Renzo sighed, closing his eyes for just a second as he stretched—and when he opened them again, everything had changed.
He was in a cave.
His eyes widened. He looked down at himself: heavy armor hugged his frame, a broad sword hung at his side, and a large pack rested against his hip. Around him stood thirty others, each dressed in similar gear, except they all carried pickaxes instead of a sword.
Before he could fully process what was happening, a man strode into view. Short bright pink hair, light brown eyes—and a calm familiarity in his voice.
"Ah, there you are. I was looking for you, Renzo." The man gave a brief smile. "We've been assigned to clear out the next two levels before tomorrow nightfall. Let's get moving if we want to stay on schedule."
Without another word, he turned and headed toward a ladder descending into the earth. He sheathed his sword and began climbing down, one steady step at a time.
Renzo hesitated. Nothing about this place felt right… but nothing about it felt wrong, either. Caught in the tide of uncertainty, he followed.
As his boots hit the rocky ground, Renzo finally broke the silence. "Sorry if this sounds rude, but… what's your name again?"
The man looked back with a chuckle. "Not rude at all."
He gave a light-hearted salute. "Name's Mez. I started just a few months ago—Mine Clearer division."
"Right... Mez." Renzo nodded slowly, pretending to stretch while touching the back of his head—only to realize he was wearing a hat. A thick, wide-brimmed miner's cap.
"Sorry, been drinking a bit too much lately. Can't seem to keep track of anything these days, where are we?" he added with a nervous laugh.
Mez grinned. "No problem, man. Right now we're in Mine Allie, sectioned off on the continent of Movi. Now come on—we've got work to do."
Renzo nodded again, still not sure whether he was awake or dreaming. The two of them delved deeper into the jagged tunnel system. Mez struck a torch against the wall and lit it with practiced ease. Renzo blinked.
'When did he even grab that?'
Suddenly, a loud hiss echoed through the cave.
A massive serpent slithered into view, its scales glinting faintly under the flickering torchlight.
"Look at that!" Mez shouted with a laugh. "Another damn Hopo!"
His amusement shifted into a smirk. A sudden crackle of energy burst from his body. Lightning surged outward, lancing toward the creature with searing heat. The serpent screamed—if snakes could scream—before collapsing in a charred heap.
Mez exhaled, flicking a few sparks off his fingers like it was nothing.
"One down," he said casually. "Keep your eyes open. These things get bolder the deeper we go."
They continued deeper through the tunnels, torchlight bouncing off jagged walls like nervous glances. Every few minutes, something tried to kill them.
First, it was a spider—but not one with legs. Just one long, sinewy neck ending in a toothy smile, dragging its body along like a worm trying to cosplay as a horror story. Mez skewered it mid-sentence.
"Don't let 'em talk," he said, flicking green blood off his blade. "They try to convince you they're your grandmother."
Further in, a snake appeared. But this one walked.
It had four stubby legs—bent backward like a bird's—and wore boots. Actual leather boots. It hissed while stomping toward them like it had somewhere to be. Mez didn't hesitate—he tossed a jagged stone at it, and the moment it was hit, the snake exploded into confetti and a faint smell of cinnamon.
"...That wasn't real," Renzo muttered.
"Nope," Mez replied. "Smelled too fake."
Then came the bats—except they had no wings. Just little eyeless blobs of fur that floated to the ceiling on small bursts of flame that ignited beneath them like miniature jet engines. One of them screeched, opened its mouth, and dropped a dozen coins made of ice that melted into steam before they hit the ground.
Renzo blinked. 'What the fuck is happening to me?'
After that, a creature emerged that resembled a lizard, except it was made entirely out of glass. It slid across the floor with a sound like tinkling wind chimes, eyes glowing bright blue.
Mez raised a hand to attack—until the thing politely bowed, did a pirouette, and then shattered into dust.
The torch flickered weirdly.
Behind them, a creature that looked like an upside-down man—feet where its head should be—tried to crawl toward them, gurgling the word "soup" over and over in seven different accents.
"I must be losing my damn mind..." Renzo muttered.
"No," Mez said. "You're just getting used to it... probably."
At one point, they passed a hallway filled with floating fish made of bone and fire, swimming through the air like it was water. One looked at Renzo and blinked three times, its skull face creaking like a door hinge. Then it burst into flames and vanished.
"Don't stare at those too long," Mez said casually. "You'll forget your favorite color."
Renzo shook his head, took a breath, and kept walking.
This mine wasn't just full of monsters.
It was a goddamn fever dream made real.
They turned a corner, and Renzo's feet slipped upward and slapped onto the ceiling as if it were the most natural thing in the world. Torchlight flipped upside-down with him, yet somehow still cast shadows downward.
"Don't panic," Mez said calmly, now walking sideways along the wall like he had an exclusive deal with physics. "Just a Gravity Bubble. Happens sometimes. Sometimes not. Sometimes it's your birthday and your bones float away."
Renzo opened his mouth to ask what the hell that meant, but the words drowned in a sloshing, wet noise.
A dog rounded the corner.
Except… no. Not a dog.
It barked like a dog, sure. But it wobbled like Jell-O in a thunderstorm. Its legs didn't walk—they jiggled. Its ears flopped around as translucent, jelly-like flippers. The thing's body pulsed like a heart made of slush, and it left a trail of glittering slime wherever it bounced.
The Jellydog stopped, stared at them, barked once—and then teleported, leaving behind a bowl of soup.
Renzo gawked.
"Don't eat that," Mez warned. "Last guy who did couldn't speak consonants for a week."
As they continued, they passed a creature hunched in a crevice—a crooked, frog-like beast made of moss and teeth. It croaked softly.
"Mine."
Renzo paused.
The creature tilted its head.
"Mine."
A vein twitched in Mez's temple.
"Don't let it say it four times," he said sharply, drawing his sword.
The creature blinked slowly.
"Mine."
"What happens if it does?" Renzo asked, stepping back.
Mez lunged forward, sword slicing through the air. The creature barely ducked back into the wall before disappearing into mist.
"If it says 'mine' four times in a row," Mez said grimly, "you forget how to mine coal. Not just 'you can't do it'—you don't even know what coal is. It's like trying to remember a dream someone else had."
As they cleared another tunnel, the air suddenly shifted—less like descending deeper into rock, and more like stepping out of a dream. The walls vanished. The cave turned into open fields of soft, impossibly green grass. Above them, the sky was an upside-down sea, undulating and glowing with starlight trapped underwater.
At the edge of the field was a lawn chair.
And in that chair… was Renzo.
Or at least, it looked like him—much older. His hair was fully gray, skin leathered by sun and time, shirt halfway open and sandals on. He was sipping something from a coconut with a tiny umbrella poking out. A pair of sunglasses rested on his forehead, and behind him?
A lake made entirely of chocolate. Thick, slow, glistening like it had a heartbeat.
On its surface swam a creature that defied everything natural—a dragon, sure, but made entirely of fur. Soft, rippling strands of golden white and violet. It had no face, just a mouth stretched into a constant, teeth-baring smile. It stared directly at them, without eyes.
Renzo took a cautious step forward, eyes wide.
"What... is this?"
Mez raised a hand, stopping him. "That? That's a Memory Lake. But this one's been… cooked by the Flow. Twisted over time. It remembers everything you might become, and serves it up with a little garnish of madness."
He pointed toward Old Renzo.
"That? That's probably you. Or someone close enough."
The chocolate lake pulsed, a low gurgle echoing like laughter in reverse. It began to pull, the grass bending toward it, soft ripples dragging through air instead of water.
"It's calling me," Renzo whispered, almost sleepily.
"It does that," Mez said. "Pulls from your desires. Your sweet tooth. Your memories. Your soul, maybe. If you drink from it..."
He trailed off.
Renzo glanced at him.
"If I drink from it, what happens?"
Mez chewed on his lip, then sighed. "Well, uh… first time I saw someone drink from a chocolate lake, he turned into four versions of himself. One was a horse. One was a priest. One just stood there screaming math equations. Another grew wings made of bread and flew into the sun."
Gravity snapped back to normal with a sudden lurch in Renzo's stomach. His boots slammed against the cave floor and he stumbled forward, hands bracing against the rocky wall.
"That chocolate lake's gonna haunt me," he muttered.
They pressed onward, the walls tightening and twisting like the cave was trying to remember what shape it wanted to be. Mez led the way, casually slapping monsters left and right—another bat without wings floated by, spinning like a top and screeching in Morse code. A jellyfish-bulldog hybrid barked once and then inflated like a balloon, drifting off into the shadows.
Then they saw it—A wooden door hanging sideways from the ceiling.
Just... swinging gently, as if it had always belonged there.
"There she is," Mez said, cracking his knuckles. He began climbing the jagged cave walls, agile as a spider.
"Where does it go?" Renzo asked, neck craned up.
"No clue," Mez called back. "But if it's up, it's progress."
With a shrug and a final smirk, Mez hauled himself up and dropped through the door—upward—like he was falling into the ceiling.
Renzo blinked. He waited. No sign of Mez. The door just kept swinging.
He took a breath, scaled the wall, and leapt—Gravity flipped again.
He fell upward, and landed with a soft thump.
Now he was in a clearing inside what looked like a massive cave chamber. Fires glowed gently in pits, and people—dozens of them—were gathered around a large wooden table. Some were laughing. Some were sharing meals. One man was roasting a chicken the size of a goat, humming. A woman played a flute softly nearby.
"Is this... a camp?" Renzo asked, confused. The atmosphere was warm. Comforting. Safe.
Mez appeared beside him, shaking his head.
"Nope," he said. "It's a lie."
He nodded at the group. "They ain't real. The moment you sit down and take a bite, you'll forget everything. Your name. Your purpose. Your will. You'll just keep eating, drinking, laughing... forever. Caught in a loop."
Renzo's brow furrowed as he noticed something odd:None of them blinked. Not once.
"Come on," Mez said. "Ignore it. Door's up ahead."
They passed through another old, rotted wooden door at the far side. No ceremony. No weird gravity flip this time.
Just a blink.
And suddenly—
Renzo was back in the hut.
The cold stone walls. The creaking roof.
Malik and Pren were both seated again, exactly as they had been.
"...So if we drain the lake first, we might weaken it enough to bait it out into the open," Pren said, flipping through the journal.
"That assumes it can be baited," Malik replied, arms crossed.
Renzo's eyes scanned the room.
No sign of Mez.
No sign of the mine.
No chocolate lake.
No furry dragon.
No twisted camp.
He slowly sat down.
"…What the hell just happened?"
Malik looked up. "You alright?"
Pren raised an eyebrow. "You look like you've seen a ghost."
Renzo swallowed. "...Something like that."