After a couple of minutes holding my breath while I sank down into Madeville Lake, following the trail made from Bee’s purple soul wing, I had to concede and put Brock’s questionable tube appendage into my mouth. The moment I closed my lips over it, he made a disturbing sound, and then my mouth was suddenly flush with oxygen that had a grape-soda aftertaste to it.

  “Stop wriggling it so much!” I complained, since the tube kept pushing against the inside of my cheek. But my voice was muffled and made incomprehensible by the water.

  “This is deeply questionable,” Panda remarked, hanging on to my shoulder as I swam down. “Although that looner guy would love this.”

  The lake water became darker and darker the deeper we went. Bee was surprisingly fast and pulling away from me, so I used my Blink ability to catch up.

  Bubbles and muffled sounds came out of her mouth as she saw me.

  “She’s asking if you’ve seen Tyler,” Panda translated.

  “I haven’t,” I replied. “But I think there’s supposed to be a temple down here somewhere.”

  Bee gave me a confused look.

  Panda sighed. “He said no,” he translated.

  “I said a whole lot more than that!” I complained.

  Bee suddenly looked back behind me and exclaimed a string of nonsense.

  Panda turned around.

  “Oh shit,” he muttered. “Gambit, go faster!”

  I craned my neck back and saw an enormous fish with a wide silhouette and two large bulbous eyes on top of its flat body, along with a sideways mouth that was opening as it swam towards us.

  [Appraisal x ]

  Level 40 — ‘The Lord of Madeville Lake’ — World Boss

  “*Hungry fish noises*”

  Madeville Lake is one of the overworld areas of your Region that was altered with the GREAT GAME’s initialization. It’s not really meant to be explorable until after the Second GAME Event, and to ensure those who try to freedive to the bottom won’t make it far, this giant flounder was made the ruler of this lake. The beat of his tailfin alone is enough to stir the waters and create the waves that lead those on the surface towards the central island.

  While he isn’t much to look at, he is hungry and fast, and you’re looking like food to him right now.

  You probably shouldn’t have come down here.

  Bee grabbed me and used her Moth Dash just as the flounder surged forward. We moved straight down with an explosion of bubbles, narrowly escaping death, but the boss was insistent, and I had to use Blink to get out from it a second time.

  Instead of trying to devour us with another lunge, the flounder swam around us and went deeper, clearly planning to grab us when we reached the bottom.

  “Watch out! It just camouflaged itself!” Panda exclaimed.

  Muttered nonsense came out of Bee’s mouth.

  “What!?” I asked.

  Bee pointed down where a strange wooden hut came into view, along with the sandy silt of the lake’s floor. Near to the hut was a big hill with two bulbous bumps at the front. It was clearly the flounder boss.

  “It sucks at hiding,” I said.

  Stolen from its rightful place, this narrative is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

  “Use your teleport to get both of you inside before it can grab you,” Panda told me.

  Brock wriggled the oxygen tube in my mouth excitedly.

  “Stop that,” I told him.

  “Punch the fish, Gamby!” he exclaimed.

  “I’m not gonna punch it,” I told him. “We’re underwater. If I punch it as hard as I can, it’ll create a water bubble that’ll implode and kill us…”

  He kept wriggling the tube, so I bit down on it with my teeth, causing him to yelp.

  Then I grabbed onto Bee’s arm firmly and used Blink to deposit us right in front of the hut.

  The hill that the flounder formed with its body immediately shifted towards us, but just as it was about to snap its maw down over us, we were pulled in through the opening of the wooden hut.

  Darkness overcame me and I felt the sensation of falling for a second.

  WARNING!

  Now entering level 30 Dungeon ‘The Fishmonger’s Shop’!

  Bee and I landed on a wet wooden floor inside a large room that stank of fish.

  I immediately pulled Brock’s tube out of my mouth.

  “Brock is conflicted,” he squeaked. “When you bit me, it was both painful and pleasant.”

  “I’m never using your breathing tube again…” I told him, spitting on the floor to get the taste of grape-soda out of my mouth.

  Lordie popped back out of his transport cage, appearing atop my head.

  “Meow?”

  I looked across the room and saw what the hand-spider had immediately noticed. It was a stall set into the back wall, displaying flounders in front of a wooden counter, as well as hanging from racks and the ceiling of the shop. A bald ancient-looking grandpa sat on a chair inside. Lordie clearly wanted one of the fish, since they stank like shit.

  A guy stood in front of the stall, his dirty-blonde dreadlocks and posture marking him as one of Tanner’s friends. His skin was a deep-red tan, and he had tan lines around his neck, wrists, and, confusingly, in a line around his torso like from a bikini top. He was currently only wearing baby-blue trunks with light-green palms on them, and old dirty flipflops.

  He turned around with a casual wave and said, “Yo.”

  “Yo,” Bee replied.

  “Nice outfit,” he told her, but she ignored his comment.

  “You’re Tyler, right?” I asked. He perfectly matched my mental image of a guy with that name.

  “In the flesh, brother,” he replied.

  “I need to know where Otto went,” I said.

  “That’s easy, brother. He went to Castleburg. Said he was seeking a place even deeper than Madeville Lake. Dunno why tho.”

  “I know where he’s going,” Panda immediately said.

  “So, uh, do you, like, know how I get out of here?” Tyler asked.

  I shrugged. “It’s a dungeon, so there’s gotta be a boss.”

  Tyler looked around and I took a moment to do the same.

  The dungeon was just this one large room with a wet wooden floor, plank walls, and a ceiling that looked like it was rotting from the saltwater dripping down between the cracks in the wooden boards it was made of. The only thing of note was the stall in the back wall.

  I appraised the guy sitting behind the stand full of fish.

  [Appraisal x ]

  Level 30 — ‘The Fishmonger’ — Vendor

  “You youngins want fish?”

  I’ll be honest, I don’t know what this guy is doing here. For some reason, The Fishmonger’s Shop isn’t anywhere in my notes. I’m pretty sure this place is either one of those Trick Dungeons a few of the more insidious members of the Dungeon Architects’ department made, or it’s simply unfinished since it was assumed no one would be able to get here. It’s hard to tell since I can’t find the notes on this place.

  Anyway, this guy sells fish. I’m not sure what the fish do. Maybe they do nothing. They smell pretty bad, so I wouldn’t risk it.

  But yeah, good luck getting out of here, I guess.

  Panda frowned. “It’s a trick dungeon?”

  “What’s the trick?” I asked.

  “Woah, you’ve got a talking panda?” Tyler asked.

  “You can see him?” Bee replied.

  “Yeah. I just thought it was part of the outfit.”

  Panda turned to look at Tyler. “How long have you been down here?”

  “Like 3 hours?” he replied. “I think.”

  “Y’all buyin’ my fish?” the old guy in the stall asked.

  “I ain’t got no money with me, man,” Tyler told him, sounding exasperated. Then he turned back to us. “He keeps repeating that question every 5 minutes… And a fish costs like 100 dollars, he said.”

  “Coins, young man, not dollars,” the Fishmonger corrected him.

  I looked at Bee. “Any clue what the fuck is going on here?”

  She shrugged.

  “Have you tried stealing a fish?” Panda asked Tyler.

  “Nah, he got real pissed when I touched one earlier. He’s kind of scary.”

  I shared a glance with Bee. She gave me a nod, so I strode across the soggy floor to the stall and picked up a fish.

  That turned out to be a really bad idea.

  There were maybe 200 fish in total, and every last one of them started to scream as they sprouted spider legs and mandibles.

  Then the old man’s body unraveled, revealing him to be a massive many-legged spider as well.

  Lordie yelped and disappeared into the transport cage.

  [Congratulations! You have unlocked an achievement! x ]

  ‘Trick or Death’

  Uncovered the trick in a Trick Dungeon.

  The person who designed this dungeon just got a promotion for trapping you.

  It’s like they don’t understand that you don’t die to traps like this.

  Anyway, so, I bet a lot of money on you surviving this, because the odds were good.

  Don’t die.

  It would be very inconvenient for me, since I need that money to buy more food.

  Reward: ‘Trickster’s Surprise’