This seemed like a good idea at the time. But now that he was actually here, he didn’t know what could have possibly possessed him to volunteer for the dungeon. Even the foresight of the treasures to be found here, which had been the main reason to descent those stairs, crumpled into a minor weight faced with the masses of hardships he had been through. He had heard the rumors of what happened to the six before him, casually casting them aside like the idle chatter he thought them to be. Now that he had spent a few hours in the dungeon, he found himself wishing that those rumors had been true. Regardless of how he looked at it, reality was even grimmer. It didn’t matter now, anyway. He was here, and he would die. The broken adventurer leaned heavily on the wooden door separating him from whatever was in the next room. It was a lot harder to walk now that his knee was bending the other way. His situation, he assessed, was dire at best. His right hand weakly held on to his chipped sword, while his left hand was clutching the tear that his last encounter with a gargoyle arrow trap had left. It was only the fluke of tripping over the pressure plate that allowed him to be still breathing, though the gnome behind him could not boast the same fortune. The second arrow that fired from the demonic face was a bit less favorable towards him. He hardly even noticed the bearded creature drawing its last gurgling breath. He only knew he needed to get away from this place, and prayed to the gods that the next room was more forgiving than the last few had been. Using his last pick, he pried open the lock and opened the door slightly. From what he could see, he had stumbled onto a Diggle nest. Two Diggles, both asleep. With his last magical energy he whispered the incantation for the fire breath he learned from the drunken mage in the tavern a few weeks back. In a blaze of red light the threat was extinguished, leaving only the faint smell of burnt rubber. The adventurer dragged himself to the most comfortable-looking nest and plunged down. Even before his sword’s hilt reached the floor he realized he would never leave this spot. “Good a place as any I suppose”, he thought. After fruitlessly searching his backpack for any food left, his hand sank to the ground as he slowly resigned himself to his fate. Just when he was thinking he should really have closed the door, he heard a crackling voice from the darkened room he just came from. It sounded hoarse and unsettling, yet somehow comforting to him. “One more adventurer and I can finally retire”
