Back at the wooden door, he found it was easily unlatched with a simple double-sided slide latch, no lock or bar in place, though he could probably jam it with a piece of the metal debris. It moved with a loud creek, revealing a large room, mostly sandstone, but with slowly dripping limestone poking through in places. Many small patches of moss and debris were scattered across the room, and he spotted two more sand slimes and several "Green Slime 2/2" slowly eating away at the room's contents.

  Deciding to check the debris piles first, he came up with 2 more "cloth rags" and a "dirty shirt" and "worn belt", but the big find was a "Wooden club damage 1-4". He also uncovered a "juvenile green slime" while looking through some of the rags, but was able to quickly squish it - but found out its juices caused his dagger to start smoking. He cleaned it off, rubbing it in a nearby moss patch, then checked - the dagger still said 1-3 damage, but now also said "slightly rusty".

  Just then, a "+1" appeared in his vision. Hoping this was what he thought it was, Curtis headed back to the mirror, and indeed, it was much as expected:

  Mundane Human - Curtis

  Class - Pitiful Rogue

  Level 1 (6/100)

  Health 14/15

  He quickly checked his wrist. The wound looked days old and fully scabbed over - healing here was greatly accelerated! Also, the tiny slime had just been worth 1 point. He speculated monsters were worth 1 point per point of health - at least while both he and they were level 1.

  While he was back here at the start, he decided to take another crack at the carved door. Poking and pushing with his fingers, no carvings moved or triggered anything he could see. In fact, there didn't even seem to be a lock, was it just stuck? Since he had a solid club now, he bashed it around the edges, creating a small cloud of dust and loud echoing "BOOM" noises - no stealth for him now, he thought. Grabbing the handle, he heaved and the door creaked open.

  Beyond the stubborn door was a small circular room that was essentially nothing but a stairway down, steps carved directly from the pervasive sandstone. The staircase was long, going down possibly hundreds of feet, but he could make out a floor at the bottom. Curtis made his way slowly down, clinging to the wall, making sure nothing would throw him into the deep void. After a while, 2 notifications happened, a "Entered Level 2" and a "+1". The later reminded him to check his wrist, and he saw (and felt) it was no longer an injury - he had full, pain free, range of motion and just a few remaining flecks of scab.

  He continued on, seeing no other doors or passages open for him on "Level Two", just a continual stairway. The same held true a bit later, as he got an identical notice for Level 3 - still no exits. A Level 4 notice came at about 40-50 feet above the bottom of the stairway, making him nervous - just how dangerous might it be down here?

  He felt relieved when he reached the bottom safely - and that it didn't progress to level 5. There was a large pile of fallen stone rubble at the center of the stairway base, but the real draw was the view down the corridor the stairs directly led to. The passage led straight ahead, about 20 feet, then opened out into a room where the lighting changed to a flickering torchlight effect, highlighting an ornate statue at the far end, almost hypnotic...

  Having no other direction to explore anyway, Curtis walked forwards. At the the room entry, it opened out to 15 feet wide, with gargoyle carvings along each side - the kind with eyes that seemed to follow you. As he stepped in, he saw small stone doorways set in the walls immediately to both the left and right. But what really kept his attention was the statue - the bust of a lovely young lady with pointed ears, wearing a glittering crimson amulet, she seemed to smile invitingly at him.

  Curtis couldn't take his eyes off the obvious magical treasure, and slowly walked into the room. At about the halfway point, he felt something shift. Looking around, the small doors he had passed were opening. As danger jarred him out of the greed-trance, he saw shadowy shapes detach from the wall carvings as a large beetle scuttled into the entryway from each small doorway. The whole thing was a trap.

  "Stone Wraith (12/12)" was the pop-up registering briefly as the ghostly figures came for him. He swung his dagger in desperation, inflicting only "-1" as it briefly scattered a bit of the dark shadow. In return, he was hit with "-3", "3 second paralysis".

  The cold, paralytic touch of the wraiths at least mitigated the pain of his demise, he had time to think, before darkness closed in. Somehow, even in the midst of dying, the notifications kept coming into his mind - Stone Wraiths, cold damage, paralysis, then Ironclad Beetle (18/18) and a final bite damage "-6" notice as it all fades out.

  Amazingly (to Curtis) that was not the end. He found himself back in the Altar room beyond the "Exit" trapdoor, only now the room had a new feature, a large gravestone etched into the wall labeled "Curtis". He tried to move, but couldn't, he was a floating, non-corporeal entity floating next to the gravestone that now dominated one wall of the room. His attention was drawn to the detail of the gravestone's information.

  Curtis - First death

  Progress - Level 1 (6/100)

  Race - Mundane Human

  Class - Pitiful rogue

  Gold value <1

  Dungeon level - 4 (deepest)

  Strongest monster defeated - Sand Slime

  Killed by - Ironclad Beetle bite

  Run time - 2.3 hours

  Rank - 1,093,447,312