Level 1 Fallen

Marron was the first to follow Diane, with me behind her, and Bella following from the rear. Once we passed through the first intersection, we saw Diane up ahead, and moved to catch up to her. “Don’t come too close,” her voice called out as she continued walking at an even pace. “If we see each other in our peripheral vision, we could be tempted to turn around and look at each other out of habit. Walk single-file, and try to maintain the same pace as whoever is in front of you.”

Marron didn’t hesitate to follow Diane’s orders, walking five paces behind Diane, with me another five behind her, and Bella presumably another five behind me. “How are things looking for you, Drake?” Diane asked.

“Confusing,” I admitted, thinking about what I was seeing at the moment. “Normally, my True Sight should give me a three hundred and sixty-degree view around my body, so I should be able to see Bella behind me. However, everything behind me is completely absent from my view, as if my senses had been forcibly constrained. Are you still behind me, Bella?”

“I’m still here,” Bella’s voice echoed from just behind me, causing me to let out a sigh of relief.

Nodding her head, Diane continued giving her advice as we walked through a long corridor. “Tests like this will try to trick you into failing. For instance, you might see or hear hallucinations. Drake, you might hear Bella calling out in pain, begging for help. We might even see traps barreling towards us, making us instinctively want to run out of the way.”

“No matter what you see or hear, keep moving as we discussed previously. Any traps should be purely nonlethal, so long as we abide by the dungeon’s rule.” As soon as she said that, she stepped into another intersection, her body disappearing.

However, this time, when I followed Marron behind her, I did not see either Marron or Diane in front of me. My eyes widened, wondering if we had been teleported to different corridors. I grit my teeth, trying my best to maintain the same pace as I had been walking before. “Can any of you hear me?” I called out into the empty hallway, illuminated only by my orbs of energy.

There was no response, forcing me to continue walking in silence. Two and a half minutes later, I reached another intersection. When I choose the straight path, I found myself behind Marron once again, though it seemed like I had moved a couple steps closer to her. “Is that you, Drake?” she called out without looking back.

“Yeah, were you alone just now, too?”

Hearing my question, she nodded her head. “Yeah, it suddenly got real dark without your flying lights, so I just kept walking. I knew you were behind me again when the lights turned back on.”

Hearing her explanation, I wasn’t sure if we were teleported to different hallways, or if we were just subjected to an illusion that made us believe that we were alone. Still, we were walking, so I kept moving.

Just then, I felt a finger poke my shoulder, as if trying to get my attention from behind. I almost turned my head out of reflex, remembering Diane’s warning. “Bella, did you just touch me?”

Bella’s voice soon sounded out, a bit further behind me than she was the last time I heard her. “Huh? No, I’m not touching you.”

Gritting my teeth, I realized that the illusions had begun, starting with subtle distractions mixed with larger threats to cause confusion. If we had entered this dungeon without a ‘veteran’ like Diane, it was entirely possible that most of us would have already died to the mechanic, possibly multiple times.

As I was thinking that, the finger poking my shoulder turned into a hand grabbing it, and I could even see delicate fingers in my peripheral vision. The worst part was that it actually looked like Bella’s hand, which made me want to turn around even more. What if the voice answering me was actually the illusion, and the hand that I saw and felt was real?

I took a deep breath, calming myself and continuing forward. Up ahead, I heard a click from Marron’s feet, a brick receding slightly. Along the wall, two holes appeared, shooting gouts of flame in front of her. Marron yelped, taking a step back out of shock, and… disappeared. There was no explosion, no body, she simply vanished.

“Marron’s gone,” I called ahead to Diane, picking up the pace to take Marron’s spot behind her. When I passed through the flames myself, I felt their heat scorching my skin, but realized that no injuries were being afflicted. “Should we go back to guide her through?”

“Keep going as is,” Diane answered without a second thought. I saw her trigger her own trap, needles shooting out from the wall and sticking into her arms. Still, she continued. “Screenshot any markings you see on the walls to show her later. If we hit a door or reach the end of the trial, we can always teleport back to Fallcry to get her and bring her here with World Walker.”

As soon as Diane was done, a private message appeared in my view from Marron. She let me know that she had died to a trap, and asked if I could bring her back to the dungeon. I sighed, repeating what Diane had said.

She then pleaded, saying how she wanted to see the dungeon for herself, and even promised to increase the reward, but I kept firm. If we started over every time one of us flinched, it might take us weeks just to reach the end of this one dungeon, let alone the other two.

I tried to distract her from wanting to come back by asking her about the other two ruins, and what trials they might represent. However, she refused to tell me anything unless I brought her back to the dungeon.

Before I could answer, I heard a rumbling from ahead. A giant boulder filled the hall, rushing towards us. There were no alcoves to either the left or right to hide in, so the only way to dodge normally would be to run. “Drake, use Beyond the Veil. If the boulder is real, pass through it and continue!” Diane shouted firmly, continuing to walk forward even as the boulder approached her. “If you die, we really have to restart. But, if you live and make it to the end, you can just bring all of us with you.”

Just a moment after she said that, I watched Diane’s body being crushed beneath the rolling stone. Following her advice, I activated Beyond the Veil, feeling nothing as the boulder passed through my position. Once it had done so, I deactivated the skill and continued walking. I grimaced when I stepped over Diane’s corpse, only to be surprised at the next intersection, seeing her walking in front of me again.

“Did we just hit a boulder trap?” I asked, not sure if I could trust what I had just seen and heard. Thankfully, Diane’s words served to reassure me.

“We did, but it was just an illusion. I’m guessing you saw me crushed under it after I gave you that advice,” Diane answered, a note of relief in her tone before she spoke up again. “Is Bella still behind you? I haven’t heard from her in a while.”

I resisted the urge to turn around to check, calling back, “Bella?”

However, there was no response. I didn’t know if Bella had been killed by the mechanism, gotten delayed, or was simply being silenced by the illusions. Honestly, I didn’t even know if Diane had really asked me to check on her, or if that was part of the illusion itself.

After that, Diane and I continued walking in silence. I tried to call out to Bella a few more times, but got no response. Then, I messaged her privately, and found out that she had triggered a falling log trap, which forced her to jump back. Next thing she knew, she was back in Fallcry with Marron. Like Marron, she asked if we could go and get her, but didn’t press the issue at first.

Still, I reported what I had learned to Diane, who simply nodded while walking ahead, the needles from before still embedded in her arms. She didn’t even slow down for a moment to remove them. Or, maybe they only existed in my view, and she didn’t have that injury at all. This dungeon was becoming more and more confusing.

There weren’t any more mechanical traps either, not after the rolling boulder. Instead, I would occasionally hear a voice behind me, or feel a breath on my neck. At times, I would hear growling or sinister cries. At one point, I thought I saw a glowing eye in the corner of my vision.

Remembering Diane’s advice, I forced myself to keep walking, glad that I had the lights to at least illuminate the path ahead. I couldn’t imagine trying to go through this nightmare passage without even being able to see in front of you.

Shortly after I had that thought, another private message arrived from Bella. She urged me to return quickly, saying that Fallcry was under attack by a group of hydra-like monsters, and that Kelly was away to defend the rift.

I hesitated, unsure if even this could be something that the illusions could create. What if the city really was in danger? Should I ignore it just because of this request?

As if in response to my question, Marron sent me a message as well to inform me of the attack. She included a screenshot of the wall being broken by a giant, green hydra, rocks crushing a nearby home.

Seeing this, a visceral reaction welled up within me, urging me to return. “Diane, it looks like something’s happened. Marron and Bella just sent me messages to let me know that Fallcry is under attack. Marron even sent me a screenshot, so it should be real. We should finish this dungeon dive later.”

Diane paused her steps, as if surprised, but didn’t look back to face me. “What? Drake… Marron can’t take screenshots. Also, she shouldn’t be able to send you private messages, since you never added her to your friends list.” After she said that, she continued walking forward, leaving me dumbfounded behind her.

Right… I had just forgotten that I never added Marron. Why would I suspect it when I saw the messages myself? Maybe I had just forgotten that I added her? But the screenshot part… Diane was right, Marron couldn’t take screenshots because of her trait.

I looked back at the message window again, seeing blood red text in place of the earlier call for help. Turn back. Run. Leave. Help me. Save me. Give up.

I closed my eyes with a grunt, dismissing the message window. This dungeon was proving to be incredibly insidious, and didn’t even have any loot that we had seen.

As I thought about the lack of rewards, Diane stopped ahead, having arrived at a T-shaped junction. She paused, neither turning left or right. “What’s the matter? Shouldn’t you be turning right?” I asked, but she still hesitated.

“I have a theory,” she reported, taking a single step to the right without turning her body. “However, I don’t have the ability to test it myself, so I need you to. After seeing the boulder trap earlier, I think that there might be a chance that this wall is fake. If so, when one of us walks through it, the other would see them stumble backwards and disappear, as if killed.”

“If this theory is wrong, the correct answer to the dungeon would be to continue with the path we said before, taking the same turn at every junction until we reached the end. If the theory is true, the only way through the dungeon is to pass through the false wall, and taking those turns will trap us in an endless loop.”

“So, I want you to walk forward, as if this were an illusion. If you pass through the wall and reach the other side, first teleport back to Fallcry to get the other two, and then teleport to this intersection to get me. I will not move from this spot for five minutes. If you can’t pass through the wall, get the other two and return here, and we will continue along the right path in five minutes.”

I perked a brow, looking at the solid wall in front of Diane. Without a skill like World Walker, this test would truly be impossible. Still, I closed my eyes and disabled my True Sight, choosing to walk forward without being able to see the approaching wall.

I felt something brush past me, as if passing through a membrane, and continued forward several steps. Only once I was sure that I had gone beyond where the wall had previously been did I open my eyes, finding myself in a room lit with silver light streaming from above. Cracked murals lined the walls, and a sculpture in the shape of a vertical eye hovered in the center of the room.

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