You have entered: Floor 7 – Delusion.
Warning: Reality is now a suggestion. Logic is no longer legally binding.
The first thing I noticed was that my hands were made of toast. The second thing I noticed was that no one else found this weird.
Sir Galrik stood beside me, wearing a full suit of armor made entirely from squeaky rubber ducks. He didn't comment on it. Just kept polishing his squeaky breastplate with a straight face like this was a Tuesday.
Lilith was levitating upside-down, sipping tea from a cup that didn't exist, while being pet by a talking pigeon in a monocle.
And Mister Fog? Mister Fog was now ten feet tall, wore a chef's hat, and kept muttering, "All is mayonnaise."
I screamed.
"Calm yourself, Cecil," Galrik said, patting me with his duck-gauntlet. Squeak squeak.
"Don't you see what's happening?! None of this is real! My hands are carbs!"
Lilith twirled midair. "Finally. A floor that reflects my mental state."
New Buff: Surreal Stability
You are now 35% less likely to question bullshit.
You are also 12% spaghetti.
We walked forward. Or maybe backward. Time became less of a direction and more of a flavor. Everything looked like an oil painting made by a raccoon high on glue sticks.
Suddenly, a floating figure appeared before us. Their cloak shimmered like TV static, and they wore twenty pairs of glasses stacked on top of each other.
"Welcome, travelers," the figure intoned. "I am Professor Paradox, Dungeon Floor Guide and Licensed Balloon Animal Therapist."
"Why am I made of toast?" I asked.
He frowned. "You're not. You just think you are. You've always been eggplant casserole, actually."
"Okay that's worse."
Professor Paradox snapped his fingers, and the scenery shifted. We now stood in a throne room made entirely of IKEA furniture. The king was a dolphin with legs and a tax degree.
"You must pass the Trial of Perception," Paradox declared. "If you fail, your minds will become pudding. Not metaphorically. Just… actual pudding."
"Is this entire floor just one massive acid trip?" Lilith asked, taking another sip from her invisible tea. "Because I am weirdly fine with that."
We were handed puzzle pieces made of light, then told to assemble our "true selves." The moment I touched one, I saw flashes:
—A child afraid to speak.
—A teen hiding under tables during lightning storms.
—An adult who still doesn't know how to ask for ketchup at restaurants.
This floor was gaslighting me into introspection.
I shoved the pieces together with pure denial. It worked.
Cecil's Puzzle Completed: Chaotic Coward (Self-Aware Variant)
Passive Effect: Enemies may underestimate you.
Also you now smell faintly of basil.
Meanwhile, Sir Galrik's puzzle created a glittering statue of "Honor Bound Himbo." It flexed on its own.
Lilith's puzzle just screamed. Then it hugged her.
Mister Fog assembled his into… an exact replica of Floor 3. With him inside. Screaming.
And then… the room melted.
Everything around us warped. The throne turned into a skateboard. The dolphin king exploded into coupons. I blinked, and suddenly—
We were in a high school.
My high school.
And it was final exam day.
I started to sweat.
A bell rang, loud and soul-shattering. Lockers slammed. Teenagers buzzed by in a blur of mean comments and hormonal rage. I stood in the hallway of my worst memories, wearing a school uniform that said:
"Hi! I'm About to Fail!"™
"Oh no," I whispered. "Not here. Not again."
"Cecil?" Galrik turned to me, his duck armor now replaced with a letterman jacket and a football he was emotionally attached to. "What's an algebra?"
Lilith wore a goth hoodie and sat on top of a locker, flipping a butterfly knife shaped like a B+ grade. "Why are all these memories… yours?"
"Because this is my hell!" I hissed. "This was the year I asked out a girl and accidentally handed her my lunch receipt instead of a love letter!"
"Did she accept?" Galrik asked hopefully.
"She told everyone I proposed marriage via chicken nuggets."
Mister Fog had become a substitute teacher. He was writing eldritch calculus on the whiteboard while weeping gently.
"I don't remember applying for this role," he muttered. "But the chalk is whispering encouragement."
The lights flickered. From the far end of the hallway, footsteps echoed—slow, ominous, and rhythmically smug. A figure emerged wearing a crown made of yearbooks and a cape of detention slips.
Principal Regret.
"Cecil Null," he bellowed, "you still owe this institution an apology for your existence!"
He raised a glowing staff shaped like a failed math quiz.
"Time to face your consequences!"
Boss Encounter: Principal Regret – Avatar of Academic Anxiety
Weak to: Emotional growth, friendship, and PE class flashbacks.
I panicked. "WHAT DO I EVEN DO?!"
"You stand up for yourself," Lilith said, flipping down from the locker like she didn't just commit social arson with her eyes.
"You believe in your potential!" Galrik shouted, now glowing with motivational poster energy.
"I THROW CHALK!" screamed Mister Fog, pelting the boss with reality-shattering equations and a moldy lunch tray.
I was cornered. Principal Regret loomed over me, his voice booming, "You were never good enough, Cecil!"
And then something in me snapped.
I clenched my toast-hands. "Y'know what? You're right. I suck. But I keep living, dammit! I survived a mole demon, a talking well, and emotional taxation by floor ghost therapy!"
He reared back.
"I'm Cecil. Level ??? Coward. And I'm not failing this time—because I'm not alone."
Cue heroic anime music no one asked for.
Galrik body-slammed the Principal through the wall.
Lilith suplexed his staff into confetti.
Mister Fog summoned a school bell so loud it erased student debt.
Principal Regret burst into glitter.
Boss Defeated: Principal Regret
Drop: The Hall Pass of Freedom (lets you skip any one dungeon floor, once)
Drop: A+ in "Surviving Yourself"
As the school faded, I looked around at my team. My messed-up, overpowered, possibly hallucinated team.
And for the first time, I felt… okay.
…Until a door appeared labeled Floor 8: Romance and Mister Fog whispered, "Oh no."