As I stepped into my second dungeon, I was immediately blasted by a wave of heat that took my breath away. It was so hot I had to blink several times, tears coming to my eyes, and my mouth immediately felt parched; the moisture from my body had seemingly been leeched from me in an instant.

  When my eyes cleared, I saw that I was standing in a large hallway carved completely from stone, as if I was deep underground or in the heart of a mountain. On my right was a massive slab of stone leaning against the wall. Around it were gears that turned slowly. Tubes coming from the stone wall connected to the slab, and there were a few complicated-looking devices I couldn’t immediately identify.

  On my left, magma spilled from the wall, pouring into an opening covered by a grate on the floor. I couldn’t see a purpose for the magma flow, but it produced an overpowering amount of heat. The smell of burning metal assaulted my nostrils, making it hard for me to distinguish any other smells. The magma lit the hallway dimly, casting everything in a harsh red light.

  I drew my revolver, looking for possible enemies in the hallway, but nothing was moving nearby except for the gears attached to the metal slab on my right. I took a hesitant step forward. As soon as I did, the stone hissed with steam and began to split down the middle.

  “Of course,” I muttered, glaring at the slab of stone as it slowly began to open.

  Inside the slab was a massive golem, standing at least three or four feet taller than me. It had a large round body and two thick arms and legs. Its head was featureless, just a blank slab of stone without any eyes or mouth. Its arms and legs, which were just large chunks of stone attached to the central body, had crude-looking knees and elbows made of stone but no toes or fingers. When the slab finished opening completely, the golem stepped forward, the weight of its first step sending a boom echoing through the hallway all around me.

  “Shit,” I said, frantically backing away from the massive golem as far as I could go.

  I took aim and fired all six of my Penetration Bullets at the golem’s head. The bullets impacted dead center, sending a spray of stone shards out from the impact site, but the golem took another step forward, its second foot slamming down ominously. I reloaded rapidly.

  I examined its head and saw that my bullets had managed to penetrate fairly deep, carving a hole into where its face would have been, but apparently they did nothing to actually cause any harm. There was no brain or weak spot in the golem’s head.

  “Double shit.” I looked behind me, but the hallway where I had appeared ended at a solid wall of stone. There was no escape in that direction.

  I fired another full round of shots, this time aiming for where a heart would be on a human. The thick chest of the golem seemed more resistant to my bullets; the wound from all six bullets barely made a dent a few inches deep in its chest.

  The golem raised its hands as it approached me like a zombie in a horror movie, mindlessly reaching for me. I ran past it down the hallway, rolling under its outstretched arms in case it tried to grab me. As I rolled past, it surprised me by turning with a sudden burst of speed, its massive foot rocketing forward and catching me in the side. I tried to lessen the impact by throwing myself in the direction of the kick, but it barely lessened the pain that shot through me as the enormous foot hit me in the ribs and stomach.

  I groaned, trying to steady myself as I was flung across the hallway, coming perilously close to the magma that poured from the nearby wall. The golem continued forward, moving slowly in my direction. I scrambled up and ran past the brute, managing to stay far enough away this time to avoid its hands and feet. Once I put some distance between us, I loaded a single Explosive Bullet and fired it at the golem. The explosion was deafening in such a small hallway, making my ears pop and knocking me backward from the backdraft. I was sent sprawling on my back, my hurt ribs causing me to gasp in pain from the impact against the floor. When the flame dissipated, the golem was revealed, unharmed. It had paused for a moment from the explosion, but once the flames disappeared, it took another step forward, uncaring.

  I picked myself up carefully, frustrated at how ineffective I felt against the golem. I was being tossed around like a lightweight, but I wasn’t some rookie anymore. I had survived in this world when many couldn’t. I wasn’t going to go down to some mindless automaton.

  I thought over the different types of ammunition I had on me, deciding to load a Stasis Bullet next and fired that at the golem. It impacted against the golem’s chest, flashing silver for a second. When the light faded, I saw the golem was covered in a silver sheen of energy. I waited to see what would happen next, but nothing did. The golem was frozen in place.

  I tried to inhale deeply, but my breath caught in my throat due to the pain in my ribs and chest where the golem had kicked me. I felt along my ribs with my left hand while sending nanobots to the area to begin work on repairing the injuries. From what I could feel, nothing had been broken from the kick, but I was going to have some serious bruising and my fighting effectiveness was going to take a hit until I could repair myself. I was thankful for the durability of my body; I was fairly confident that if I had been a normal human, that kick would have killed me.

  I ate a short meal and drank some water to help power my nanobots, keeping a careful watch on the frozen golem. I wasn’t sure how long the Stasis Bullet would work, but as I ate, I reloaded with Penetration Bullets and urged my nanobots to work as fast as possible. After about five minutes, the silver sheen that covered the golem began to fade.

  I aimed my revolver and waited for the last of the silver to fade completely. When it did, the golem lurched forward once again and I fired all six bullets at its left kneecap, hoping that might be a weak point in the golem’s design. My bullets struck the kneecap, sending out a spray of stone with each impact. The golem didn’t react, continuing toward me without slowing in the slightest.

  I backed up, reloading and firing six more times into the same kneecap. This time, the kneecap shattered after the first few bullets, barely holding together as the stone fractured completely. When the golem tried to step forward on its left leg, the kneecap couldn’t support its weight. The golem slowly tipped sideways until it impacted against the stone floor with a loud bang. The golem froze there on the ground for a few seconds, but after a momentary hesitation, it began to pull itself toward me with its two working arms.

  “Oh, c’mon now. This is just too much,” I said, staring at the relentless golem.

  I watched as the golem continued to crawl toward me, trying to figure out what to do next. I could waste time and bullets trying to find a way to kill the golem, or I could just leave it behind. At the rate it was crawling, it probably couldn’t catch up to me before I reached the end of the dungeon. The only thing was, I didn’t know if I could complete the dungeon if I didn’t kill the golem or something. Was I supposed to kill it somehow? Or just avoid it and race down the hallway, staying far enough ahead that it could never catch up? These dungeons were annoyingly vague.

  I thought of the last dungeon and how I was pretty sure there had been multiple different ways I could have completed it. I decided it didn’t matter if I killed the golem or just left it behind. The dungeon would likely let me complete it, even if my rewards were less for not fully defeating the monster.

  I turned away from the slowly crawling golem and holstered my gun, annoyed at the stupidity of the golem and its impenetrable body. Instead of dealing with it any further, I walked forward slowly, looking down the hallway to see what other challenges I might face and trying to ignore the scraping sounds of the golem behind me.

  In front of me, more streams of magma spilled from the walls, granting a measure of illumination in the dark hallway. Further down the hallway, I saw several anvils and forges, and piled next to them were various types of weapons and suits of armor. I walked forward cautiously until I could inspect the weapons and armor. It seemed like I was in some kind of foundry, which made sense, considering the dungeon was in the basement of the foundry above. Unlike above, though, this was no normal foundry, unless it was common to build one underground or in some kind of active volcano and protect it with nigh-impenetrable golems.

  I continued down the hallway, carefully watching for anything that might try to attack me. After several minutes of walking down the empty hallway, I spotted another slab of stone leaning against a wall in the distance. I sighed at the sight. I knew there had to be more golems; I had just really hoped I would be proven wrong.

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  When the stone slab split in half, gushing with steam, I was standing in front of the cairn, revolver raised. I unloaded in the golem’s kneecap from close range, shattering it with my six bullets. When the golem tried to give chase, I stepped back and it crashed to the ground at my feet, crippled like the last one.

  I turned, reloading my revolver with a flick of my wrist, leaving another golem to crawl pitifully after me.

  I continued down the hallway, leaving a chain of crippled golems behind me. I found several sub-bosses, larger and more powerful golems, but they were even slower than the normal golems. It took a few more bullets to cripple the larger golems, but I had no problem staying out of reach of them. Now that I knew what to do to disable them, I was never really at risk. My biggest concern was that I was going through my Penetration Bullets rapidly, so I set my nanobots to crafting more in my backpack as I moved through the dungeon, slowly replenishing my supply.

  After a particularly annoying sub-boss, I stopped to drink some water, gently running my fingers up and down my ribs to see how they were healing. They were still sore to the touch, but my breathing had been getting easier over time. My nanobots were working as fast as they could, but the process of repairing my body wasn’t quick.

  After an untold amount of time and numerous crippled golems left in my wake, I finally arrived at the end of the dungeon. I could tell because the hallway had finally ended, opening up into a large workshop the size of the warehouse above, if not bigger. Inside the workshop was an eclectic collection of weapons and armor piled on and around numerous desks, forges, or anvils or just lying in piles on the floor here and there. At one of the tables that faced the hallway was a diminutive man about the size of a small child. He had wild silver-blue hair that stuck straight upward and a pair of broken glasses on his small face. He hadn’t noticed me, staring downward at some of the papers and books spread haphazardly around the desk in front of him. If I had to compare him to the mythology of my Earth, he seemed to fit the description of a mythical gnome. And if not for the fact that he glowed a slight gold, I would have assumed he was a normal person trapped here instead of the boss of the dungeon.

  When it was clear he wasn’t going to notice me where I stood, I stepped into the room. The gnome immediately turned and glared at me.

  “I am not to be interrupted!” the gnome yelled before shaking his head and turning back to the books he was focused on. He stood on a stool and leaned most of his body over the large table to read what was in front of him, idly fiddling with several mechanical gears as he read.

  I carefully looked over the workshop and saw the white dungeon core resting on a pillar on the far side of the room. It was one of the only parts of the workshop not covered in suits of armor or various types of weapons.

  I walked across the workshop toward the core, keeping an eye on the gnome. When I got close to the core, he finally reacted, turning toward me with an angry expression on his face.

  “How dare you!” he yelled at me. “You would destroy my life’s work so casually?”

  I froze, shrugging apologetically at him, unsure of what to say. I had hoped he would just let me take the orb and leave, but apparently not. He raised his hands, his small face scrunching up in anger. After a second, the weapons around the room began to shake and lift themselves into the air.

  Not waiting for the gnome to bring the many floating weapons any closer to me, I drew my revolver and shot him through the chest. The bullet blew a large hole through his chest, throwing him backward. He flipped completely over the desk he had been reading at, spilling books and papers everywhere. The weapons that had been rising to attack me clattered to the ground. Silence filled the workshop, aside from the sound of harsh, gurgling breathing coming from behind the table where the gnome had landed.

  I walked over, watching the gnome carefully for signs that he had other tricks, my gun pointed down at him. He was still alive, but barely. He was gasping, trying to take a breath through the wound in his chest.

  “Such . . . a . . . magnificent . . . device!” He gasped each word as he stared at my revolver, then collapsed backward, dead. I stared back at him, a bit sad about the entire thing. It would have been interesting to talk to the gnome more, but apparently it wasn’t meant to be. What a puzzling dungeon.

  Once I made sure the gnome was dead, I turned to examine the room. The books the gnome had been reading were covered in blood, but what writing I could see wasn’t of a language I recognized.

  Shaking my head, I moved over to the dungeon core and grasped it, deciding to just get this dungeon over with.

  Congratulations, you have completed this dungeon. You have earned the following rewards: 1 gold core, 9 blue cores, your choice of one weapon or piece of armor from the Arsenal of the Mad Magician, 1000 experience.

  The white core changed into a gold orb surrounded by nine blue orbs. I grabbed them and put them in my pouch. When I had them secured, I turned to look back at the workshop, paying more attention to the weapons and armor around me. Since the dungeon hadn’t closed when I touched the orb, it must want me to pick my reward from those in the room around me.

  As I turned, a large leather-bound book now floated in midair where none had been before. I walked forward and examined the book, finding that I could understand the writing in this one. I idly flipped through a few of the pages. The text described all the weapons and armor around me, explaining what each item did and what it was made from.

  I grabbed the book, which let me take it, and then sat down and began to read. There was quite a variety of things to choose from, each weapon and piece of armor having a unique power. There was a sword that could strike three times instead of just once with every fourth attack made. There was an axe that could chop through any type of wood, no matter its strength. There was a spear that could shrink or grow as the wielder desired, a knife that could fly next to its owner and attack independently, armor that could resist various kinds of attacks or make its wearer look like a monster or an inanimate object, and so much more.

  Toward the back of the book, I found plate armor that would allow the wearer to breathe underwater, which seemed ironic since the armor was so heavy that anyone who wore it would sink immediately and probably never be able to swim to the surface again. I found leather armor studded with metal plates that allowed a person to live without food for a month at a time, a helm that let a person perceive ghosts, and many other things like that.

  I wasn’t sure what exactly I needed since my revolver was more powerful than most of the weapons I could choose from here. The different armors were interesting, but my reinforced clothing was already effective against piercing weapons, and nothing the gnome had created would stop the kind of blunt damage that I had taken from the golem.

  Toward the end of the book, I found a pair of gloves that stood out to me.

  Gloves of Golem Strength. When making an unarmed strike, gain the strength of the golems. Your strength is magnified 10 times and you take no damage from striking a stronger object. This item has a cooldown of one minute per hand.

  It wasn’t particularly useful, but when I found the gloves tucked in a drawer of the gnome’s desk, they fit me perfectly and were made of fine leather, which meant they wouldn’t interfere with my current weapons. The effect could be useful if something got too close for me to use my revolver or grenades on, and the strength magnification was based on my actual body, which meant the attack would scale extremely well.

  After trying on the gloves, I decided to take them. I could have picked some powerful sword or a suit of armor that probably could have sold for a significant amount, but ultimately, the gloves provided another tool that might help keep me alive and covered one of my weaknesses, giving me a powerful attack against anything that got too close.

  When I made my decision, I felt the dungeon lurch around me, and I found myself standing outside once again. I stumbled forward, almost tripping down the stairs that led into the basement I had been walking down when I entered the dungeon.

  Catching myself, I continued down into the now-revealed basement, finding more iron, some coal, and numerous other supplies for running the foundry. I searched around but didn’t find anything particularly valuable, just more supplies.

  Back up top, I saw the sun had barely moved again. I still had an entire day ahead of me, and now I was a gold orb and nine blue orbs richer. Not to mention the gloves and the large amount of experience. It seemed that running dungeons was the key to advancing around here, and I planned to take full advantage of them while I could.

  On my way back to my villa, I stopped next to a partially collapsed stone home and casually punched the wall, willing my new glove to activate. An image of a golem’s stone fist from the dungeon superimposed itself over my own fist for a second before my hand crashed through the wall of stone, shattering it in a single blow, sending chunks as big as my head flying into the house. Shards of stone flew backward, cutting me slightly where my skin wasn’t covered by my clothing. After a second, the rest of the wall collapsed, the roof of the home partially collapsing around me with it. I stepped back hastily, surprised by the power of the gloves.

  When the dust settled, what had been a more or less intact stone wall was toppled, and chunks of stone had destroyed the interior of the home where they had been sent flying at high speeds by my punch.

  “Well then,” I said, looking down at the gloves. I would need to be careful with these things if I didn’t want to attract the wrong kind of attention or end up hurting someone I didn’t intend to hurt. They amplified my current strength ten times, which, according to Momma Lena, was actually the equivalent of a thirteen, making me over twice as strong as a normal human. Multiply the strength of two men by another ten times and, well, the results spoke for themselves, I supposed.

  Eyeing the partially collapsed home in front of me one more time, I turned and made my way back to my villa. I really needed to be quieter in the silent city. It was too easy for sound to carry, and now I knew I had made at least one enemy out there.

  Back home, I settled into my room, ate a quick meal, and drank the rest of my water, settling onto the hard floor to rest while my nanobots finished healing my bruised body.