The last few hours taught me a thing or two. Hiking was doable because the surroundings kept changing, which was not the case here. One would also typically set out well-fed, hydrated and rested. Again, not the case here. I was hungry, thirsty, on edge with a headache and desperately trying to ward off the bad thoughts, which had once again risen to the forefront, propelling my emotional rollercoaster.

  The only thing keeping me sane was pausing to listen against walls and floors every now and then, but chain-smoking helped. Everywhere I went, their aroma followed. Filterless cigarettes didn’t taste so good though, but the normalcy of it comforted me. Less normal were the endless corridors. Plenty of corners at odd angles, I’d come across everything except a proper 90-degree turn, but at least the floor kept level.

  I started out going almost true north-east according to my magic mind-weathervane, but my heading had eventually been perverted to west. Trying to maintain my original heading led to repeated backtracking from dead ends. There were a lot of those. Whoever made this place had way too much time on their hands, although that meant we had something in common.

  The only special thing about these hallways was the undead abomination population and the fact it was a maze. I’d found another of the bone golems an hour or so back and utterly demolished it, which at least improved my mood for a while. It was basically the same creature. I even pioneered a bit of a magic-sword technique there, if pioneering meant trying the first thing which came to mind. I swung both my arms from the same side towards jaw arm in a bait and switch to hit it with the lagging arm. It turned out to be rather effective and negated the observed downsides of my early testing.

  Another energy nail brought my total up to two. Putting them close together caused a fusion, at least when I thought-told them to. Sadly the System hadn’t rewarded me with a level up for making another kill. While a little tense, I still ended up being surprisingly alright with the whole maim and slaughter thing. An idea followed the reflection, one of trying to absorb energy from the crystalline fingernail.

  Immediate gratification was in effect as I’d gotten two mana from thinking ‘absorb’ while holding the tiny crystal. It disintegrated with faint crackling noises as a result. My accumulated mana supply had gone up all the way to 6, while the System’s user-friendliness bottomed out at zero.

  It would’ve been nice to know all this beforehand instead of having to figure it out by my fucking self. The tutorial definitely needed a redesign with a strong focus on including important information. I wasn’t going to advocate for it though, since there was no point in picking an unwinnable fight.

  I hadn’t thought it possible anymore, but something interesting happened after another two hours of walking vaguely west. The rickety crickety of another abomination had put me on high alert but the tempo was all off. Peeking around the corner revealed two of the fuckers. And they were fighting, although that was me being generous.

  I felt a bit embarrassed about having been taken for a spin by one of them, considering the hilariously dumb fight in front of me. They had serious issues harming each other and the softer scary bits of the appendages were ruined. The whole thing had apparently devolved into an ineffective wrestle which stopped upon my approached. It was going to take a bit of work but they were essentially helpless so I started a-choppin’.

  A sadistic streak seemed to have taken root within, considering the exceptional satisfaction hacking away at them gave. It wasn’t meant to last however, dulled by a worsening headache. Once the adrenaline wore off, every labored breath and pressured heartbeat sent a spike up my skull.

  It had been a while since my last proper rest and my thoughts were getting progressively dumber. Everything was sore as well, probably something to do with avoiding anything sporty since the pandemic. A quick interface check revealed another level up. Having earned a break, I sat down for this one. My stats had gone up again and the class box blinked but sustenance came first. Two more magic fingernails had entered my possession, which were promptly converted to energy and then into fuel for the ‘create food and drink’ cantrip.

  Swearing was just in my nature. But this time I cussed up a storm which would’ve made a sailor blush. Wish I had that kind of creativity in my day-to-day. My ‘food and drink’ had appeared out of the ether unto the floor and gently so, thank the System. My meal looked suspiciously much like a maccie d’s cheeseburger and a small coke, complete with branded wrapper and plastic cup. No straw.

  I cursed ‘the System’, ate every last crumb and pocketed the wrapper after licking it clean. The cantrip was remarkably authentic since it even nailed the typical ketchup overflow. Another smoke appealed. Along the way I’d resolved to save my death sticks for special occasions like dinner, waking up, or drawing my next breath.

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  My attention snapped while my heart skipped a beat. The smoke wasn’t going straight up, it angled. That meant airflow. It had been there all along but I hadn’t been paying attention. After getting up I promptly sat my stupid ass back down again and opened my interface, nothing had changed except my magical endurance, which risen up to 28. It was ‘skill-tag vocalization’ time once again. I already had a clear picture of what I wanted, having stumbled upon an obvious idea during my increasingly manic wandering.

  My ability and the sheath skill mentioned swords I control. The video game premise and dominance of thought-based instructions naturally landed my next attempt on telekinetics. It had nothing at all to do with the ol’ smoker’s lung. Why would it? Nothing suspicious at all about wanting all the results for zero effort. Fuck. Thinking at myself… slipping again.

  The skills kept on coming so I saw no reason to change my selection strategy. In the end, my first choice wasn’t bad at all. Although it was likely to benefit from some free time to practice to fully realize the potential. My inner critic reared up and kept asking when that was likely to happen.

  I considered using the tag ‘control’ but was afraid about it backfiring, possibly leading to something silly like letting me claim ownership of swords. Hey Gabriel, what’s your superpower? Theft. I didn’t really have a basis for my mistrust but this entire situation made me wary and the so-called System apparently played fast-and-loose with the meaning of words. One of my friends was a pedantic software engineer who’d go fucking ballistic over that. Shit. I was losing it, playing out conversations in my head.

  “Telekinesis”

  ‘’Skill chosen: Control.”

  Maybe I had to stop thinking angry thoughts about the System.

  [Control]

  “Manipulate up to three swords you control with your thoughts. Exertable power is half of yours. Range: 3 meters. Cost: None.”

  The wind called to me, but some testing felt appropriate. I moved it with my mind although it was a conscious effort and not very intuitive at all, like trying to write with my off-hand. The sensation blended weirdness and exhilaration. There was a strange kind of feedback, as if moving a part of me detached in the air. My next observation excited me a little less. It turned out half of my exertable power was not all that much. I guessed the culprit to be physics. Fighting off gravity left little force for anything else. One lucky break, that’s all I fucking ask.

  Building up momentum failed as well. A downward attack had the most potential for causing damage, but it was nothing compared to my own swings. This skill was actually kind of bad and more like a parlor trick than a combat ability. My interest waned. Perhaps more swords redeemed the apparent weakness, but I doubted it. Stockpiling seemed like a distant hope regardless.

  The wind called yet again and once I listened, following the subtle draft. The ubiquitous halls were as clinically clean as ever, with no dust or discernable smells aside from trailing cigarette smoke. It only took rounding two corners to find my salvation, an upward stairway towards lands unknown. Anywhere sounded better than here. I picked up the pace and my vision expanded to cover the full room housing my escape. There were a grand total of three interesting things here. Well, well, well, don’t spoil me now. This felt like the full silver-spoon experience, a welcome departure from the ever-present blandness.

  As usual, the room was uniformly lit like the previous hallways despite a lack of any discernable light sources in either. Similarly, I couldn’t see very far before clear vision made way for shifting shadows. It also had four hallways splitting off from it. Each aligned exactly with a cardinal direction. I’d come from the east. The northern hallway wasn’t even drab cave stone but actually tiled. A bit of paint wouldn’t hurt it, although any color besides gray would be a major improvement at this point.

  There were visible but tiny seams between the tiles, at least on the floor. The walls remained the boring same old. This was some suspicious shit right here. My examination of interesting things culminated in the stairway, which led straight up at an almost 45 degree angle before it began rounding away into darkness. I wanted to rush up the steps and hopefully get out of here, preferably towards anywhere less bland.

  But a dumb idea took precedence, of confirming my suspicions. I used my newfound telekinetics and poked the northward 60x60 tiles one at a time with my magic sword and surely enough my efforts were rewarded when one of the tiles moved at touch. It went up, fast and hard. Reflexively mind-pulling at my sword proved rather lucky, since it got wedged between the three meter high ceiling and the rising block.

  This series of events promptly launched it at my face, where it disappeared right before making contact. For once, I hadn’t flinched. The tile seemingly failed to connect with the roof, since there would’ve been a bang from the impact and no chance that I’d successfully have kept my eyes open. The eerie silence of it all felt deeply disturbing, suggesting precision without any driving mechanical force or contraption.

  My sword made it through undamaged. The event even inspired me to try something out later. I tried scratching ‘’DEATH TRAP’’ on a safe square with my magic sword but couldn’t damage it at all. The floor before accepted my vandalism though. A bunch of arrows supplemented the message, pointing at the text. There, can’t miss it. I couldn’t miss the confirmation either. This was a fucking dungeon. Hopefully I wouldn’t meet any dragons. Jinxing shit seemed the least of my problems.

  I made my way up the staircase while anticipating glorious natural light and whiffs of fresh air, resolving never to return here again. It was the blandness that did it, what a crappy hike this turned out to be.