'What a beautiful day today aswell.'
Azure blue sky with just enough clouds in it, green grass that's silky to the touch with trees giving shade from the glazing sun.
'If only it wasn't an illusion.'
Having said that this beautiful landscape before me vanished in mere second, and a bare room riddled with dust and debris fill my vision, with glowing gemstones inbedded into the walls and ceiling as the only lightsource.
'Another year has already passed, didn't it, or atleast i think.'
Well it doesn't really matter, after 20 years I couldn't keep count either way, the problem is that I don't seem to age in here, so I can't tell time by my own aging, so after 20 years, I just gave up.
Still I sometimes wonder just how much time passed since I fell into this hellhole.
I only know that this place is called dungeon of maddness, or something like that
"I dont even remeber what I came in here for, can you believe that? ...
Right, forgot I was alone."
'Anyway where was I?'
Right, going down the floors.
for the past, well.... atleast 20 years, i have been going down and conquering every floor I stepped into.
Feeling refreshed after a day of rest, I continued walking down the stairs
'Which floor is it now? 136 or 137?'
My only anchors were the numbers I carved into the walls.
Every floor is connected through a long, downwards staircase – or whatever imitation of one this place offered, on top of the staircase I carved the number of the floor I was on, then on the bottom I carved the next number.
It has become a kind of ritual now, signaling that i had conquered that floor.
On every floor there were a few types of different monsters.
Every floor was a self-contained hell, connected only by these interminable stairways – a mockery of architecture, descending eternally. And each floor held its own curated nightmares. The last one... 136... wolves whose fur crackled with stolen lightning, whose bites left nerve endings screaming. Bears that moved with grace that didn't belonged to a frame that big, claws that sent blades of compressed air that whistled like damned souls before tearing stone.
And the bunnies... Gods, the bunnies. Not cute, fluffy things, but sleek, obsidian horrors, moving so fast I could barely keep up with them, if it wasn't for that elixir fountain I found around the 50th floor I would've already died to them.
After a few minutes of walking I managed to get to the bottom of the staircase.
I took out my knife and started carving the next number.
This wall… it wasn't like surface rock. It was smoother, denser, almost metallic.
137, I positioned the tip, took a breath, and pressed down. The familiar, grating screech of metal on stone shattered the oppressive silence.
Every time I carved a new number the wall fought back harder, demanding greater strength.
Well, considering the depth I've come, it's kind of logical. Every floor is at least 5 meters tall, with some being almost 30 or more.
I dont even want to think about how deep I am.
I tried to climb up... I really tried, but as if there were some illusion I always ended up back on the floor, if I wanted to survive I had no choice but to go down.
'Done! Not a beauty but it serves its function, now lets eat before I go in.'
Reaching into my pouch I took out a roasted chunk of meat, and started eating it.
This pouch, my one and only friends down here besides my sword, I don't even want to imagine how hard would survival be without it.
I fount it on one of the earlier floor, and it has some kind of wierd spatial magic that allows it to carry oh so much more then you'd think. Basically everything that I found or hunted till now.
Once I tried testing how much it can handle, then ended up filling it for a few days with different ores, meat, bones, gemstone and basically whatever I could find on that floor.
'Ugh... Even a grain of salt would be a feast, everything is so god damned bland.'
My only source of food is the monsters I hunt, at least that has some variety. wolfes, bears, deer, fish, bunnies, and a lot of other monsters that I couldn't identify even if I tried.
the only problem is, for some reason the meat of the monsters on the lower floors become more and more venomous, or acidic? Something like that.
The only problem is that I'm starting to run out of the meat I stockpiled, and running back is almost impossible now with the distance I covered.
The last time I could eat what I hunted was 30 floors ago, and even there I had to drink some potions so the poison didn't burn my insides.
'Just 13 more floors.. just 13.'
Theres not much i remember from the early days but i remember that they said the 150th floor is the last
God I hope they were right...
'Who were they again?'
Eh, I can't remeber.
"Alright, 137," I whispered. "What fresh horror are you?"