I Always Die on This Level

“SO THE THING ABOUT FLOOR TWO IS UH- IT’S LIKE, UM-“ Percival stammered his way down the staircase with the others, the ground coming towards them like a meteor. He was surprised nobody was rolling down the steep decline. Once they all hit the bottom, the dragon was still right behind them, slithering on the second floor ceiling against its own programming.

Frankie fell face-first on the less-than-clean ground the second she took a step forward when she found her legs seized in some kind of bola that shot out a nearby wall.

“FROSTAR!” After a moment of charging his staff’s energy, Gregory shot it again. Finally, it collapsed- once it fell down to the floor, the robotics inside seemed to break.

“…It’s full of traps.” Percy finished saying only after Frankie was flailing about on the floor.

“Let’s get you out.” Rocco quickly started to untie her. Serah looked jealous and wasn’t especially trying to hide it.

“We need to move more carefully from now on… we never know what’s going to happen-“

“Never know what’s going to happen? Yes, that sounds about right- given that monster just came back to life after you clearly took it down with a fully-charged ice shot just like so many times before!”

“That’s right, I know- it seems like such a strange occurrence… and I mean, with how fast we found it and everything… do… do you think our whole run is glitched? Er… “cursed,” if you will?”

“Fellas, fellas. This place has always been a dump.” Serah mediated. “We break something or other every time we come down here and there’s almost no safety measures. Are you really that surprised the monsters are acting strangely?”

“We should still keep our guard up.” Spoke Rocco. “Frankie, can you move any? I’m having some trouble with the…”

“Why is it so tight…?” The hooded thief continued to struggle against the weighted ropes forming a rash across her ankles. “I can’t feel my feet!”

“The hell…?” Percival looked scared for a moment. Even if this attraction’s kind of jank… that sort of thing’s never supposed to happen, right? Almost like… like the dungeon’s actually trying to hurt us…

“Let me!” The tourist’s protective big sister ran up and took the knife off her bent, sawing through the rope as hard as she could. Only, the rope wouldn’t come undone.

Greg blinked at the sight, adjusting his glasses…

“Wait, that material… that’s new. Normally, the ropes here are as weak as paper…”

“Can- can anyone get me out? It’s- kinda starting to hurt here…”

The team started to gather around Frankie as they all tried to help her, but before they knew it, another group was coming down the stairs from Floor One.

“Hey!” Serah whipped her ginger head around to the party of three. “Uh, our friend is really stuck here- thinking you can give us a hand? I’ll uh, give you a few coins…” She searched her mostly-vacant satchel. “Or we can just hang out sometime if that works-“

“Hey. Uh, girl?” The tall, dodgy boy in front’s taunting, smoky voice interrupted. “I don't know if you’ve noticed, but we aren’t here to help you. Quite the opposite, really.”

In one hand, he pointed the tip of his massive claymore towards the petty thief below's face. Behind him, his two party members readied their own weapons.

“Let’s do a little PvP, now shall we?”