Have you ever been in the woods by yourself? Or visited a creepy abandoned location and felt like someone was watching? That’s what I felt staring down the corridor.

  My guess was that the tutorial corridor was kept free of monsters, and now that I was past that, it was open season, and I was the quarry.

  I heard it then, a soft whirring, like something mechanical was spinning. It grew closer and I readied myself, fork out, legs ready to spring. With my limited vision, I wouldn't be able to see what it was until it was already in range. I could try jabbing into the darkness once it was close, but I had no idea of its composition and could end up striking a non-vital part, or whiffing altogether, giving me a disadvantage.

  I had been concentrating on the point right in front of me, expecting something about my size to come at me at more or less eye level, which had been a mistake. A flash low to the floor caught me off guard, making me step back. I couldn’t tell what I had seen, but it looked like a metallic blur.

  After a moment had passed, the blur moved steadily out of the darkness and into my little area of light, and I stepped back again. This time I had looked to where I had expected it to appear and got a little more information.

  Knives. It was a spinning set of knives attached to something rotating at high speed. It was low to the ground, threatening to slice into my feet, which gave me an idea.

  I waited until the spinning whirl crept into my area of light again, but this time stepped forward, kicking at the blades. I heard a metallic clunk as steel toe made contact, sending the thing backwards into the darkness. A warning flashed in my vision.

  Armor Broken – Combat Boots.

  I looked down at my feet and saw that the knives had done a number on my right boot. What had covered the steel toe had been violently stripped away, and the metal was dented. My foot felt fine, so I guessed the armor had done its job. If I had not been wearing the armored boots, I would have lost health for sure.

  The boot was still wearable, but I got the impression that if I tried that stunt again, it wouldn’t fly. I did learn, though, that I could trade off armor to retain health, so I filed that information away in my mind.

  I could still hear whirring, but it was neither coming closer nor moving further away. I crept forward, not wanting to take too large a step and have several of my little piggies go away to market.

  The story has been taken without consent; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.

  Inching forward until the whirling knives were in my vision again, I saw they were still twirling away but seemed to be stuck in place. I inched forward, right until my toes were just about an inch away from whatever it was. Finally, I got a better sense of what I was facing.

  It was one of those robot vacuums, only it wasn’t. The blades should have been a major indicator.

  When I had kicked it, it had landed on its flat top and had been unable to right itself. That’s why it hadn’t come forward to attack me again. Its underside faced upward, and while on a normal robot vacuum you’d see wheels to propel it, this one had a mass of insect-like legs surrounding a barb-filled circular mouth that reminded me of the one that was on the sink.

  I brought down the heel of my undamaged boot with as much force as I could muster, carefully avoiding the whirling blades. There was a hint of resistance before my foot crunched into the body of the thing. The blades stopped and I brought my foot back, the heel of my boot now covered in slimy black viscera. Like with the sink, the body of the creature turned pale and began to crumble away into ash.

  I felt a little dumbfounded. I had killed my first enemy without losing any health and in conditions less than ideal. Maybe the tutorial had been front loaded with difficulty, preparing you for the actual dungeon. Or maybe I was just lucky.

  As the body of the thing crumbled, I spotted something in the ash. I bent down, seeing something cylindrical poking out. Carefully, I jabbed it with my fork, again trying to be as cautious as possible.

  Item Destroyed – Potion.

  The message flashed, and the cylinder crumbled into ash along with the creature.

  “Oh come on!” I yelled. My phone dinged.

  TIP – Dungeon Items have their own health! Be careful! Management.

  “Thanks for telling me now, jackasses,” I hissed, shaking my head.

  Alright, I guess I had to be less cautious when it came to handling things on the floor. That wasn’t going to come back and bite me later for sure. I wondered what I had lost by not being able to pick up the potion. The fact that there were potions raised a bunch more questions.

  Classic roguelikes usually randomized potions every run, and the player would have to suss out what their effects were every single run. There were usually ways to test the potion, tasting a small bit or throwing it at a creature, but sometimes you’d have no way of knowing unless you fully drank the thing, which could downright kill you if the RNG was bad. A potion that turned you invisible in one run might poison you the next.

  Putting my hand on the wall again, I started forward, following the left wall. Each step now with my left foot stuck to the floor briefly, the creature's viscera acting as a mild adhesive. As best as I could, I tried to keep my attention sharp, but being in the dungeon under constant pressure was starting to take its toll on me. It didn’t help that every time I died, I woke up under extreme duress, feeling everything but not rested. When was the next time I would be able to sleep for real? Or even rest without the impatient pressure creeping up on me and forcing me forward?

  My hand brushed against something unusual on the wall, bringing me back to my senses.