I walked for a little while longer. I didn’t have anything to talk about with Lela. I’m 63 years old and Lela was… A couple hours old? Trying to start a conversation seemed impossible.

I tried anyway. “Lela what do you do in your free time?”.

Awkward conversation starter aside I did get a response “I would like to host a tea party and gossip about the other familiars and survivors. Eventually when we meet up with other people that is my plan”.

That whole idea caught me off guard. I let the conversation drop. In the back of my head I was thinking maybe Lela got her personality from me somehow. Like I expected a familiar to be motherly and caring so it happened. I never would have thought gossip and tea parties would be a good use of time though so that idea flew out the window.

Trying to get the conversation going again I asked “What do you remember before the Apocalypse?” and again got a crazy response. “I remember gossiping with your other belongings. Your flashlight is quite the storyteller considering all the dark and scary places he’s been. He really knows how to build suspense. Laptop on the other hand. He was scared with what you put him through. You really needed to spend that much time looking up porn? And every day. Harrumph”.

My wife died many years ago. That’s my explanation and the end of that conversation.

I couldn’t help but feel a little embarrassed but considering this was a talking LEL meter chastising me and we were alone in a subterranean dungeon after the world ended I got over it quickly. I didn’t keep talking to her though.

Shortly later though the pathway in the dungeon split into two paths. One archway was the same gray and boring and the other creepy and sinister. The new pathway seemed to be made of bones. Cartoonish like oversized and not anatomically correct bones but still white ivory collared bones. There were occasional arms and hand bones reaching out from the wall and they sometimes moved and grasped at nothing. Very disturbing.

I broke silence with Lela and asked what this pathway was. She informed me “That is a dungeon entrance. That passage should have no other exit and there should be a boss monster that way. I recommend going down that path for an exciting fight”.

“A dungeon in a dungeon? How does that make any sense?” I asked. She shot back in a motherly tone “It doesn’t”.

“Well can you at least tell me what’s going to be down that passageway?” and in another terse tone Lela responded like it should be obvious “Skeletons” as if that was the most obvious thing in the world.

“My beautiful woman, how about you enlighten me in the obvious things I have missed” I finally asked. Saying that phrase hurt a little bit. I often said similar things to my wife before she passed. It was a common joke among us. She was a respected college graduate and fairly smart. I was a blue collar worker and while I liked to think I'm not dumb I knew she was quite a bit more intelligent than I was.

The pain quickly subsided though. I had come to terms with my wife’s death years ago and she would want me to carry on. She had at least one Carry-On sign in every room of our house and I never removed them.

We use to argue about those signs and the “Live-Laugh-Love” stickers that I’d come home at the end of my work cycle and see. I would get mad that she spent money on something silly, she would say “well if you were here you could have stopped me”, and I’d feel bad I was gone for so long. In the end I’d get over it because it was her house too and we both shared the money.

It’s the small compromises that really make you aware that you love someone.

My mind was lost again and Lela pulled me back: “Down that hallway you will likely face an increasing number of skeletons of various kinds. The boss will likely be a skeleton warrior, mage, or some other nasty thing. I recommend we clear this dungeon because you’ll get excellent loot and experience. Also we found this dungeon early. If we procrastinate doing the things that must be done we will never get anything done!”

I wasn’t particularly sold but I did enter the skeletal arch way with my shield up and spear pointed forward.

I then had the bright idea of stopping and creating an airlock of sorts in the first 10’ or so of the new passage. I blocked off both sides and made it to where nothing could follow me out of the dungeon and if I needed to exit the dungeon I would have at least 10’ of space where nothing nasty could be. Lela thought this was a worthy endeavor too and promised to remind me if I ever didn’t do this in the future. Past the entrance the dungeon walls quickly returned to the boring gray rock and there were no scary skeletal arms trying to reach out and grab at me. I wondered if it was a cost saving measure. “Oh we’ve only got a budget for the first 15’ of spooky décor”.

I set up a tag on the wall outside of the dungeon archway explaining I was going inside and what these spooky passages were.

Everything set up and basic preparations complete I slowly walked down the passage with my spear pointing forward. About 50’ past the first bend in the tunnel I noticed a big area on the floor that was marked with a red box in my vision. I was surprised at first and then I remembered my trap finding ability.

I walked up and taped the red box with my extended safety spear. The fake floor crumbled away under the light pressure and revealed a nasty pitfall with gruesome wooden spikes down at the bottom. There was enough room to move around the outside of the pitfall if I was in better shape but even if I was skinny and dexterous enough to balance along the wall it would mean that I couldn’t quickly exit the passageway.

That would not work. I set off making a quick bridge. Two 20’ poles of danger tape and a mesh of danger tape connecting them together creating a platform of about 6’ apart.

Then using the makeshift bridge to span the gap. Then I taped the bridge down to the floor using, you guessed it, more barrier tape. The makeshift bridge was rock solid and apparently almost indestructible if Lela was any good at judging bridges.

To get in the habit I left a Danger Tag on the wall explaining the trap and the safety bridge. You never know who might be coming down this tunnel after me.

Crossing the bridge I was extra glad for my judicious preparation as immediately 2 skeletons jumped out of alcoves rushing my way. Calmly and slowly I backtracked across the bridge facing the two new threats and they followed. That was a bad move on their part because the first very quickly got tripped up and fell off the bridge when I swiped my safety spear at the skeletons feet.

The first skeleton fell over in a heap and slid off the bridge. He exploded into 206 pieces, no 207 pieces including his sword, and the second skeleton didn’t even slow down. He tried to swing at me but I casually blocked with my light shield. He moved forward for a thrust and again it was almost impossible for him to get by my shield.

The shield was almost as tall as I was and being so light I had no issue holding it up. I backed off the end of the bridge and waited for the skeleton to follow. When his front foot stepped down off the platform I exploded forward and shield bashed the skeleton over the side. Not expecting this and being significantly lighter than my 320lb body, the skeleton soon joined his friend in a pile of bones and splinters at the bottom of the pitfall.

Lela was clapping like her favorite horse just won the Kentucky derby. I felt a little emasculated but let it slide.

I wanted their swords but I couldn’t think of a safe way to get down to the spike trap and back up. Yes I could make a ladder but it seemed very foolish to do that in the middle of a dungeon inside a world ending dungeon.

I figured I’d get better loot than the rusted blades anyway so I walked back across the bridge and tagged the alcoves the skeletons were hiding in.

Further down the skeletal tunnel I ran into a tripwire. After considering my options I made a force box around myself and used my trusty safety spear to trigger the trap.

As soon as I triggered it a massive bladed pendulum swung down out of a crack in the ceiling I hadn’t seen before and slammed all of its weight into the force box. It stopped cold. I took a second to consider changing my pants but passed under my safety box and used some tape to archer the pendulum down and tagged the tripwire and I tagged the immobile pendulum.

When I was doing this Lela started beeping again as an arrow flew out of the dark recessed alcove up ahead and I barely had time to think before it skittered off my shield. Again, very lucky.

The skeletal archer let another arrow fly but this time I was ready and it didn’t even bother me. I just hunched up a bit behind the shield and the next two arrows hit an unbreakable object.

I can only assume the skeletal archer was a bit perturbed because he just stood there, waiting for a shot. I stood behind my shield. Neither moved.

I thought for a second and instead of approaching the skeleton I handed Lela my old trusty walking staff and had her fly up above the alcove the skeleton was hiding in. When she was in place I activated the force barrier on the staff and it stayed in place over the alcove. Taking that as a good sign I dropped my shield and the skeletal archer tried to fire. About 3” in front of his bow, before the arrow even left the string, the arrow hit a force wall of epic power. The force of the arrow stopping so abruptly shot the skeleton’s bow back towards him and the skeleton ended up punching his own head off.

I casually walked up, yanked the bow out of the skeleton’s hand, and kicked it in the shin. I was getting really annoyed with skeletons by this time but I did tag the skeleton as a danger and gave it another kick for good measure.

This apparently counted as being defeated because the skeleton disappeared and only the bow and quiver with 1 arrow remained.

A little further down I encountered another trip wire. Not to fall for the same trick twice I put up a force box around myself and Lela and pulled out my trusty flashlight. The same flashlight that was apparently better at telling stories than I was. I clicked it on and did a 180 degree turn.

There it was, an Indiana Jones style bolder trap. How cliché. Well right up ahead the cavern opened up into a much larger area and I presumed that was the final boss. I gingerly stepped over the trap and made another air lock right before the entrance into the final room.

Safe in my airlock of… er… safety. I turned on my flashlight and looked in the final room.

At the back of the chamber there was a solid wood chest and nothing else immediately visible on the ground level. I looked up.

A grotesque skeleton spider hung above the chest connected to the most ominous looking spider web I had ever seen. Instead of a radial spider web where it spirals in on itself and looks kinda pretty, this design was an honest to god skull. As if a spider skeleton was not creepy enough.

I can’t even begin to describe how disgusting this skeletal spider is. I should call it a bone spider. The back part of the spider's body, I think the abdomen, looked like a gruesome human skeleton. Where the eyes should have been on the skull looked to be faintly glowing and liquid seemed to be dripping out of the skull’s eye socket and plopping down on the ground. Now that I looked closer the same liquid seemed to be coming out of the arm sized fangs above the bone spider's mouth. Where the abdomen intersected the spiders cephalothorax normally formed the mouth of the skull so when the spider was hanging there sleeping and lightly breathing the skulls mouth was slowly opening and closing with a feint *Click* sound every few seconds. The legs of the skeleton looked to be one solid piece of ivory white bone and where the legs bent almost looked to be a knee cap…like the bone spider was taking artistic visions from human skeletons. The pedipalp of the spider terminated in some seriously sharp knife like bone blades and the ocular clusters of the spider had bone like growths surrounding the eyes for protection. The worst part of the bone spider was the front two legs of the spider terminated in human-like hands that looked to be dexterous. This was one serious spider and I just wanted to NOPE the fuck on out of the area.

However, there seemed like an obvious solution to both the spider and boulder. I moved the back wall of my airlock back behind the trigger for the boulder trap and went back to the front of the air lock and set up a short barrier that pointed off to the side of the cavernous room beyond the entrance of the room. This would in theory knock the boulder to the side and prevent it from hitting the chest. I thought it was clever but I took inspiration from a pinball machine so it might not work.

I set up a long strip of danger tape that I could use to activate the trap after getting the bone spider out of the main room and into the tunnel where the boulder couldn’t miss. I then took down the tape of the front of my airlock, readied my bow, fired at the ugliest thing I had ever seen, and booked it back to the rear wall.

The arrow struck true and immediately pissed off the bone spider. It came screeching down out of the web and rushing at me way too quick to be anything natural. I was already running my fat ass off and beyond the rear barrier. When the spider came screaming after me and into the tunnel I pulled the danger tape I prepared earlier and triggered the boulder trap.

The boulder picked up speed and completely slimed the spider. Green goop came squirting out in all directions and covered everything beyond my barrier of safety. It even faintly glowed a bit.

Then the notifications popped up:

“Congratulations! You cleared a dungeon! Bonus experience for a solo clear”

“Congratulations! You made a dungeon safe! Bonus experience for helping out the next guy”

“Congratulations! You leveled up your trap finding skill to base lvl 3”

“Congratulations! You gained the Trap Smith Skill. Your in-depth understanding of traps means you can now place and hide them! Remember the Golden Rule”

“Congratulations! You have leveled up. As a lvl 3 Dungeon Inspector you gain:

The ability to create a Safety Action Team! A +2 in a skill of your choice and a +2 in strength and constitution! Increase in basic perception and danger sense!

“Congratulations! You have leveled up. As a lvl 4 Dungeon Inspector you gain:

The ability to create a Safe Rest Area! A +2 in a skill of your choice and a +2 in strength and constitution! Decrease in fatigue associated with clearing dungeons!

“Congratulations! You have leveled up. As a lvl 5 Dungeon Inspector you gain:

The Morning Inspection Spell! A +2 in a skill of your choice and a +2 in strength and constitution! A 1% increase in bludgeoning attack damage!

“Congratulations! You have leveled up. As a lvl 6 Dungeon Inspector you gain:

The Fire Suppression spell! A +2 in a skill of your choice and a +2 in strength and constitution! A 5% greater chance at epic loot from final dungeon chests!

Of course none of the spells and abilities were explained. That would have been too easy.

Asking Lela for information she explained in a rude tone that suggested this was obvious.

“Pat, this is really elementary. You should be able to understand the spells based off the context. Maybe you should put your unspent skill points in intelligence. NO! Wait, don't actually do that. Anyway a Safety Action Team is like a formal party but anyone in the group can access some of your abilities in a limited fashion and XP will be boosted for safe dungeon practices. Useless right now. A Safe Rest Area is exactly that. You can create a safe area that monsters can’t enter and other humans in the area will not be able to take hostile actions like casting spells or stabbing you in your sleep. There will probably be a bathroom and water too but it will not be provide food. The amenities will also probably be lacking, no small shampoo bottles. The Morning Inspection Spell will let you restore one item to peak operating condition once a day. You will be able to mend your shoes or backpack for example. The Fire Suppression Spell will let you shoot a powerful jet of foam out of the palm of your hand that will allow you to put out varying kinds of fires. A is for Trash, wood, and paper. B is for oils and glasses. C is for electrical based fires..

Really Pat this is quite simple. Please keep up. Also put your initial extra 10 points into Constitution, this will allow you to slim down quicker and heal from wounds MUCH faster than a regular human. After this we will consider what kind of build you want”

Lela was starting to get on my nerves but her advice seemed sound. I walked past my safety barrier and looked back into the entrance of the cavernous area. There were no other spiders or skeletons and the boulder did get pushed off to the side. Checking everything again with my trusty flashlight, I about shit my pants when Lela popped up in front of my face and said “silly you got experience for completing the dungeon and making it safe for the next survivor. You don’t have to worry about more enemies”.

Walking up to the chest and opening it I found three items inside and had Lela identify and explain them.

Safety Vest of Action - this common safety themed item will provide a +6 to dexterity when walking or standing still and a +6 to strength always. Colored bright orange and with tear away Velcro sections. Perfect for working around rotary machinery. Shield of Command: STOP! - Once per day while wearing this red hexagonal shield you may use the STOP! Spell free of charge. Any enemy that is charging or moving in your direction will be compelled to stop for at least 5 seconds. Does not work on Named Boss monsters. 1x meal coupon for a Fine class meal redeemable at any safe area.

That was it for the day. I walked back to the front of the dungeon, past my barrier tape, and up to the regular gray wall of the dungeon. I cast my new Safe Rest Area spell and immediately a door appeared on the dungeon wall. I opened the door and a small hotel sized room with a bathroom, shower, bed, computer chair, work desk, recliner chair, 5 lamps, mirror, sink, microwave, and Gatorade cooler awaited me. I headed into the room and sat down in the recliner. I noticed a little slit in the drab walls next to the Gatorade cooler that was sitting on the work desk. It had “Coupon” engraved into the wall above the slit. I got up, inserted the coupon, and then like magic the microwave dinged. A large steak cooked just right with an empty glass was sitting in the small space. I grabbed the food and glass and closed the door. I moved to get liquid out of the Gatorade cooler and sure enough it was Gatorade. Yellow flavor. Not my favorite. Then the microwave dinged again and this time sides of mash potatoes, gravy, green beans, corn, and a slice of cheese cake were all present. I took all my food and chowed down. Then I took a shower, little shampoo bottles and towels WERE included, and passed out on the bed.

First day in hell over and at least the food was good.