The figure was slowly approaching me. He towered over me at 6'3' tall. The expression on his face was one that could only be described as pure stupidity. The scythe-type thing he carried was non-threatening. It only took two blows of my long sword to kill him. I felt sad. He was so cool too . . . He was a STICK FIGURE!!
- 'Yeah, enough with that dude. Maybe I can find out how to get
In 1987, an overhauled version was published by Woodrose Editions as The Dungeon Revealed (so named for the included source code). To spread the word, Raymonds circulated an updated Dungeon of Doom with the version number cranked from 4.0 to 5.4 (even though the only change was the plug for Revealed.
out of this SHACK!' I thought, but suddenly I saw the shadow of a long rubber band-looking thing. I glanced up and saw a skeleton, grinning oddly.'Umm . . . Hi?' I asked, because he looked powerful.
'Hey baby, lookin' good tonight!' he replied. What?! At least he wasn't attacking.
'What is WRONG WITH YOU, YOU M-' I stopped myself. If I insulted it, it might fight. 'Ohh . . .' I said as an empty bottle hit my foot. Extra-strength charisma potion. So THAT was why.
'Here is a little token of our love,' said the skeleton. He dropped a ring in my hands. An engagement ring from a skeleton . . . Hmm.
'Do put it on . . .'
I looked at it for a second, then used my identify scroll to identify it. A slowness ring. Go figure. That was about all there was in these stinking dungeons. Suddenly, a big naked dude with a club appeared. I recognized him as a caveman. And all I had was a digging wand!
Luckily, the skeleton screamed, 'Stop hitting on the hot shrimpy guy!' then whacked the naked guy with his funny bone. I thought to myself that I am not gay, but it's probably not wise to tell the skeleton that. Suddenly, the skeleton turned to me, looking serious.
'We must find the magic wizard, and escape from the dungeon!'
'Why?' I asked.
'ROWARR!' he yelled. Okaaayyy, that was odd.
'And why's that?'
'ROWARR,' a guy yelled from behind. A sethron.
'This is Seth Ron, my good friend!' cried my 'lover.'
'Umm . . . Nice to meet you, Seth.'
I turned around, and accidently bumped Mr. Ron with the handle of my death blade. It barely grazed him, but he died on the spot! Seth Rons sure are weak!
The skeleton turned to me in anger, yelling, 'You killed my best friend, you vile beast!' The skeleton wielded its weapon at me fiercely.
'What about our love?' I cry desperately.
'You're a two-timing slut! You just killed him so you'd have his skeleton!'
I heard a scraping sound from behind me. I saw a new skeleton, glowing black, wearing a sethron's garment. His red eyes glinted.
'Uhh . . . I don't think he's my lover!' I thought. The two skeletons charged at me! I raised my blade, and chopped at the sethron skeleton. He clawed at me, did some damage, then crumbled. The other skeleton, my ex, removed his funny bone and prepared to strike.
'Stop it! I love you!' I yelled, throwing down the sword. What I'll do to save my butt . . . so lame. If skeletons could blush, it looked like he would. But no.
'I'm sick of this, fiend!'
'Duhrr . . . Sick of what?' I ask, playing dumb.
'SICK OF YOUR UNWILLINGNESS TO COMMIT TO OUR RELATIONSHIP!'
Unwilling to commit? I smiled to myself and pulled a ring out of my pocket and shoved it in his face. (Actually, I wasn't sure if it was a boy or a girl, considering it didn't have anything but bones and I wasn't so good at human (is it human?) anatomy.) [Ed's note: How do you do these nested parentheses?]
Reluctantly, I put on the ring. Immediately sluggishness overtook me, but I senses that the skeleton hesitated.
'You . . . you . . . still love me?' he sobbed, his voice crackly.
'Yeah, sure, whatever,' I replied, embarrassed. I spotted a ring in the dust underneath my feet. I handed it to him.
'Oh, my goodness. Suddenly this dungeon doesn't seem so cold, darling,' he said, slipping the ring on his bony finger. Suddenly, I felt hot breath on my back. I spun around. We were surrounded by foes! I must have given him a monster ring. An alligog nibbled at my leg.
'CRIKEY!' I yelled. Should I stick by my love? Remove his ring of love? Run away and ditch the &%#? What should I do?
'Sorry, Bunger! Ahahah!' I popped the cap off of the speed potion. I needed no lover! Rumor had it that there was a naked monster, a succubus, on the next level! Woohoo! I ran for the exit, leaving sethrons and alligogs trailing at my feet.
'Nice hat, Sethie! Where'd you get it, WAL-MART?' I screamed at a random sethron.
'RRR!' the sethron yelled in response.
'Hey, that was a COMPLIMENT!' I yelled as I spotted the stairs to the next level. I rushed to them, my HP down out at its bare minimum, and then ran down the cold stairs gleefully. The monsters, being scared of the stupidest things, did not follow, but yelled from the top. As I ran down, I was engulfed in darkness. Finally, I exploded onto the next level. Level 5.
I felt a vague sense of loneliness, the walls glistening with dampness and mildew, the lighting low, as the dungeon was only lit by stubby candles lining the walls.
'I don't need a lover,' I thought, drawing my sword to eye level.
'It's only us from here on out!' Behind me, I heard an odd giggle. I stared at a firboleg.
'Hello, my homosexual opponent,' he said, slowly widening his eyes.'Gossip travels fast in this dungeon!' I yelled, running away. In my haste to escape, I tripped over a wand. An ice wand! I raised it over my head, and I concentrated on shooting an ice beam out. The dungeon was illuminated by the light, and the firboleg dodged from the beam. He laughed eerily, then bit my head! Bitey!
In a last attempt to escape, I shot my beam inside his mouth. His very spit froze. I tapped his teeth with my helmet, and they shattered. I picked up a piece of ice and rubbed it on my slowness ring.
'Aha! Slowness, engagement, and now fire-resistant!' I yelled triumphantly, waving the ring in the air. I slipped it on. Homosexual opponent indeed! That was the last time I'll associate with skeletons!
I had nothing left to do but to explore the rest of the dungeon, my fire resistant ring glinting in the air. A weird clicking sound followed. 'What the hell?' I thought.
After thinking about it for a while, and testing my steps, I gave up trying to find the source. It was annoying for a while, but I eventually sort of got used to it.
'So, when do I get to the naked lady level?' I wondered to myself. Not here, obviously. I pictured the lady in your mind, but it didn't sound so appealing. Maybe I really was gay. [Ed's note: No comment.] I cut off that train of thought immediately and continued down into the 39th level . . . Darkness . . . .