After reassuring himself that he wasn’t still bleeding from half a dozen horrible wounds, the first thing that Simon did was to reach for the mostly full bottle of wihat was sitting on the bedside table as always and drank deeply to steady his nerves. He had never been much of a drinker, and much preferred smoking a bowl or two to a six pack, but right now he only had this awful srape juice to drown the horrible memory of those spikes pierg his body. He would have chugged any swill to try tet the memory of that terrible pain. He hadn’t known anything could hurt that bad in his whole life. Even now, with the memory reg, and the sensations fadiill shuddered if he tried to think about the momeried to pull himself off the spikes in that pit.

  “This isn’t how this is supposed to work!” he decred suddenly, turning toward the mirror. “There’s supposed to be hit points and skills. I’m supposed to gain experienot get fug tortured to death!” He was mostly just looking for a reason not to have to go back down there and deal with those terrifying traps again, but to his surprise the mirror lit up and a respoarted to “type” for ck of a better word in a flowing script that looked like it was beiered one character at a time. Apparently it spoke back every time it thought you were talking to it, even if you were just thinking out loud. He didn’t know if that feature was handy or annoying.

  ‘The Pit is exactly as described in the tract you signed.’ the s printed as a ghostly version of the tract materialized in the background. ‘Would you like to review it?’

  “I don’t want to review that. I want to review my character sheet.” Simon insisted. “I want to see my level and my skills and…” As he spoke the s ged. Materializing what looked to be a sort of crude character sheet, like whatever spirit was in the mirror was trying to grant his request.

  Name: Simon Jacoby

  Level: 2

  Deaths: 3

  Experience Points: -2740

  The ive experience points meant there was some kind of penalty for death, since he’d died three times. That wasn’t the worst system in the world though, and even with those deaths he was still leveling up, so he could work with that. As realistic as everythi in this game, that robably a better choice than one of those timed debuffs that had gotten so big in popur titles retly. His eyes moved past that minor issue to the rest of the s which was a long list of skills: Archery, Armor (light), Athletics, Cook, Craft, Deception, Escape, Iigate, Maces, Ride, Search, Sneak, Spears, Spell Casting, Steal, Swimming, and Swords. They didn’t have any numbers beside them. Instead, they had words, and the words o almost every one of his skills was ‘very poor.’ As he tinued his increasingly frustrated review, he was surprised to find that only two skills that weren't ‘very poor’ was swords which was rated ‘poor’, and spell casting, which was rated ‘None’ He was insulted by the evaluation.

  “Well, that’s pletely wrong. I cook almost as well as use a sword, and I’m great at both,” he said mostly to himself. Even leaving aside ramen and pizza, cooking had hardly ever been a problem for him. He was a master of the panini press and as long as he got the good sauce from the store his spaghetti always came out great.

  As if to prove the s wrong, he got up a down the half empty witle so he could pick up the swiving it a few mock swings. “Does this look very poor to you, you stupid mirror?”

  ‘Your swordpy shows very few signs of improvement since your initial arrival.’ the s printed with no hint of irony, which was ridiculous. It was a mirror. What would it know about sword fighting anyway.

  “Well then I’ll just have to go outside and level it up before I go fight whatever’s in store for me after that awful trap level.” Simon marched outside with his sword, and after he found a nice shady part of the meadow he started swinging. He didn’t have any formal sword training like Aikido, or anything like that, but he’d been watg aovies and martial arts movies his whole life. It retty much what he did these days when he wasn’t gaming, so he had an excellent idea of what he should do and how he should swing - he just o practice a bit and work on his endurance, and he’d be fine.

  While he practiced, Simon thought about the s he’d seen. That was a big help to him. Before that he was horrified of dying like he did before, but now he could tell himself that he was at least leveling up, and that those deaths were worth it. Even if he had to die ten or twenty more times, which seemed pretty unlikely, he would get better every time. He’d probably have somethio practi whe to the level too. Zombies probably, which would be great. He’d much rather face those slow bastards than another floor full of cheap traps, but he wao get deeper where he could find a scroll or a spell book and start learning magic. If there was a skill for it, then it had to be an option, and he would find it. Being able to magically heal his wounds or kill the most annoying monsters from a distance would make this whole ordeal infinitely easier.

  As Simon started to break out into a sweat, he finally stopped practig his overhead chops and thrusts, and decided to take a break. It was definitely starting to get warm out here, and even though he was i shape, he wasn’t really used to a world without air ditioning just yet. Once he was rested, he thought about doing another round of practice swings, but he decided to go into his house to sna that loaf that always reappeared when he respawned. Practig on ay stomach was terproductive anyway; it could lead to heat stroke and muscle cramps. At first he thought he would breeze through this game so quickly he wouldn’t hat feature, but now it was o know that a halfway det meal would always be waiting for him here.

  “Show me my character sheet,” he told the mirror between bites, eager to see what effect his practice had.

  As it faded iehough, Simon noted with disappoihat her his experience point totals nor his rating of (Poor) had budged at all. He sighed in frustration. “This is one of those games where you only get experience from killing things I guess.”

  If that was the case then he decided that he might as well go find something to kill. He thought about looking through the forest and seeing if there were any easy wandering mobs out there to grind, before eventually deg that it would be too hot out there if he was wearing armor. That only left the dungeon, he decided, which had been nid cool so far.

  Simon swallowed hard at that thought. Maybe he would wait a little longer before he went back down there. After all - half the witle had made the idea almost tolerable, so finishing it would do him almost as much good, he decided, pig it back up and taking a swig from the bottle before helping himself to the cheese. After all, he thought, it would be wasteful if he left all this uen no matter how terrible the wine was. It would all be repced if he did happen to die again, so it’s not like he o ration it.

  “Mirror - tell me, how do I learn magic? Do I o find items or practice harnessing my chi or what?” Simon asked.

  ‘I do not know.’ the mirror responded silently.

  That response was almost enough to make Simon choke on the bread he was wolfing down. “Aren’t you the help program? How you not know something as important as how the magic system works?”

  ‘Magic works by speaking words of power to direergies beyond human prehension. You know no words of power at this time.’ it wrote smoothly in its glowing blue font over several seds.

  “I know that. But what I’m asking is where do I find them? Do minibosses drop them? Should I be looking for secret side passages?” Simon looked down to grab the bread to take another bite and was saddeo discover that he’d eaten all of it. It was a coarse wheat bread that normally he wouldn’t have given a sed g, but when he was actually hungry, he found it to be kind of delicious. Simon made a mental o keep a for secret passages. Any duhat had traps was bound to have secret passages too, and a magic sword or a shortcut past a couple levels was definitely something worth finding.

  ‘I do not know,’ the mirror repeated, making him sigh in annoyahis might have been one of the worst designed games he ever pyed, and when he beat it, he was going to offer that goddess a few free lessons in game desigher she wahem or not.

  “Of course you don’t,” he muttered. “You don’t know anything. You’re the worst tutorial I’ve ever seen holy. This pit is basically still ia as far as I’m ed.”

  The mirror obviously had no idea what to make of his words, so it stayed dark, letting Simon stew in his frustration. He knew all the things he’d fix if he was given a ce, but now wasn’t the time for that. He had to beat the thing first, and if there wasn’t any more food to eat or wio drink, he could hardly just sit here all day. That would get b and hungry awful fast, so he decided he should get ready for round three with the pit. No - no matter how much he hated the idea it was time to go back down and knock out another five or ten floors in this stupid dungeon.

  Simon looked through what he had avaible to him again, even though it hadn’t ged, before deg to don the boots aher armor once more. Looking through the oill had quite an assortment. In addition to the longsword he preferred, there was a short sword, an axe, a few knives, a long bow and a crossbow, and a fnged mace scattered around the room in different locations. Simon liked the look of the axe, but thought it might be meant for throwing, and didn’t want to do that just yet. He sidered strapping on the crossbow si seemed pretty much like a gun, and he had no idea how to use a longbow. It was too bulky though, so he decided to leave it here for now. Maybe if he saw a really important reason for it on one of the floors, he would bring it, but right now he wao focus on leveling up his longsword. It retty much what he’d taken st time, but this time he brought two spare torches with him instead of just the one, so he wouldn’t have to worry like st time. Now he was ready to deal with the rats, the traps, and whatever else lurked past them.