“How was I supposed to know that they still remembered me!?” I yelled as Waldo and his friends chased us out of the starting chamber and through the next room full of Xs on the tiled floor.

  One of the janitors didn’t look where he was going as he swung his mop to try and hit us. When he stepped on a tile with a spray-painted X, a dozen zombie hands surged up out of the floor and pulled him down into the ground, his scream immediately cut short.

  The rest of our pursuers froze after seeing their friend devoured by a trap, allowing Bee and I to get away safely.

  “I’ll get you back for what you did!” Waldo yelled as we went through a door at the other end of the chamber.

  Once through, we found ourselves in a cafeteria with metal benches secured to the smooth floor with big screws. Dead purple zombies lay everywhere, but there were also dead Players in guard outfits among them.

  “Why were they so upset with you?” Bee asked as we walked across the room, both on the lookout for traps.

  “I have no idea,” I replied vaguely.

  “Gambit was briefly in this prison in the past, and though he claims to not remember what happened, that’s a lie,” Panda said.

  “I’m serious,” I replied. “I really don’t remember.”

  “Well, then let me regale you. One of the first things he did was start a riot by somehow uniting the two gangs inside who hated each other and riling them up. Eighteen people went to the hospital because of the fight that ensued. He was sent to solitary confinement because they deemed it a danger to keep him amongst the ‘normal’ prisoners, but when two of the guards saw the symbols he had carved into the wall using his toothbrush, they quit on the spot and went to Fiji where they still live to this day. Oh, and the resident psychologist had a mental breakdown after just three sessions with Gambit, ending up in jail herself after stealing a cop car and going on a wild chase that ended with her driving into Madeville Lake.”

  “Wow,” Bee muttered.

  “I don’t remember any of that,” I said.

  “Well, that’s just the start of it,” Panda replied. “You also somehow made a phone call to Waldo’s wife, causing her to divorce him a day later. And, though I’m not sure how, you were able to convince the state’s legislators to introduce a law blocking taxpayer money from funding the snacks delivered to the prison guards, as well as funding fun recreational activities like Sunday BBQ and the quarterly paintball tournament the guards had held for over four years.”

  “That sounds more like something Tina would do,” I remarked, still not recalling any of this. Although the more I thought about it, the more the name ‘Waldo’ sounded familiar.

  “Why do you think she wanted to be your friend at the asylum?” Panda replied.

  Bee patted me on the back. “I’m proud of you for standing up to authorities like that.”

  Although I still couldn’t recall any of what Panda had mentioned, I let her praise wash over me.

  There were three separate doors leading out of the cafeteria, but it was impossible to tell which one Isabella and her team had gone through. I just picked the door opposite from the one we’d entered, since there were several dead Players in front of it.

  “That’s a bad measurement for which door to pick,” Panda commented. “It could be a trap.”

  I ignored him and went through, entering into what was clearly a shower room. At the back of the room, set between the tiled stalls, were four colored doors. They were Yellow, Blue, Red, and Green.

  “Ah shit, not these again,” I muttered.

  Bee gasped excitedly. “I wanna pick this time!”

  “Meow,” Lordie said.

  “I’m not trusting you again,” I told him, remembering how he had led us right into the Shit Worm in the sewers last time we encountered the colored paths.

  “Alright, so, our options are: Death, Treasure, Setback, and Boss,” Panda recounted.

  “We know,” I replied.

  “Which will take us to Isabella?” Bee asked.

  “Shouldn’t we just go straight to the boss and end the dungeon?” I argued.

  “In the last dimension, Isabella gained a lot of levels by completing this dungeon. We’d probably be hamstringing her by beating the boss before she can get more levels,” Panda said.

  “And? If she’s competent, she’ll find another way to level,” I said. “We’re in a hurry here, you know. Everything will have been for nothing if we don’t find Otto before it’s too late!”

  Panda sighed. “Fine. I was kind of hoping that she could be another person to add to our team, but I suppose we might as well just get it over with. It’s the blue door.”

  I narrowed my eyes suspiciously. “You’re not bullshitting us, right?”

  Unauthorized duplication: this tale has been taken without consent. Report sightings.

  Bee frowned. “Hey! I was gonna pick.”

  “Me-ow!” Lordie said, clearly contradicting Panda.

  “Brock says blue as well,” my balloon sleeve commented. “B for Brock, B for Boss, B for Balloon. Blue is the door yiz want.”

  Bee went over to the yellow door. “Gambit, we’re picking this one!”

  “Don’t! That’s the death door!” Panda exclaimed.

  Bee pointed her tongue at him. “Well, I’m going through it. You can come along if you want, or you can pick a different door.”

  “Do you think it’ll actually take us to the boss?” I asked her.

  She shrugged. “I have no idea. But I know that Panda is lying. He’s trying to get you to pick the setback door.”

  “Slander!” Panda exclaimed, but now that the seed of doubt had been planted in my head, all I heard was him admitting his guilt.

  “Alright, let’s go,” I told her, glaring at the plushie.

  Bee pulled open the yellow door, revealing a dark hallway.

  “I’m telling the truth, Gambit! If you go down this hallway, then—” Panda started to say, but I tuned him out and entered.

  The door shut behind us and became a wall as soon as we stepped through. From floor to ceiling, everything was covered in a long-haired fuzzy carpet inexplicably in a tiger print pattern. The long strands from the walls and ceiling tickled my face as we passed through to wherever our colored path was leading us.

  Then suddenly the floor gave out and we plummeted into darkness. Bee let out an excited squeal like she was on a rollercoaster.

  After a couple of seconds, I felt solid ground under my feet, but the darkness persisted.

  “Bee?” I called.

  “I think I picked the wrong door,” she said from a few meters away.

  “Really good call getting rid of the Transition Lenses passive,” I told Panda sarcastically.

  “Gambit, you two need to get out of here! Fast!” he replied, ignoring my jab.

  A swoosh sound flew through the air around me, but I couldn’t tell what was causing it.

  “This might’ve been the death door,” Bee said.

  “Me-ow!” Lordie exclaimed, hopping into the transport cage in my suit’s front pocket.

  “What’s making that sound?” I wondered and stepped forward.

  Then I saw it.

  Just for a split second.

  A pink curved blade on a long handle and a smiling man holding it.

  Then my head left my body like the cork of a champagne bottle.

  GAME OVER!

  You have died.

  ***

  SKILL TRIGGER!

  Rules of Anarchy(Respawn Once) respawned you back at the beginning!

  I reappeared inside my cell in the asylum. The heavy door to the room was wide open and the hole I’d made to escape out the window was still there, although it just showed the screaming tapestry of hair that was the dungeon barrier.

  “Fuck!” I shouted, which immediately elicited warbling screeches from nearby cells. “Decapitation again!”

  “Use your Traceback ability!” Panda exclaimed. “Quick! You only have a minute!”

  I reached up and felt the System Mod horn sprouting from my head. It was the only thing aside from Brock that I hadn’t dropped on death.

  “Did you see what killed me?” I asked Panda.

  “Yeah… We need to hurry back and save Bee. She used her Moth Dash to avoid the attack that killed you, but she’s probably screwed.”

  I gritted my teeth. “Brock, no more bullshit. We need to save Bee, so I need your help here.”

  “But, but…”

  I yanked on the balloon sleeve, forcefully pulling it down over my hand. Brock squeaked loudly in protest, but then he suddenly just covered my right fist again, although he still stretched all up my right arm.

  “Thanks… I actually couldn’t do that on my own. I wasn’t sure how to tell yiz.”

  “And let me guess, you were too proud to say anything?” Panda remarked.

  “I was… Shameful, I know.”

  I gritted my teeth. “Alright, here we go! Traceback(damage)!”

  Traceback initiating!

  …

  …Locating damage origin point…

  …

  …Triangulating…

  …

  …Playing ‘taken_quote.mp4’ through nearest monitor…

  …

  Success!

  Traceback source discovered.

  …

  …Teleporting…

  My entire body was pulled inside itself, which was a strangely-pleasant experience, like visiting an eldritch chiropractor. Then I was overcome with the sensation of falling, before my body was pulled out of itself and placed back where I’d died in the dark chamber, my joints all spry and limber.

  The darkness had retreated, since all around me were towering and glowing mushrooms, illuminating quite a large area, though the effect was slight.

  Bee was dodging around behind the thick stalks of the mushrooms, gliding through the grass-like moss covering the stone floor of the dark chamber with expert agility.

  The thing that chased her was a grinning man with pale-pink skin wearing a fluffy panda bathrobe onesie with a hood and wielding a scythe with a pink blade, its long white handle covered in cutesy anime stickers. For some reason, my Traceback ability hadn’t placed me behind him but instead right where I’d appeared when first entering the chamber. I had a bad feeling that it meant we couldn’t teleport out of here, since the entrance acted like a teleport magnet.

  “What the fuck is that?” I asked while quickly picking up my loot from where my headless corpse lay. The Greedlings that normally repossessed my Silver Skeleton when I died hadn’t shown up yet since my old bones were still inside.

  I used my Appraising Eye on the pink scythe wielder.

  [Appraisal x ]

  Level 50 — ‘The Delightful Reaper’ — Boss

  “Off with your head, nyan!”

  You have no doubt heard of the Grim Reaper, but did you know that he has two brothers? I don’t blame you for not knowing, after all, the stardom of Grim really overshadowed the accomplishments of his siblings.

  As you can imagine based on the name, Delightful is the polar opposite to Grim. But just because he’s more pleasant than his famous brother, it doesn’t mean he isn’t going to lop your head off with his scythe and harvest your soul. And between you and me, I think this guy is way scarier.

  Anyway, Delightful is one of those rare specimens in the GREAT GAME who only show up in really special circumstances, such as when a foolish Player picks the colored path that leads to Death. That’s right, we were being literal with the potential destinations. Bet you didn’t see that one coming!

  “Kind of embarrassing you died to this guy,” Panda remarked.