You wake up on the cold floor of a large circular room. Some torches affixed to the wall dimly illuminate the environment you are in: the black stone walls are completely bare and rise for about ten meters before getting lost in the darkness. You have a big headache, but it is normal given the amount of mead you gulped at Xirmis’ Tavern overnight. Your memories about the night are a bit blurry, but it’s strange that you don’t have the faintest idea why you are in this unknown place, moreover without your trusty sword and... completely naked. As you try to figure it out, you realize that your left wrist hurts. When you look at it, you wince: someone has badly tattooed a skull with three orbits on your skin. What manner of trickery is this? You panic when you realize that the room you are in actually has no door, trap door, or passage. How is it possible: how did you get in there? There is only a staircase that runs along the walls and climbs upwards until it disappears into the darkness over your head. You have no choice: you take a torch off the wall and start climbing… The stairs are tall and uneven, and they wind infinitely upward to an unknown height. You continue climbing, taking one step at a time while occasionally pausing for gasps of stale air. You can hear water trickling from an unknown source. Wind seems to howl in the distance even though the air in here is unmoving. The ache in your head increases as you continue to climb. You look down to gain your bearing, but you can no longer see the torches burning below. You begin to wonder how long it’s been - hours? days? You have lost all sense of time in this strange place. Continuing on with hope now vanishing, you notice the staircase ahead of you seems to disappear into the black stonework ahead. ‘Is there no exit?’ you wonder as your breath quickens and your head throbs. These thoughts have been present for some time, but they’ve become more real now - maybe there is no way out. You scramble ahead and find that the stairs finally reach a zenith in the form of a small landing. You scramble quickly to the landing and take a deep breath - walking up a steep staircase alongside a bottomless pit rattled your nerves. You are here for the time being so you can rest and reassess your situation. You take a few moments to gather yourself, and as you do, you notice something above you: a trap door. The door is massive, hewn of the same black obsidian-like stone as the rest of the dungeon, but it has a strange quality to it. You see no handle, no knocker, no hinges; you only see a relief carving of the exact figure that is tattooed on your arm - the three orbits skull. You push up on the door and it doesn’t even budge - your climb has nearly exhausted you. You look at the door again - the image of the three eyed skull sparks something in you. You look at your wrist, which is still burning from the recent tattoo, and you decide to hold it up to the relief carving on the trap door. As you do, a light shines around the perimeter of the door, and you hear a grinding noise as the door opens downwards. On the other side are several rungs which you are able to grab onto and climb up. You find yourself in a short, small, square hallway that opens up into a slightly larger circular chamber, all made of the same cold black stone. While you look around this newfound section of this peculiar dungeon, the door shuts itself quietly and with ease. As you look around you notice this room branches off into three tight hallways, each barely big enough to fit a standing human. Glancing around, you notice something familiar gleaming on the floor. It’s your trusty sword, gifted to you by your beloved swordmaster. You bend down to pick it up, and under it you discover a torn note, which reads “... but will you ever escape yourself?”. As you near the entrances to the hallways, you are hit with a barrage of strange sensations. The hallway directly in front of you gives off a strong smell of decay and rotting flesh, and you swear you can hear something breathing heavily from the darkness beyond. The stonework inside is roughly hewn and jagged, and there is a faint greenish glow coming from beyond a quick bend. The hallway to the right yields another puzzling characteristic: the sound of rushing water and heavy falling stones; however, there is no light down this hall. It’s almost worth the risk, as you are beyond starving and thirsty, and your head is pounding harder than ever. But out of curiosity, you head over to the hallway on your left. Here, you feel an intense heat radiating from within, red fog pours out of its mouth, and you hear the heavy, slow footfalls of something deep within. You look back at the stone trapdoor you came through. It seems that there was never a door there at all - there is simply a solid black stone wall with a small carving on it that reads: MCMXCIX. You turn back around and reach for your sword. Panicking once again, you look at the three tunnels that lie ahead. As you decide your fate, one final thought occurs to you - this room is laid out like your three orbits skull tattoo. What does this symbol mean? Is there a way out, or are you destined for certain doom? For now, pick your course, and keep your sword at the ready. As you embark down your chosen path, you look back one last time, only to see something unsettling - the numbers carved into the wall begin to change: MCMXCIX to simply MM. A deep growl erupts from within. Will you ever escape… ?