms in front of the glyph like that would help. “Hey! I’m right here! I give permission!”
Nothing.
Figures.
I reached out, brushed the glyph with the tip of my fingers. A jolt ran through my arm—cold and hot all at once, like dipping your hand in a bucket of ice water after a microwave.
The glyph shimmered again, then collapsed in on itself.
In its place was a staircase.
Carved cleanly from the rock, sloping upward at a sharp angle, slick with moss. I stared up into the darkness, debating.
This mineshaft wasn’t part of DoomTown. I’d never seen anything like this in the tutorial zone. That meant it was off-map. Uncharted.
My system connection was still flickering.
I was tired.
Cold.
Missing my boots.
But a staircase meant something was up there. Something made this. And if something made it... maybe it knew how to get out. I adjusted the chain around my fist and muttered, “Alright unknown cave system... let’s see where this rabbit hole...or rabbit staircase?... really leads.”
I took a deep breath and started up the staircase.
The climb was brutal. Every few steps I had to stop and rest, toes aching, calves burning, and my breath coming in ragged gasps. The air got a little better the higher I went—less stagnant, a hint of dryness—and I clung to that as hope.
My mind wandered. It had to. Because if I stayed focused on the ache in my feet or how long this staircase was, I’d start screaming. So I hummed a tune. One my mom used to sing while cleaning. I'm pretty sure my stamina was depleted, but still, the melody helped..
Then I started singing. Loudly.
"'cause, baby, there
Ain't no mountain HIGH enough
Ain't no valley LOW enough
Ain't no river wide enough
To keep me from gettin' to you, baby" I sang with emphasis on each high and low, it was fun.
And right about the time I was ready to lose my damn mind and throw myself back down the staircase just to change the scenery—light.
A soft glow up ahead, barely noticeable. I pushed myself harder. Faster. The moss under my feet gave way to worn stone, and the walls smoothed out.
Then the staircase ended. I stood in a foyer. Wide, circular, eerily quiet. The ceiling arched high above me, lost in shadows. The mana orb hovered near my shoulder, casting just enough light to show me the three doors ahead.
Each one was carved with images—creatures? Symbols? I couldn’t tell. The carvings were so ancient the stone was almost worn smooth. Clawed limbs. Snarling mouths. Wings. Maybe. No handles. Just three solid slabs of stone. Left, center, right. I walked up to them, brow furrowed.
Left.
“Left is life,” I muttered. Dad used to say that when we hunted. If we ever got turned around in the woods, he’d always go left at the fork. Said instinct would kill you but habit would save you. I'm pretty sure he just watched too much NASCAR.
I placed a hand on the leftmost door.
It opened with a low groan, dust falling from the frame like it hadn’t moved in years. Maybe centuries.
Beyond it was another tunnel. Narrow, but smooth. Not like the jagged shaft below.
I stepped in.
Miles. It felt like miles. My feet were blistered, raw. I could feel each pebble, each uneven slab of stone. But the tunnel widened eventually, and something new appeared in the distance.
Tents.
Wooden carts.
Rusting mining tools and old bedrolls scattered across a leveled stone platform.
An abandoned mining camp.
"Well," I said aloud to nobody, "either I’m dead and this is hell’s Airbnb... or I just found someone’s old stomping grounds."
I crept forward, keeping low.
Something about the place didn’t feel entirely abandoned.
I tried to pull up my map to do a scan. "Shit. Old habit, I guess. I forgot the stupid SYSTEM doesn't want to work down here! Wanting some stupid PERMISSION! ugh..." I yelled at nothing in particular. My echoes reverberated off the walls, and I heard a small rock fall from the ceiling. Wait a minute, that was something scuttling, not falling.
I squatted down low, feeling the deep stretch in my quads. I inhaled deeply as I brought myself to a standing position. I shook out my legs one by one as I saw something scuttle right, just on the edge of my vision. Then another left. These little fuckers were fast.
I had hung the chain on my belt for the walk up, it was time to retrieve it. Still better than bare hands I guess, as I wrapped it around my hand and forearm. The sticky substance latched onto my hand again.
"Gross, you little snot bubble, get the fuck off me." I said as I shook my hand violently to get it off. The glob landed on the ground a few meters in front of me.
I moved to put my back against the wall. Ready.
"I might only have a starter Junkyard Scrapper class, but I'll whoop your ass!" I said loudly and firmly in the direction of the camp. Almost like a bird chirp, came from the left. As I instinctively positioned my body to anticipate an attack BOOM! Something smashed into my head from the right. The next few minutes were a blur as I kept swing trying to hit this...chicken? Its wings flapped furiously as it kept trying to peck and claw me to death with its little talons.
"What the hell?" I whooped in surprise as two more of the suckers flew at me. None of them were roosters, just some fat hens flying into me like feathered footballs. I finally let the chain slide down my arm and just started swinging it like a cyclone. I was doing a little damage to each one with the swings. One of them finally landed a flab of my skin on the back of my arm in its mouth. Its bite was like a vice grip!
It felt like the worlds strongest man was pinching me on the back of my arm. I tried to swing the chain and knock it off OUCH! I ended up just hitting the back off my knee. I was dancing around from the pain, just trying to not the let the other chickens grab hold. Their claws were barely surface wounds and the wings were just annoying. "Fuck this." I said as I ran forward and gave the chicken a good ol' DDT elbow drop. Sure, I may have smashed my elbow into the ground but at least the chicken was dead PHEW!
I hopped up as I heard the other chickens running after me. I threw the chain to the ground and let out a scream even the Wolfman would've envied. I wrapped one of them up in my arm as I charged at them and swatted the other to the ground.
I took the chicken from under my arm and put my left hand around its neck. I raised it high, let gravity bring it down, and POP! The body hit the ground but the head remained in my hand staring at me, menacingly. That was a bit confusing.
The other chicken came flying in and latched onto my left ear.
"Aaahhh!" I let out another scream but every inch i moved my head, the weight of the chicken was ripping my earlobe. I grabbed it with both hands and pulled. Its beak was unrelenting. As I pulled it away from my body, I heard my earlobe ripping. I kept going.
It finally released.
My earlobe, not the chicken. It swallowed it as its head bobbed and I swear she was smirking. Then it began lunging at my face with it's blood-covered beak.
Imagining myself as an NFL punter, I held her out in front of me, took two steps, and booted it's ass as hard as I could. The hen's body burst into a shower of gore and guts, as it slammed into a stalactite. I just stood there. Staring blankly at the mess.
Great.