Now these smoke bombs are great and all, but what they can't do is produce an infinite amount of smoke. So sooner or later that smoke clears up. I say sooner or later but it takes around thirty seconds. This smoke dissipates, see. Air currents and drafts and all that. And when it does you're back to square one. There's a rabbit demon standing there and then there's you. Only difference is you're minus one smoke bomb.



If you'll recall, I already told you that one thing these smoke bombs can't do is create an infinite amount of smoke, but another thing these smoke bombs can't do is injure people. Worst case scenario is they cough a bit, but a demon like the one we're dealing with, it breathes in smoke like it's nothing. Prefers it even. So really as I said not a whole lot changes as a result of you throwing that bomb. Nor would you expect it to.



Now I know what you're thinking. You hear something like that and you wonder, "Well why do I even have these smoke bomb things in the first place?" Friend, it's simple. You use them for running. You throw a smoke bomb down on the ground and soon the monster can't even see the hand, claw, or other extremity in front of its face. Only problem is -- and we went over this before remember -- there's nowhere in particular to run away to. This whole floor's just one big room. You run to any location and that rabbit demon's going to be able to track your movements pretty easily. Not even using its tracking abilities (which it has), just using its eyes.



So that's the bad news. Good news is you're also equipped with other tools, namely a [[trusty dagger| Trusty dagger]] and a bag of [[sleeping powder|Sleeping powder]], both of which are much more likely to come in handy in a situation such as this.

See, these dungeons, they're not just around for the sake of being dungeons. They're there to hold treasure. In this case the treasure is a fancy medallion with a picture of the boss you just killed on it.



I know it may not seem like much of a reward, but think of this way: now if anyone ever doubts that you went through this dungeon you can just take out the medallion as proof. That sort of thing is a [[big deal| Medallions]] in adventuring circles, trust me. Also the medallion is made of solid palladium so there's that.



So yeah once you take the medallion it off the [[altar thing|Altar]], that's basically it. [[You're done here|The way up]]. Great job.



Speaking of the swords, have you considered [[killing that rabbit demon using a sword|You're a warrior]]? I only ask because there's this rabbit demon coming towards you -- and I do believe I mentioned it was coming towards you -- and it'll probably have to be dealt with sooner or later. If it isn't dealt with properly it's liable to kill you, see. And far be it from me to tell you how to do [[your job|Your job]] but I do think it's in your best interests not to die.

So the fight starts and you figure, "Hey, stick to what works, right?" <<if $class eq "thief">>First you try throwing sleeping powder at the boss, but it just shakes it off and doesn't go to sleep. Sleeping powder works great on your average workaday monster, but bosses tend to be immune to that kind of small stuff. What they aren't so immune to is stabbing. So you whip out your trusty dagger and go to town.<<endif>><<if $class eq "wizard">>You're really good at magic now -- way better than you were on the first floor -- and you've learned all kinds of spells you can just throw at this thing. So you pretty much go alphabetically, starting with Archangel's Trumpet and ending with X-BEAM.<<endif>><<if $class eq "warrior">>And what works for you is stabbing. So you go in and stab with gusto. You stab at every body part you can see with every sharp object you have. You even try using some blunt objects (your cudgel, your maul, your baton) just to mix it up a bit.<<endif>>



This goes on for a while. It's kind of hard to judge but it doesn't seem like <<if $class neq "wizard">>your repeated stabs are<<else>>your barrage of spells is<<endif>> really doing anything. See usually when big things like this start getting weaker they try to switch up their strategy a bit, on account of their current strategy is leading to them being made weaker. This boss, though, it's still kind of going after you in the same way.



Oh yeah, I guess now would be a good time for me to describe what this boss looks like. Well it's this weird spidery ant-like creature with these big [[mandibles|Mandibles]] and a whole bunch of [[eyes|Eyes]] and this thick [[carapace|Carapace]]. Just a gross [[bug thing|Species]] overall.

So you're in this dungeon, right? And the thing about dungeons is you gotta start on the top and work your way down to the bottom. If you're going the other way then you're in a tower, and if you aren't going either way then you're just in a location and your only options then are to keep being there or to go off and look for some dungeon.



So you gotta go down right? Because as I said the whole point is to go down and even if you wanted to go up you couldn't because you start at the top. That's where you are, by the way. You're at the top and the top is inside this crypt and the crypt is in the middle of a graveyard. There are these ghost things floating around but they don't bother you much, and they're already dead so nothing bothers them.



Now in addition to being in a crypt the door to this dungeon is behind this slab and ten seconds ago the whole deal was sealed up tight, but you've got this magic stone see, and when you hold up the stone to the door things start shaking and dust falls down and the whole deal kinda moves to the side. So that's what you did and now you're at the top, which is to say the start.



Anyway, the first floor, the one behind the door, it's kinda not much. You can't really see anything because [[it's dark|This lamp]] and you can't see in the dark on account of your eye's a human eye and it more or less needs light to go.<<set $class = "none">>

You cast that spell of yours one more time, only this time you cast it so that the non-existent top is on the bottom and the fully-existent bottom is on the top. Now that rabbit demon's [[really stuck in there|It jumps]].<<set $rabbit = "cube">>



That's a pretty clever move. Not as clever as getting it on the first try of course, but as the saying goes, "If everyone got everything right on the first try there'd be no need for anyone to do anything for anyone else ever, and that's assuming they'd even want to."



Besides, the whole point of a dungeon is to get some [[on the job experience|Your job]]. The best learning is doing, as the saying goes.

<<set $class="thief">>See, you're a thief, so you'd like to run away. That's how thieves operate, after all. They're stealthy and agile and like to move away from sources of danger instead of towards them. Usually that's a pretty good strategy, but right now you've got nowhere to run to, which kind of throws a wrench in it. As I said before, <<if $wallsoutside eq "yes">>the only walls in this place are the ones on the outside.<<else>>there's no walls anywhere in here.<<endif>> Which is to say there's nothing in the way of nooks and crannies, let alone alcoves or generalized hiding areas. It's damn near impossible to run anywhere effectively, at least in the long term.



But thankfully you have some thief tools with you. (The other thing about thieves besides the running is the tools.) You've got some [[smoke bombs|Smoke bombs]], some [[sleeping powder|Sleeping powder]], and of course a [[trusty dagger| Trusty dagger]].

Now compared to the way down, the way up is nothing. It's much simpler to go backwards through a dungeon, since you've already dispatched with all the enemies and lowered all the bridges and found all the stuff. It's a little tedious, sure, but aside from that it's a cakewalk. And with all the danger gone you can't help but let your guard down a bit as you make your way up to [[the first floor| Death]]. I mean, who wouldn't?

See the beauty part about being a warrior is that it doesn't matter whether you pick an axe or a sword or a polearm, it's all the same action, i.e. killing. So you take your chosen weapon and you kinda stab the demon with it a bunch of times. You stab holes in the gut and stab off the long ears (which are probably magic), and then even once in the face for good measure. There's blood all over the place and some of it gets on your shirt.<<set $rabbit = "stab">>



All this stuff sounds kind of gross, I realize. But you've got to understand, this is just no big deal to you. I mean killing stuff like this is basically [[your job|Your job]].

See, the thing with bosses is they all have a weak point somewhere on them. Now you might think that's a little arbitrary, and maybe even unfair to these bosses, but the reality is no one's perfect and frankly I find the idea bosses not having weak points much less credible than the reverse.



So you go and <<if $class neq "wizard">>stab<<else>>launch a big old fireball<<endif>> at that glowing red spot. <<if $class neq "wizard">>Sure enough, it's all soft and squishy. That weapon of yours just slides in like a hot knife through warm butter.<<endif>> And let me tell you, the boss doesn't like that one bit. It screams and runs around and then falls on the ground, giving you the opportunity to run in and <<if $class neq "wizard">>stab it a whole bunch of times.<<else>>throw some more magic spells at it.<<endif>> Which you do. It screams a bit more and then after ten seconds it gets up off the ground and goes back to how it was before.



See, now you're getting somewhere. All you have to do now is wait until that red spot is exposed again and go in for the kill. And well, that's exactly what happens. Sorry to skip ahead again, but that's kind of it as far as this battle is concerned. Basically you just do the same thing again, and then [[one more time after that|One last complication]], and poof! The boss is dead and you get to take the [[treasure|Treasure]] and [[go home|The way up]].

So this pouch of yours, the one designated for smoke bombs, it only holds thirty smoke bombs. That's a physical limitation of the pouch. Thirty-one smoke bombs would just be too much volume for the pouch to handle, at least if you wanted to close it right. And trust me, you do want to close it right. The last thing you want in a dungeon situation is for all those smoke bombs to go rolling out of your pouch. For one thing, you're liable to lose your perfectly good smoke bombs, but also if they hit the ground too hard they might just explode right then and there, creating a thick smoke. That smoke is useful as far as you're concerned, but deploy it in at the wrong time and you could trip yourself up or fall into a pit or who knows what.



Now, I have to be honest, when I say the smoke is useful, I'm not exactly speaking to the specifics of your current situation. You see, smoke is good for temporarily depriving your enemy of sight and facilitating an escape manoeuvre, but causing damage? Forget about it. It's not poisonous or anything and it won't [[put things to sleep|Sleeping powder]]; it's just smoke. Why even you're okay breathing it in, and you've got regular human lungs. Think of what an evil demon with its evil demon lungs can do. It can handle the smoke, that's what. If you want to actually get some damaging done you pretty much have to use your [[trusty dagger| Trusty dagger]].



And as for the pouch situation, if you think you can get away with stuffing a bunch of extras in your pocket, you can just forget about it. The thing about being an adventurer is you gotta have your items organized. Seriously, you can't expect to waste your time rummaging through a pile of stuff when there's a demon bearing down on you. The smoke bombs go in the smoke bomb pouch and only in the smoke bomb pouch and it's incumbent on you to keep a running tally of how many bombs are in that pouch. You're at twenty-nine right now by the way.

Now you're thinking, how does word get back to this thing that all its employees are dead if they all get genocided. You know, who's going to pass on the news and all that. Well, rumours like this have a way of spreading. You can understand, putting yourself in the shoes of the typical monster, if there was a genocide going on a few floors above you, you could expect that word of this would probably filter down somehow and generally unnerve everyone. Then again you're the genocidal type, so you may not be that interested in putting yourself in someone else's shoes. It's okay though, just trust me that it makes sense that the boss heard about all the genocide. And yeah, it's a bit ticked off about it. Outraged, you might say. And when a boss such as this gets outraged, that emotion usually gets expressed as [[murder|Fight]].

See if you ask me it stands to reason that folks back in those medieval times believed in demons more so than we enlightened folks do today, on account of they could more easily visualize the smell. Or I suppose visualize might not be the right word, what with smell being something invisible. I'm not sure what the right word would be though. Suffice it to say if you went to one of those medieval villagers and said "Friend, what do you suppose a demon smells like?" they'd probably pause for a second and then kind of gesture weakly to the pile of a thousand dead bodies lying there outside the city walls. Then there'd be a 1 in 4 shot they die of plague, right there in front of you. Plague's nasty like that.



These times you're in, they're quite a bit like those medieval times. You've got the [[swords|Swords]], for example, they're plenty medieval. And the castles too, although you tend to eschew the castles in favour of the dungeons (part of your [[job description|Your job]] and that). Thankfully it's light on plagues, although there are a wide array of poisons, [[curses|Curses]], general ailments, and miasmas.

$class = "wizard", "warrior", "thief"

$wallsoutside = "yes"

$flipcube = "yes"

$rabbit = "cube" "ice" "stab" "sleep"

$gencoide = "yes"

Oh, I can do all types. Bears, goats, dolphins, even the occasional rabbit. And speaking of rabbits you really are taking your time casting that [[second spell|Ice spell]]. If I didn't know better I'd say you wanted the damn thing to eviscerate you. But of course you don't since you are an adventurer and living through your adventures kind of comes with the job description.

Now bear with me here, it's your job to do dungeon stuff, but this boss isn't your boss. I mean, you have a boss, but your boss is somewhere else. <<if $genocide eq "yes">>What you're looking at is an unrelated boss peculiar to this here dungeon, and it's in charge of all the local demons you genocided. Needless to say it's [[a bit angry|Rumours]].<<else>>What you're looking at here is the boss of a completely different organization, namely the organization that runs this dungeon. You know, the dungeon with all the floors you just went down? Yeah, it's in charge of all of them. Or rather it was in charge until you ransacked and destroyed all of the floors. See the thing about dungeons is you kind of make a mess as you go through them. And boy did you ever make a mess here. So now the boss doesn't really have anything to be in charge of except for itself.<<endif>>



Now here's something really important about dungeons: when you come upon the boss of a dungeon, you gotta [[kill it|Fight]]. That's just how it works. <<if $class eq "thief">>I know you prefer the whole running away strategy but at a certain point you do have to start killing things, and now's as good a time as any (if not a slightly better one).<<endif>><<if $class eq "warrior">>Not that you need much convincing. I mean you probably would have killed it even if I hadn't said anything, what with how much you seem to enjoy murder.<<endif>>

''The Thing About Dungeons''



An interactive short story.



Written by [[Brendan Patrick Hennessy|http://bphennessy.com/]].



Created with [[Twine|http://gimcrackd.com/etc/src/]].

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That staircase, see, it leads down to the second level. And now that you've dealt with the whole rabbit situation you're allowed to move on.



Did I mention this before? Well if I didn't it's a good thing I mentioned it now because it's important: you've got to deal with the thing on the floor you're on before you can move down to the floor below you. You take things one step at a time is what I'm saying. It's just one of those rules.



So with all that said you can understand it would make sense to pause for a minute and look behind you. The rabbit demon is lying on the floor and bleeding out pretty bad. It'd take a miracle to save that poor bastard, I'd wager. But there's no point in worrying about that right now. After all, you've got a [[job to do|Your job]].

The Thing About Dungeons

Twenty-nine smoke bombs is enough smoke bombs for now though, and the thing about dungeons is they're always full of more of the stuff you came in with, so even if you run out of smoke bombs you're probably going to find more smoke bombs in a box or something. What I'm saying to you is you won't have to worry too much about losing your ability to produce smoke, [[as you've just done|Smoke]].

Really the only complication is after you hit the boss the second time it starts knocking down bits of the ceiling on top of you. But his whole knock-down-a-bit-of-the-ceiling attack has this really long wind up on it and you're able to get away from it without much trouble. And then as I said you hit him in the weak spot that third time and it's curtains.



So yeah, you kill him and that's pretty much it. I mean sure it gets your adrenaline pumping and everything but really it's all a bit of a foregone conclusion once you figure out the whole weak point thing. Anyway, he's dead now, and that leaves you free to grab the [[treasure|Treasure]] and make your way [[back up to the surface|The way up]].

<<if $class eq "none">>Oh yeah, your job is doing dungeon stuff. I thought you might like to know that. Anyway, we'll get to that later. Right now there's this rabbit demon right next to you and, well, I don't want to get too alarmist but it's probably going to kill you if you don't [[run away|You're a thief]] immediately.<<set $jobpeek = "yes">><<else>><<if $jobpeek eq "yes">>Didn't I mention your job already? It's doing dungeon stuff.<<else>>Your job is doing dungeon stuff by the way.<<endif>> I'd say it's a lot better than going into an office every day, but I suppose a dungeon is basically just a very specialized form of office. Still, you get a lot of variety doing dungeon stuff all the time. Different floor layouts and treasures and so on.



Speaking of which, there's some more dungeon stuff going on [[below you|And so on]] on the second floor. (Which don't forget means the second floor from the top since this is a dungeon and you're moving down from the start.)



By the way, while you're heading for the stairs <<if $rabbit eq "cube">>the rabbit demon jumps up and bumps the box <<if $flipcube eq "yes">>thing again. But as I said earlier you trapped it really well. So yeah, I wouldn't worry about it.<<else>>thing a bit. I'm sure it's not going to get it off though. I mean, this isn't just any box we're talking about here. This is a proper heavy-duty magic box. Basically I wouldn't worry about it.<<endif>><<endif>><<if $rabbit eq "stab">>the rabbit lets out this weak little groan thing. Probably just a death rattle. You stabbed that thing good after all. I wouldn't worry about it.<<endif>><<if $rabbit eq "sleep">>the comatose rabbit demon kind of twitches a bit. I wouldn't worry about it though. Probaby just an involuntary muscle spasm. That thing's out cold.<<endif>><<if $rabbit eq "ice">>you see a little pool of water forming at the base of the ice block. That's to be expected in these sorts of temperatures, of course. Don't get me wrong, this whole dungeon environment is pretty dank and cold, but it's still above freezing. Anyway, you've got that thing sealed in there good. I mean this isn't just a little bit of ice we're talking about here, it's not going to melt any time soon. And even if it did, which it won't, the demon will have already froze to death by then. Basically I wouldn't worry about it.<<endif>><<endif>>

<<set $class="warrior">>Yeah, killing it seems like the kind of thing you'd do, you being a warrior and everything. Well there's lots of ways to kill things as warrior. You've got your [[axe|Killing]], that's good for cleaving. Then your [[sword|Killing]], that's good for slashing. And then of course there's the good old [[polearm|Killing]], which is ideal for jabbing. Yes, you've got a wide range of weapons, which is fortunate for you as that rabbit demon is getting pretty close right about now.

That cure light wounds spell of yours isn't much use here, I'm sorry to say. See if you've been paying attention you'll know that the demon rabbit we've been talking about hasn't wounded you yet and if it does it probably won't be inflicting light wounds.



Now, you're an independent sort, I can see that. Not the type that wants hand holding or tutorializing. All the same, I feel like you could benefit from one teensy tiny little hint: namely, think about casting that [[ice spell|Ice spell]] we mentioned earlier. I really think it'd be just the thing for a situation such as this. That is, unless you're looking to be obliterated by this rabbit demon. But you're not the self-destructive type, are you?

Okay, you got me: they got walls on the outside. The perimeter as it were. But that's beside the point because it doesn't change the fact that it's all one room, and anyway everything has an outside wall on it sooner or later, except of course for the great outdoors, which even that, when you think of it another way, is completely surrounded by the effective wall that is outer space.



So yeah it's got no walls except the outside ones, which now that we're on the subject are decorated with this intricate repeating carrot motif that kind of fits together, in that you got the pointy end of one carrot sort of sliding in between the pointy ends of two opposite carrots and then on the other side the leafy bits all kind of meshing together, and so on.



Did I mention that rabbit demon is lurching towards you now, unhinging its jaw as it goes? Well it'll do that from time to time, or at least I assume as much since it's doing it at the moment. The way I figure it is you gotta [[kill it|You're a warrior]] or seal it into some kind of [[magic cube|You're a wizard]], or [[run away|You're a thief]].<<set $wallsoutside = "yes">>

So you've got these smoke bombs, see. You've got a whole bunch in a [[pouch|Your pouch]] and your pouch holds thirty and your pouch is still full because as I said you're just at the start of this dungeon. So basically you've got thirty smoke bombs. And these smoke bombs, the way they work is you throw a bomb down at the floor and the bomb explodes like a regular bomb but instead of fire only smoke comes out. And you know how they say "Where there's smoke, there's fire?" Well in this case, there's only smoke, and that's what comes out when you throw the bomb.



So you throw the bomb down and the [[smoke comes out|Smoke]] and now you're in a room full of smoke and you only have [[twenty-nine smoke bombs left|Twenty-nine smoke bombs]].

<<set $class="wizard">>Not to brag or anything, but I figured you'd try using magic, on account of you being a wizard. It just so happens you know a real useful spell about making cubes, and you've even got it ready and memorized just in case you need to make a cube, which you do. So long story short you make a cube and the rabbit demon is inside the cube and well, it's [[not going to get out any time soon|It gets out]].

This boss has got a whole bunch of eyes all over its body. I'm talking eyes in places you'd think wouldn't need eyes. Like who needs eyes on the elbow for example? Well this boss does apparently, and even if it doesn't it still has them anyway. Thing is, they're all monster eyes. Weird and beady and small and kind of greenish. Not regular human eyes, or even cute animal eyes like a dog has. You look into these eyes (which is difficult since the boss is trying to murder you) and you won't see any emotions. Just weird little orbs. Thankfully you can discern its emotional state from looking at its overall body language. It looks angry.



You try attacking the eyes, and even hit a few of them, but the boss doesn't seem to mind. You see? This is another way that its eyes are different from human eyes. If someone hit one of your eyes with something, you'd probably get all upset about it. But this monster doesn't seem to mind at all. Maybe it's because it has so many eyes already that it can lose a few without breaking a sweat.



Come to think of it, what it really seems to be guarding (as opposed to its eyes I mean) is this [[glowing red spot on its underbelly|Weak point]].

Yeah this rabbit demon's a horrific thing, that's for sure. That's the thing with demons is they tend to be horrific. If it wasn't horrific you probably wouldn't even call it a demon. You'd probably just say "rabbit", or "big rabbit" if it was bigger than a normal rabbit.



And this rabbit is bigger than a normal rabbit alright. Bigger than a normal human too, which happens to be the size you are. Stands to reason since you're a normal human, at least as normal as any adventurer can be, which in the context of a dungeon is 100% normal.



It's got ears, this demon. Big long ones, like a rabbit has. Hence rabbit demon and not just demon. It's got the white fur and the twitchy nose too. Of course there are some differences, among them the second mouth in the -- what do you call it -- the abdominal area, the thorax. The middle part. That mouth has these pretty awful teeth. Also it smells like a thousand dead bodies all piled on top of each other, like they had back in [[medieval plague times|Medieval times]].



The other thing about the rabbit demon is that it's been walking towards you this whole time, and not just by accident. If you're not planning on [[getting out of its way|You're a thief]] then it'd be a good idea to cast a [[spell|You're a wizard]], or [[kill it with an object|You're a warrior]].

I mean, if you're going to twist my arm about it I guess I could mention a relic or two. <<if $class eq "thief">>At one point for example you get this magic boomerang that you can sort of throw to hit distant switches. It takes you a while to figure out how to throw it and get the arc right and everything but soon enough you do and you're hitting distant switches like a pro. Sometimes you even use it to hit switches within reach, just to show off a bit.<<endif>><<if $class eq "warrior">>You see, your typical dungeon is full of boxes. Some of them are locked on top of being closed but most of them are just closed, and anyway it's easy enough to break open a locked one using one of your many weapons. Well inside these boxes are even better weapons than the ones you have. Some are longer, some are sharper, some are lighter, and a handful of them even have weird magical enchantments. Now you might be wondering how come the weapons you came in with are so much worse than the weapons you find lying around. Well as the saying goes, "They just don't make them like they used to." These may be antiques but they're reliable weapons, so naturally you pick up every one of them you can find, to the point where you get a bit weighed down and your back starts to hurt.<<endif>><<if $class eq "wizard">>See, these old dungeons, they're just full up with magic artefacts. You'd think people would want to put them in a museum or something, but no, folks seem quite content to leave them in a dungeon. That's good news for you though, since it means you can go in and pilfer them. You end up with quite the collection: wands, orbs, tiaras, chalices, tomes. Each one with its own history and unique magical ability. I could spend days going into detail about all the lore, but honestly you'd be better off just skipping it. It all feels kind of same-y after a while, know what I mean?<<endif>>



So yeah that's all well and good but at the end of the day it's not super important. What's important is you get through all the floors. Remember what I said about dungeons and going down them? Well much like the start of the dungeon is the top, the end of the dungeon is the bottom. And the bottom floor is where you end up after you go through all the other floors. And on that bottom floor there's this [[boss|Boss]].

Although come to think of it that cube of yours doesn't have much of a top on it. And come to think of even more of it that rabbit demon has tremendous jumping powers, what with it being a rabbit and a demon all at the same time, and for that matter it knows a thing or two about using those powers, which I'm sorry to say it goes ahead and does.



So now you've got this rabbit demon back out here again and everything's back to normal: it's coming towards you, you're in a room, only now there's also a useless mostly-cube lying around, just being useless.



Right now I bet you're thinking you're done for, but I didn't mention you've also got this spell book on your hands, and this spell book, true to its name, has got some spells inside it which you can try. There's the [[cube spell|Cube spell]], which as we saw wasn't tremendously effective the first time owing to that missing side, and there's the [[ice spell|Ice spell]], and of course there's the old [[cure light wounds spell|Cure light wounds spell]].



Now that's not a lot of spells, I know, but you are new to this whole wizard thing and it takes time to master any skill. Why, just look at me and my whittling. At first I was just making these big old featureless cylinders but I kept at it and now I can do [[animal shapes|Animal shapes]] and everything.

The mandibles are the main thing that the boss attacks you with. Whereas you have <<if $class eq "warrior">>your various sharp weapons<<endif>><<if $class eq "wizard">>your spells and whatnot<<endif>><<if $class eq "thief">>your trusty dagger<<endif>>, this monster has its mandibles. They're pretty sharp, and you have to do some serious dodging to avoid them. <<if $class neq "wizard">>Sometimes when you go in to attack the [[carapace|Carapace]] the boss tries to swing its mandibles at the same time and then they hit your weapon and there's this loud ding noise.<<else>>Sometimes when you try to throw a lightning bolt in its [[eyes|Eyes]] or something the mandible swipes at you and you get all interrupted and have to start casting your spell again. That's super annoying.<<endif>>



It has claws too and it swipes them at you from time to time, but the meat and the potatoes of this encounter is really the mandibles.



Oh, and I guess sometimes it [[spits these balls of acid|Acid]] too. But aside from the acid and the claws it's mandibles all the way.

So you pop back up to the first floor, and wouldn't you know it? There's the rabbit demon, <<if $rabbit eq "ice">>all sopping wet and shivering and standing in a pool of slush.<<endif>><<if $rabbit eq "sleep">>looking all refreshed, like it just woke up from a nice nap.<<endif>><<if $rabbit eq "stab">>looking a bit worse for wear (fur stained with blood and whatnot) but largely healed up, perhaps owing to some kind of demon power.<<endif>><<if $rabbit eq "cube">>all riled up, standing next to that magic cube of yours, which, you note, it has knocked over to one side.<<endif>> And... well friend, I'm sorry to say that it kills you. Pulls your heart clean out of your body and eats it right there on the spot.



See the thing about dungeons is you gotta start on the top and work your way down to the bottom, and a big part of working your way down is making sure you deal with each floor in order. If you leave something unfinished on the way in it's liable to get you when your guard is down on the way back out. Any good adventurer knows that.



Now, I know what you're thinking. You're thinking, "What's the big idea? You told me not to worry about it." And that's true. But what's also true is I was leading you astray the whole time. Not to brag or anything but that's kind of a talent of mine, leading people astray. Thing is, I knew full well that demon was going to come back to kill you later only I didn't tell you. Withholding crucial information like that is all part and parcel of leading someone astray.



See that's //irony//, where I know something you don't, or you know something I don't, or each of us thinks we know something the other one doesn't, when in reality neither of us do, or maybe both. Anyway it makes for a great story, but I suppose that doesn't mean a whole lot to you, on account of you being [[dead|Credits]].

You use your trusty dagger for stabbing things, and the reason I call it trusty is that it's that you can more or less trust that you'll be able to stab with it. You're pretty much an expert at going in for a good quick jab. Have been since you were a teenager. Or rather you thought you were an expert when you were a teenager. You were still pretty good back then, just not an expert. Now you're an expert.



So there's two things about stabbing with a dagger. Upside, as we mentioned, is that it's pretty good at stabbing. Downside is that it's really small, so you've got to get right up close. But by a happy coincidence, that rabbit demon is right next to you already, thanks mainly to how long it's taking you to sort through all these implements and strategies and whatnot.



Yeah it takes a while to figure out all this dungeon stuff. It's okay, I can sympathize. I myself once did a thing that took me a while to figure out. But that was way back in the day, and you don't want to hear about me anyway. You're more concerned about the stabbing.



So yeah, you stab the demon and it falls down on the ground.<<set $rabbit = "stab">>



Anyway, now that you've dealt with all that, you can head to [[the staircase at the end of the room|Looking back]] and get on with [[your job|Your job]].

Why just the other day you met someone with eight medallions, each one associated with a different elemental power. The Light Medallion had this great pearlescent coating and everything. To tell you the truth it made you feel a bit inadequate. But hey, now you've got a medallion too! I tell you, your fellow adventurers will sure be impressed. You should [[make your way on out of here|The way up]] so you can give them the good news.

So you turn your back on that rabbit demon and go down the stairs, and then you're on the second floor. And basically it's just like the first only there's more monsters to deal with and more walls and of course more vases. So you handle all that and go on to floor three.



Now I'm sorry to skip ahead like this, but you don't need to hear all the details, do you? After all, if you've seen one floor of a dungeon you've seen them all, and we've already established that you've seen one floor of a dungeon.



Sure, some interesting stuff happens. You pick up the [[odd relic|Relics]] here and there, get into some [[tough scrapes|Scrapes]]. But by and large it's just floor after floor after floor. And then twenty-seven more floors after that. See, that's the thing about dungeons: you gotta work your way down through the floor and you're not going to get all the way down unless you go through 'em all in order.

See this ice spell comes in three varieties, denoted by the roman numerals I, II, and III. You start with level I, which causes a few light flurries in the direction of that rabbit demon. Yeah, I'm afraid spells at this level aren't that powerful at all. This one shouldn't even be called ice, if you ask me, it's really more in the "snow" category.



Now I suppose you're thinking that you try level II next. Well, the thing is all these spells have descriptions. And the one next to level II says "create an even larger snowstorm in the direction of an enemy." Now I'd be surprised if creating a snowstorm is going to help you anywhere; it certainly isn't going to help you here. So you skip ahead to III, i.e. "freeze an enemy in a block of ice."



Now that's smart thinking. Not as smart as going for level III right off the bat, of course, but still worthy of some praise. Anyway, you freeze that rabbit demon inside that block of ice like it's your day job, which I suppose [[it is|Your job]].<<set $rabbit = "ice">>

Yeah, they've got no shortage of curses in these times. Why I happen to know a story about a prince who got transformed into a frog by way of just such a curse. See the thing was this prince, he was quite a handsome guy and damned if he didn't let everyone know it and not always in the most polite way neither. And then one day he got all rude in the direction of a crone, and wouldn't you know it? The crone turned out to be a magic-user who took the opportunity to turn him into the least beautiful creature in the world, that being (in her estimation) the humble frog. That prince stayed a frog forever and all the folks looking for him (and there were a lot, him being royalty and all) being well aware of the prince's whole beauty angle, never even thought to examine such an ugly creature for [[signs that he was a prince|Tiny crown]]. There's a term that playwrights and whatnot use for this kind of business, but the word escapes me. It all makes for some fascinating storytelling though, let me tell you.



Now [[if you want to be doing dungeon stuff|Your job]], it's incumbent on you to pick a tool. Plenty of folks pick magic, around a third of them do anyway. Might be the sort of option you want to [[pursue|You're a wizard]] with this rabbit demon situation, which, come to think of it, is rapidly spinning out of control as the aforementioned demon lurches towards you, its jaw unhinged, preparing to eat your very soul and tear your tiny human frame to shreds. Just a piece of friendly advice.

I mean if you really want me to, I could talk a bit about the scrapes. See there's monsters all over this dungeon. Not just that one on the first floor but all of types monsters on all types of floors. <<if $class eq "thief">>And trust me, you gotta do all types of stuff to get by them. Usually it starts out as sneaking and trying to be invisible but then one of the demons sees you and it starts yelling and then pretty soon every other demon on the floor knows where you are and you have to start throwing smoke bombs and running around like an idiot. It gets a bit tiring, if I'm being honest, but no one ever said that the dungeon exploration racket was easy.<<endif>><<if $class eq "warrior">>And being the bellicose type, you can't help but get into the occasional fight.



Well, that might be underselling it a bit. What you actually do is go through each floor and systematically murder every single living creature -- human or otherwise -- that you encounter. Really a the best word to describe it would be "massacre", or maybe "genocide." Still though, this is your job we're talking about. You gotta kill stuff to get through the dungeon, and you gotta kill all the stuff you see if you want to maximize your ability to kill stuff. Practice makes perfect and all that.<<set $genocide = "yes">><<endif>><<if $class eq "wizard">>And you're a bit of a wealking so these monsters tend to pick on you. One good punch in the gut and you're around one third towards dead. Thankfully you've got your cure light wounds spell, which'll bring you from one-third dead to no-thirds dead, or two-thirds dead to one-third dead, or from the very brink of death to two-thirds dead. It can do the fractions in between too.



On top of that you've got fireballs and lightning bolts and toxic sludge and all sorts of other spells. Pretty soon you're so good at magic that you can kill those monsters before they even get close enough to punch you. And once you start down that path, well, you get a bit carried away. Actually, that might be a bit of an understatement. Really what you do is mercilessly obliterate every living creature you come across with your magic abilities. Honestly it's a bit of an atrocity. A monster genocide really. But that sort of things comes with the whole dungeon exploration territory.<<set $genocide = "yes">><<endif>>



All of which is to say it takes a fair bit of effort to get down to the bottom of this dungeon. And I don't want you to think it's easy just 'cause I'm skipping over it. That's storytelling, see. Sometimes you skip over the hard stuff and show the easy stuff because the easy stuff is more interesting, and then sometimes you do it the other way around for the opposite reason. Point is, you rarely show everything, and if you do it's usually because you there isn't that much to show.



But none of that's super important. What's important is you get to the bottom of the dungeon and the bottom is the end thanks to the nature of dungeons. And when you get to the end, there's a [[boss|Boss]] there waiting for you.

You actually start to wonder what species this thing is. I mean those [[mandibles|Mandibles]] look pretty insecty, but the [[body|Carapace]] and all the [[eyes|Eyes]] look kind of spidery. Spiders aren't insects, are they? Or is it that thing where all spiders are insects but not all insects or spiders? Someone probably taught you all this at one point but right now you're having a hard time remembering, perhaps because your mind is a bit preoccupied with trying to avoid being killed.



You know come to think of it, this is probably the only creature of its kind in the entire world. I mean you've never seen anything like it before, and you probably won't see anything ever like it again. That's how dungeons go after all, the thing at the end is always unique. So really you're making this thing -- however you would classify it -- go extinct. You might say that's kind of a problematic move on your part, but as I said, this is all part of your job.

You know what, he wasn't your uncle, he was just some guy. I think he was a friend of your father's, or maybe a friend of your uncle's. Gave you that lamp special. And the magic stone, too. Lamp and stone all in one go; how's that for convenient? I'd say if you've got anything at all it's indirectly because of him, at least as far the stuff I already mentioned is concerned.



Come to think of it, I think you might have called that guy uncle by mistake. But if you did he didn't mind, or he did mind but he didn't say anything.



Say, remember that rabbit demon I was mentioning earlier? Well it's started heading towards you. And it's got its bucktooth-fangs out and everything. I mean I'm not here to tell you how to do [[your job|Your job]], but you'll probably want to [[neutralize it with magic|You're a wizard]] or [[kill it with a big old sword or something|You're a warrior]].

But that's no problem for you because you got this lamp. You remember the lamp, don't you? You got it from [[that old guy| That old guy]], think he was your uncle, talking about how back in his day he used to go into dungeons too, and sometimes towers even, and once in a while he even went in for one of those maze things.



The way it works is you turn the lamp on and everything gets brighter. Ergo, you go from seeing none of the floor to seeing all of the floor, all in one go. This whole floor see, it’s just one big room. They got [[no walls anywhere|Walls on the outside]]. Only thing they got is vases and skeletons and this [[rabbit demon thing, around eight feet tall, just sitting kind of in the middle of the floor and making this weird staticky humming noise and slowly turning its head around to stare directly at you|Rabbit demon]].

All of these dungeons have an altar in them somewhere. It's just a common design feature, much like having the start at the top and the end at the bottom. You've never seen anyone use them for religious ceremonies or anything though. They're probably just for show.



Anyway you grab the medallion off the altar and then before you go you also grab the votive candlesticks and regalia and whatnot. Basically anything else in the room that looks kind of shiny. That other stuff isn't really part of "the" treasure of the dungeon, but you never know what there might be a market for [[back up on the surface|The way up]].

<<set $flipcube="yes">>See? It kind of jumps up again but all it does it bump its head and nudge the thing a bit. You've trapped it really well. "[[All in a day's work|Your job]]," you think to yourself. No use saying it out loud since there's no one here besides you and the vases and the skeletons. Oh and the rabbit demon in the upside-down cube of course, but it barely speaks English (if it all), and English is your native language, not to mention your mother tongue and the only thing you know how to speak.

Brendan Patrick Hennessy

Oh yeah, this thing can spit acid too. It's a real son of a bitch if I'm being honest. But when it does spit acid it gets into this weird pose where it kind of arches its entire boy and reveals this [[glowing red spot|Weak point]] on its underbelly. I hope you won't think I'm giving away too much by saying this but I do think it's kind of an important detail.

<<set $rabbit = "sleep">>Now your sleeping powder, that's great for putting things to sleep. It's right there in the name. Put the powder on something and it goes to sleep. "Sleeping powder." Well, you decide to throw some of that powder on the ever-approaching demon and sure enough it works as advertised: the thing goes out like a light.



Damn near in a coma, really. One might even say you overdid it a bit. But hey, I'm not here to tell you how to do [[your job|Your job]].

The carapace is the main thing you're attacking right now, and as I said you're not doing a whole lot of damage. Now you've seen your fair share of carapaces (can't expect to get through thirty-odd floors of dungeon without seeing a carapace or two) but this is carapace is thicker and more resilient than any of 'em. I suppose that's the reason they made this thing the boss of the dungeon. I mean, if you're going to promote a monster from within (and it stands to reason that's how they're going to do it, what with dungeons being sealed to the outside world and all) I'm sure one of the main things you'd consider is "Who has the toughest carapace?" and then if two candidates had equally tough carapaces you'd start looking at other factors. Ability to [[spit acid|Acid]] maybe.



But you know, looking at this carapace some more you can't help but notice this [[glowing red spot|Weak point]] on its underbelly. That's not a typical feature of the carapaces you've seen, and again, you've seen your share of carapaces. You suspect it might be worthy of investigation.

There were signs he was a prince, of course. Foremost among them being that he had this tiny crown on his head. Witch magic has a way of doing stuff like that. There's some other story about a girl losing a shoe that has the same kind of detail. Pumpkin turns into carriage, and wouldn't you know it but the carriage still has a stem on top. Now there's something else they didn't have in medieval times, a pumpkin. New World crop and all that.



Well look at that. While I've been going on about all this curse stuff the rabbit demon came up right close to you and now it's going to kill you. It intends to, anyway. But you still have time to [[fight it off|You're a warrior]] or as I suggested earlier [[trap it in a magic cube|You're a wizard]] or even just [[run away|You're a thief]] like the girl in that story. You remember, the one where she lost the shoe? I know you've got pressing things on your mind but I was talking about it just a second ago.