Chapter Twenty-Three: The Second Floor

  I stared down at the bloody pulp that used to be my hand. Tears fell painfully from my eyes. I wanted to curl into a ball and just let myself cry, but where had that gotten me? Without the Crystal here, it felt like I was devolving into a baser state. What had Father Krastor always said about rage? Father Krastor. Where had that thought come from? The mental image of the Father refused to form in my mind entirely. I shrugged and took stock of the room.

  Two blood pools from the rats were precariously close to being washed away by the sewage that streamed from grates on the floor. The sewage spent some time crowding out the floor before ultimately flowing up the walls and toward the ceiling.

  I looted the crate. The dice rolled. A small pile of gold coins clattered to the bottom of the crate. The shadow of the lip of the crate obscured the number of coins in the almost complete darkness. As I moved the coins from the crate to my helm, I looked at the crate. Unlike chests and monsters, the crate didn’t disappear. It remained where it was.

  Tentatively, I went to the crate and dumped out the gold and meat I had gathered. The loot didn’t vanish.

  Then came the moment of truth. If I couldn’t move the crate, it wouldn’t matter that things would stay inside. I wrapped my right arm around the crate, clutching it against my chest, and I heaved up as I lifted with my legs. The crate was as light as a feather. I could lift it against my chest and carry it one-handed without my useless hand.

  I immediately dropped the crate in celebration. I whipped and cheered—the one good thing to happen since Crystal left. And then I made one of the best decisions I made in my entire time in the dungeon. I took off my necklace, the one I had gained from the boss, and placed it in the crate. I knew without Crystal that I was going to die pretty quickly on the second floor, and it just wouldn't do to have to fight these rats again on the off chance the floor dropped better loot.

  I walked back to the entrance room and put my crate there. Crystal’s silence hung over me like a shadow, her absence more palpable with each passing moment. I had no idea how long Crystal’s tantrum would last; so much of the game behind the dungeon relied on her. Without access to the inventory, I had to carry everything, and with a broken hand, that just wasn’t possible, so I needed a place to store all of my loot from however far I made it with this build.

  Thankfully, everything stayed where you put it in the entrance room. With Crystal’s absence, I had no access to weapons or a way to check my health. I could return for the dagger I left in that room, but it had a single strike left and didn’t seem worth the effort. I wanted to get up to the second floor because the sooner I got there, the sooner my run and my pain would end.

  But I was damned if I wasn’t going to take this run as far as I possibly could. This wasn’t just about surviving anymore; it was about proving to Crystal and myself that I didn’t need her. I returned to the rooms where the other two crates were and carried them back to the Entrance room one at a time.

  I wasn’t sure if I could keep the torch in the crate because the flame automatically lit, and I wasn’t going to store a lit torch in a wooden crate, even with magic around. Who knew, the sewage around here was probably all flammable. It would be just my luck to end a run early because I blew up the entire sewer.

  With no more preamble, I approached the ladder that led to the second floor; it was intimidatingly large, and I worried about climbing with my injured arm. I moved forward and grabbed a rung as high up as I could. As I moved up, I braced with my shoulder, cursing my earlier anger. Each rung creaked with an ominous sound as if the whole thing was about to collapse under my weight. The further I climbed, the more the air began to change. Slowly, the acrid scent of flowing sewage was replaced by sweet-smelling cinnamon, the lemony scent of cardamom, and the smokey scent of paprika. Was there a market above my head? I began to feel an oppressive, dry heat, a welcome reprieve from the damp, mildewy, and humid air of the sewers.

  I pushed against the sewer grate and stepped out into a bustling city. There were people! Actual humans. No sooner had I stepped toward the city’s heart than I glanced back only to see the sewer grate vanish like a mirage, sealing my retreat. I realized I had left the money in the first room. A scream tore from my still raw throat, turning several heads in the vicinity. I didn’t care as the merchants and passersby stared at me. “Why do I keep forgetting things? Crystal? Why aren’t you helping me?”

  The questions hung in the air, unanswered as Crystal didn’t return. I didn’t care anymore. I was useless without her and couldn’t make it on my own. Her silence was a chasm widening since her departure, each hardship—self-inflicted or otherwise—making the problem worse. Without her, my earlier resolve failed.

  I didn’t care anymore. I didn’t care about the Dungeon’s danger, the dungeon, or the monsters trying to kill me. I didn’t care about struggling to make something of the rest of my run. I just didn’t care.

  And then I smelled it right before I died—the heavenly smell of freshly baked bread and barbecuing meat. I almost cried as my stomach growled the loudest it ever had. It was so painful I took a step forward, anger forgotten. On a food stand in front of me, next to a baker whistling a jaunty tune while placing bread into the oven, was a mountain of freshly baked bread. As I approached the food, my head felt dizzy, my mouth slavering at the thought of food. If I had taken the time to slow down and think, I would have pondered that I hadn’t felt hungry until I arrived on the second floor of the dungeon.

  I grabbed a handful of bread. I took a bite, and an explosion of chewy, gooey bread and cheese melted in my mouth. It was filled with a cheese I couldn’t Identify, but the sour flavor complimented the crust of the bread well. The food was terrific, but, as if by magic, I suddenly felt an overwhelming sense of dread and despair.

  Suddenly, my earlier despair magnified tenfold. My mind shattered as I thought of the hopelessness of my situation. I knew I couldn’t win this floor. I didn’t deserve to win this floor after what I did.

  As despair tightened its grip around my heart, the guard loomed closer, his movements not those of a determined warrior but a soulless automaton. Each step he took seemed laborious, as if the greatsword he carried was a burden far beyond its worth, dragging him down with its weight. There was something deeply unsettling about him; his armor appeared pieced together from a mismatch of scraps, each piece clinging to him as though by some unseen force. The only clean part of his outfit was a shining gold helm with a blue plume jutting out like a horn. The plates of armor, a dull clash of red against blue, resembled shards of broken pottery, jagged and ill-fitting, and were made worse in contrast to the majesty of the helm.

  His eyes were the most haunting part; they shone with an unnatural glow, surrounded by a haze of inky smoke that swirled in shades of purple and black. There was an undeniable menace to it that rooted me to the spot. Anxiety wrapped around me like a cloak, adding to the weight of dread that kept me rooted to the spot. My body wouldn't respond to my frantic desire to escape. As he approached, brandishing a sword that heralded my end, a sudden insight cut through my fear...

  A stark choice crystallized before me in the shadow of the looming guard. The despair, which had gnawed at my edges over the past minute, now devoured the little will to persevere I had left. If I let this guard end me, everything resets. The notion of resetting the run and granting myself a clean slate at the cost of my current one sparked a desperate kind of logic amidst the chaos of my thoughts. As I stood vulnerable, the resolve to let go and embrace whatever came next settled in, a decision born from the darkest depths of hopelessness.

  Making the decision and experiencing the consequences were two completely different things. When the first swing made contact, it didn't just cut through flesh and bone—it severed my connection to a part of myself. There was a surreal moment where my mind couldn't accept the reality of my arm, now separate from me, lying on the ground. Shock buffered the initial wave of pain, a merciful dullness before the actual agony set in.

  It felt like molten metal flowed through my veins, a scorching torrent that consumed all sense of time and space. In a brief moment of disorientation, as I disconnected myself from the extreme pain, I tried to wiggle my arm and hands. It was so odd. It still felt like I could, but of course, nothing happened to the severed limb. And then, as I looked up from the limb, the giant sword swung back around, and the all-consuming pain somehow magnified until all that I was became pain. My head plopped to the ground, and I heard a thunk as my body collapsed. I blinked once, twice, and—

  ~~~ The Plane Of Torment ~~~

  [You big, dumb idiot. You don’t steal on the second floor, or the floor guardians will execute you. Dear Rellum! I think I’m even angrier now!] I was dead, but somehow, I still heard her voice through the darkness. [if they manage to strike you, they can deactivate all your class skills, leaving you only with weapons and armor for defense. And that’s when you haven’t destroyed an arm in a temper tantrum. We’re so screwed you can’t even begin to fathom it. We're going to have to figure out a way to kill it now without attracting further guard attention. It doesn’t just reset like bosses do. This guard has your scent forever.]

  [You have died. You have earned three death boons. End of Run 3]