It was the day. Today, Pepe would go into the dungeon with the party, and to boot, Michelle was joining them. He wasn’t sure how he felt about her—well, he was, but he doubted she felt the same way. It was all right; he would still enjoy her company.

  That morning, Pepe was eager to leave. He went downstairs and planned to wait for the rest of the party. He, of course, wanted to be there before Michelle, but to his annoyance, she was already sitting down, waiting for them. Croos was with her; he had dropped off some food and was simply looking at her with what Pepe was sure was the same dumb expression he himself had worn yesterday.

  Her hair was down, and it looked freshly washed and combed. How did girls do that? They always looked like they had just stepped out of the shower. As for him, his clothes were rumpled, and his hair was a mess, even though he had tried to style it. They both wore similar clothes, as both were thieves, but she made the clothes look good; he, not so much.

  He sat down and nodded to both of them. “Good morning. Ready to go?” he asked, turning to Croos. “Can you rustle me up some food, please?” He just wanted to get rid of the little guy so he could be alone with Michelle.

  She smelled of something sweet. Had she put on some kind of perfume? What did he smell like? He hoped he didn’t smell bad; he had taken a bath yesterday, and his clothes were clean.

  “Sure am. My daggers are cleaned, oiled, sharp, and ready to take down anything we find,” she replied. She sounded excited about the trip. Maybe that was what he liked about her.

  Croos returned with breakfast and placed it in front of him. He looked at what he had brought: a plate of what looked like eggs and potatoes—or whatever the equivalent was in this world. It looked delicious, and he was rather hungry, so he started to dig in.

  “Slow down, Pepe. No one’s going to take it away from you, I promise.” He stopped and looked up. She was smiling at him. Again, that smile of hers brought color to his cheeks—the embarrassed kind of red.

  “Sorry, kind of hungry,” he mumbled. He slowed down, just as she suggested. The eggs were great—sunny-side up and cooked to perfection. The potatoes were also good, with a slightly sweet taste. She began to eat her food as well, eating delicately and in small portions compared to his shoveling. He didn’t really know anything about her: where she came from, who her family was, what her favorite color was. He would need to ask her about those things.

  She finished eating and cleaned her mouth with the cloth napkin they had been given. Mr. Rowen ran a nice inn; he always set out cloth napkins for the customers, and everything was clean. There were no wobbly tables or chairs in the place. Pepe often saw the man cleaning the common room, pushing Croos to do the same, and generally ensuring his inn was perfect. They didn’t even need to make their beds, though Erin and Bobby always did. Normally, Pepe would leave his a mess, only to return to find it perfectly made.

  He was about to start asking the questions he had been thinking about when his cousin interrupted. “Pepe, there you are. And I see you’re trying to keep Michelle all to yourself.” Yes, he would kill Manuel, slowly, even if he was his cousin. His Tia wouldn’t miss him, he was sure.

  “Primo, te voy a matar. Yes, we’re just eating some breakfast,” Pepe said. He looked up to see the whole group coming downstairs. Well, the questions would have to wait.

  ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

  “So, we just go in and find the entrance to the rest of the dungeon?” Pepe asked. They all pretty much shrugged; no one really knew. Guess they would all find out together.

  The cave was just that—a cave. Nothing fancy. There didn’t seem to be any animals that they could see—no bats, no rats, no bears, wolves, or anything. It was just a lot of solid rock, at least at the entrance. They went in, this time prepared with torches. Using Josh’s little light-ball spell was all well and good, but it just didn’t provide a lot of light.

  Pepe carried one of the torches, Michelle the other. They positioned themselves on opposite sides to provide maximum light for everyone. The smell wasn’t great; the burning pitch was pungent, the smoke making his clothes stink.

  They walked for an hour and found nothing. What they saw next, though, was just strange. From around a bend, light seemed to shine—Well, of course there is, Pepe thought. This is just like a video game. They rounded the bend, and he and the rest of the group simply stood there, looking up at the sign that read “Caverns of Desbora Dungeon” and, just underneath, another sign that said “Welcome.” The signs were freaking neon. What dungeon had neon welcome signs?

  Next to what they could only call the entrance hovered two cylindrical objects. Was one of them Regi? What was Regi doing here? Even stranger, they wore hats—not just any hats, but newsboy hats. The one on the left wore a red hat with a number on it; the one on the right, a similar hat with a different number on it—this one green.

  Looking over at the rest of the group, Pepe saw that they were all open-mouthed at the display before them. He looked at Michelle, and she looked at him and shrugged. Who knew what this silliness was about?

  As a group, they went forward. Josh took the lead as they reached the entrance. He turned to the red-hat-wearing Node. The number embroidered on the hat was 1337; the green hat had the number 1. They hadn’t moved or spoken at all as the group approached. It almost seemed as if they were off.

  “Hello, is that you, Regi?” Pepe asked. He had to agree; the Node looked exactly like Regi—well, so did the other one, so who knew?

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  “Oh, you know Reg… I know not of whom you speak. My name is DungeonNode1337,” the Node replied. The voice wasn’t Regi’s; this one had a different tone. The voice seemed older than the teenage voice Regi had.

  The other Node also spoke. “How do you know the Boss?”

  “1, stay in character!” the first Node hissed. These two obviously knew Regi, but they had some kind of game going on.

  “Um, okay, I guess. Anyway, how do we get into the dungeon?” Pepe asked. He was eager to get in and be done with all this silliness, but he found it funny how the two Nodes were clearly amateurs at this.

  “Welcome to The Caverns of Desbora Dungeon,” the first Node said. The voice had changed to something deeper, making it sound ominous, especially after he said the name. His fellow Node provided some background noise and even some music and an “ooh, scary” after the name.

  Pepe laughed at that last part. It was just funny how hard they were trying and how they were failing.

  “Enough of that, 1. We agreed I would present it, then you would give them some more info. I am sorry about my fellow Node. He gets overexcited.” That was an understatement; these two were clearly having fun with all this. Pepe recalled Regi having that same enthusiasm as he presented the roles. It was almost as if they didn’t talk to real people on a regular basis.

  “I’m sorry, 1337. Please continue,” 1 said.

  The back-and-forth between these two was like a comedy act, something akin to those old movies his grandpa used to watch. The old man had learned English late in life, and while his English was rough, he could get by. The old man had started watching old movies, enjoying some comedy act by Bob Hope and Bing Crosby or something like that. Pepe was sure he wasn’t remembering the names right. He recalled sitting with his Abuelo and watching them with him. Some were in black and white, which made no sense to him. They had color, so why were some movies in black and white?

  Back to the present—no time for memories; they needed to get into this dungeon. It seemed that while he was remembering his Abuelo, the Nodes had almost finished talking. “…and you will need to worry about three bosses. Beat them, and you will be rewarded.” This was all he caught of the explanation. Hopefully, he hadn’t missed anything important. More importantly: three bosses—beat them, and you get the loot.

  The whole explanation had taken way too long, and as the Nodes finished with a “Well?”—well, what? The Nodes were waiting for something. Bobby began to clap. Oh, so that was it. Pepe started clapping as well to make the Nodes happy.

  “Thank you, thank you. Without further ado, let the games begin. Begin transportation countdown. HelpNode, if you please.” Pepe had totally forgotten about Maria. Silly him; he could have asked her about all this. And what was this “transportation” they were talking about?

  Then everything changed. He started to feel strange, like when you go on one of those carnival rides and you go up and then drop. He felt that sinking feeling in his stomach, a general sense of weirdness all around. Then he saw the room disappearing, his vision getting blurry, and everything starting to fade away. The sensation lasted perhaps a second, then it changed. The room they found themselves in resembled a locker room. He saw a row of lockers when his vision cleared.

  He looked around. It was like a gym locker room, complete with lockers and a long bench seat. Behind them were what looked like uniforms on hangers. The uniforms consisted of either a green or red shirt, a matching hat, blue overalls, large black boots, and white gloves. The boots and gloves were overly large; the gloves weren’t quite as big as the foam hands you see at sporting events, but they were still large.

  The weirdness continued; this place was just crazy. There was also a large dress hanging in the room. It was pink and very frilly, with delicate gloves and even a crown to go with it. He knew what Michelle would think of that. It was probably a good thing they had multiple uniforms of the other kind.

  Michelle looked around, saw the uniforms and the single dress, and she was not happy. Pepe had seen her unhappy before; the training incident flashed through his mind. “Not going to happen,” she muttered, grabbing a uniform with a red shirt. Had he missed this part of the explanation as well? He didn’t recall hearing about uniforms. The others grabbed uniforms with green shirts. Pepe looked around. He certainly wasn’t going to wear the dress, and since his friends had taken the green ones and Michelle had already claimed a red one, he chose a green one as well.

  Luckily for them, there was a changing room with a curtain for privacy. You could hear Michelle complaining about the dress in her changing room. “I can’t believe this…” and “A dress? I’ll show them, stupid Nodes.”

  He was sure she would have looked great in the dress; it was very pretty, especially with her red hair. But he wasn’t going to put his foot in his mouth with her again. She had shown him what would happen if he treated her like a delicate flower. Yeah, he wasn’t going to do that again.

  He came out and saw that the others were already finished. He had been the last to grab his uniform, and they were just waiting for him. They had put on the uniforms they had brought in with them, and they all looked just plain silly. The large boots and gloves were ridiculous; he wasn’t sure why they needed them.

  “Now what?” he asked. As if to answer his question, a loudspeaker went off, the sound a little distorted at first.

  The voice that came through was 1337’s. “All indications show that participants are ready for the first floor. Activating uniform skills; please do not be alarmed.”

  They just seemed like regular things—jumping, punching, and kicking. Nothing special about that. What the heck were they for? Pepe shook his head. What the heck was this all about? And the “Hero Plumber” part of the uniform’s name—like in the video game—why was it always about video games? How in the world did the Dungeon Nodes even know about their games, and why were they like that comedy duo? Did they have a TV and video game machines? They must; that would explain it all.

  “Initializing Floor 1. Enjoy the dungeon, and don’t fall.” What was that about—fall? Pepe was sure this had been explained while he was thinking about something else. What else had he missed?

  “Please enter through the door at the end of the hall.” No further instructions followed this last announcement.

  There had been no door; it was just a wall when he had looked. They all turned around to look, and, to no one’s surprise, there was a door at the end of the hall lined with lockers. What kind of rules did this place follow? They made little sense to him; everything he knew from their world worked differently. It didn’t really matter; they were about to enter the dungeon.