Feeling his way forward, Jace wriggled the last of himself out of the tunnel and onto the surface. The planks were aligned side by side, forming a narrow walkway about a metre and a half wide. He tested the air above his head—it felt open enough that he could probably stand upright, but he hesitated. Standing in pitch blackness on a slick, narrow bridge didn't rank highly on his list of safe ideas. Instead, he stayed low, shuffling forward in the same cautious crawl as before, hands leading the way.
The smell here was no better than in the tunnel—stale water and rot lingered—but at least the sense of crushing claustrophobia had eased. The space felt larger, emptier. Echoes in the dark hinted at a chamber beyond the pipe, though his eyes were still blind as ever.
After only a short distance, Jace's questing fingers brushed against something cool and unyielding at the walkway's edge. Metal. He groped around and found a vertical rod fixed into the planks. Curious, he traced his hands upward along its smooth shaft until his fingers reached the top. The rod ended in a hooked curve, and hanging from it by a loop was… a box.
A metal box, cold and damp to the touch, swaying slightly when he nudged it. Jace stilled, one hand lingering on the strange object. His imagination supplied all kinds of possibilities—a lantern, a trap, a baited lure for the world's worst fishing trip.
"Well," he whispered uneasily, "this doesn't scream ominous at all."
Item: [Crude Magic Lamp] (iron rank, common)
A simple lighting device powered by low-grade magic. (Tool)
Effect: Emits light.
Current charge: 00% — requires a [Lesser Spirit Coin] to replenish.
Jace squinted at the glowing blue window floating in front of him. "Figures," he muttered. "A magic lamp with all the charge of a dead flashlight."
In desperation, he pressed the holographic display right up against the lamp, hoping the faint glow of the system interface might at least illuminate the shape of the thing. The result was pitiful—barely enough to outline the rim of the boxy fixture, leaving the rest swallowed in darkness. It was like trying to navigate a cave with a phone screen set to the world's dimmest setting.
"Brilliant," he sighed. "I finally find a light source, and it's a lamp that doesn't light."
His fingers fumbled over the cold metal, searching for the hook that secured it to the pole. The lamp was surprisingly heavy for something so simple, its surface slick with condensation. After a few awkward scrapes of metal on metal, he managed to lift it clear of the hook. He cradled it in both hands, trying not to think about how the void beyond the faint glow felt like it was leaning in, waiting for him to slip.
You have acquired [Crude Magic Lamp]
Current charge: 00% — requires a [Lesser Spirit Coin] to activate.
Expend 1 [Lesser Spirit Coin]? Y/N
"Please and thank you," Jace muttered.
The lamp flared to life at once—and he immediately regretted everything.
He had been holding the front of the lamp directly toward his face, and the sudden burst of light hit him like a flashbang. Jace screamed, dropping the lamp as if it had turned molten in his hands, and staggered backward. He landed hard on the wooden planks of the walkway, clutching his eyes. The lamp clattered across the boards, rattling away before coming to rest.
"Good job, genius," he croaked, voice raw with pain. "Blind yourself with a lamp. Ten out of ten survival skills. Real professional adventuring right there."
For a long moment he lay groaning, hands pressed against his face until the worst of the searing afterimage began to fade. Finally, with great caution, he cracked his eyelids open.
The world wasn't much brighter than before, but it was no longer complete blackness. The lamp's glow was faint, half-shrouded by its casing, but compared to the void it was like a gift from heaven. Jagged shadows stretched and twisted across uneven stone, revealing at least the bare outlines of his surroundings.
He was in a cavern. A real, natural cavern—not the smooth, conveniently traversable kind he'd seen in video games, but one carved by time and water, all slick rock and irregular terrain. That, he supposed, explained the walkway. The planks were raised on sturdy wooden posts, a man-made path to save whoever came down here from snapping an ankle on the treacherous ground below.
Jace was already sprawled across the walkway, so he rolled over, reaching down toward the faint glimmer of metal. The lamp had fallen only a short distance away, resting just within reach. The walkway sat about an arm's length above the cavern floor, so he stretched down and scooped it up without too much trouble.
This time, when he pulled it closer, Jace held it at arm's length, squinting warily at the glow. He pushed himself upright, settling into a sitting position on the planks, and studied the lamp more carefully—determined not to blind himself again.
As its name implied, the Crude Magic Lamp was exactly that—crude. The design wasn't elegant, mystical, or anything that suggested the craftsmanship of a master enchanter. It looked more like something a miner might cobble together in his spare time: three boxy sides of dull metal, a glass pane at the front, and a looped handle bolted on top for carrying.
Jace tilted it this way and that, half-expecting the glass to have cracked after his earlier drop. But no—despite its cheap appearance, the thing seemed tougher than it looked. Inside, the source of illumination was a round stone, glowing faintly like a pale imitation of a light bulb. Functional, if not exactly comforting.
He raised the lamp higher, letting its meager glow spill across his surroundings. The cavern unfolded reluctantly before him, the light drawing jagged outlines from the shadows. The place was larger than he expected, with stalactites drooping from the ceiling like teeth and deep cracks yawning in the walls. Every shadow seemed a little too sharp, every crevice a little too inviting for monsters.
"Hello?" Jace called out, his voice echoing off stone in a way that made the silence afterward seem twice as loud.
Between the racket he'd already made—dropping the lamp, yelling when it blinded him, groaning theatrically on the walkway—and now the glow cutting through the darkness, stealth was off the table. If anything lived down here, it already knew he was coming.
The quest was driving him deeper into the cavern, forcing his hand rather than letting him scurry back into the labyrinth above. Jace chose to take that as a good sign—because the alternative was too unsettling. Maybe the cave ended in something worth the trouble: a pirate ship hidden underground, creaking with enough treasure to pay off the family mortgage and buy the country club outright. Or at the very least, someone who didn't consider human flesh a dietary staple.
"Anyone down here?" he tried again, voice wry. "If you want me to kill ten goblins in exchange for an uncommon spear, I should warn you—I'm really only equipped for light gardening."
His free hand brushed against the trowel tucked at his side. The so-called "evil trowel." Jace glanced down at it, sighing. It wasn't much of a weapon, but right now it was the closest thing he had to one.
"It could be evil gardening," Jace muttered, giving the trowel at his side a wary glance.
The crude magic lamp's glow wasn't subtle. Its beam cut through the darkness like a lighthouse sweeping over a stormy sea, bright and obvious. Stealth, Jace realized, was a lost cause. Any lurking denizens of the cavern already knew exactly where he was. If they hadn't noticed the racket earlier, the beacon of light he now carried would surely do the trick.
But that was fine—at least, he tried to convince himself it was. His hope was that whatever creatures lived down here would be creatures of the dark. If he could draw them into the open, force them into the glare, then maybe he could dazzle them, disorient them long enough to not die horribly.
The alternative—creeping blind through pitch blackness, waiting for something unseen to bite his head off—was worse. At least this way he'd see his killer coming. Not that he wanted to die, of course. That would definitely tank his performance review. In fact, as far as quests went, Jace was usually the kind of player who treated secondary objectives as optional busywork. But here, in this very real game, the optional side quest labeled Don't Die had suddenly become his top priority. Motivation: maxed out.
Jace started down the walkway, moving cautiously. Each step was deliberate, his foot probing the planks before shifting weight. The so-called sand coating had long since eroded in many places, leaving slick stretches of wood polished smooth by years of damp air. His boots slid more than once, and his pulse jumped with every slip, every moment he thought he might topple into the unseen depths below.
The cavern itself narrowed into a kind of natural tunnel, its jagged walls pressing in as though funneling him forward. The walkway obediently traced its path, leading him deeper and deeper into the subterranean dark.
Eventually, the passage widened again, and the wooden path ended abruptly at something unnatural—a wall of old, weathered brick embedded in the side of the cave. Set into the center of it was a massive metal door, heavy and foreboding. A great wheel protruded from its surface, the kind Jace had only ever seen in submarine movies.
Both wheel and door were mottled with rust, the metal scabbed and flaking from years of neglect. Dust and corrosion suggested no one had forced it open in a long, long time. It radiated a kind of patient menace, like it was waiting for him to make the first move.