He tentatively opened his eyes and saw the space around him illuminated from below. The light was largely obscured, but compared to complete darkness, even some shadowy outlines were bliss. It was at least enough to recognise that he was in a natural cavern. It didn’t have the conveniently smooth floors of a video game cave, which was presumably why someone had put in the walkway, raised on thick wooden posts. Jason was already laying on the walkway, so he rolled over to reach down and fetch the lamp from where it had fallen. The walkway was only about an arm’s length above the cave floor, so he fetched it up easily enough.

Jason pushed himself to a sitting position and examined the lamp, careful not to blind himself again. As the name suggested, the crude magic lamp was a simple affair, looking rather like a miner’s tin lamp. It had three boxy, metal sides, a glass front and a loop handle on the top. Dropping it didn’t seem to have harmed the glass at all. Inside, the light came from what looked like a round stone, glowing like a light bulb. He held up the lamp to get a better look at the cave; it was spookier than Jason would have liked, with plenty of dark crevices and ominous shadows.

“Hello?” he called out.

Between the racket he had made and the light of the lamp, there was little point trying to hide from any denizens occupying the cave. The quest drove him down into the cavern, rather than back into the cannibal maze. He was hoping that meant whatever was at the end of the cave was worthwhile. A pirate ship filled with enough treasure to stop the local country club from foreclosing on the family home would be ideal. He would be willing to accept someone who doesn’t eat people.

“Is anyone down here?” he asked. “If you want me to kill ten goblins in return for an uncommon spear, I’m only really equipped for light gardening.”

He thought about the evil trowel, now ready at hand in case of sudden attack.

“It could be evil gardening.”

Since the beam of the lamp lit up the cave like a lighthouse on a dark night, there was no point being stealthy. His hope was that he could bait out into the light whatever creatures were lurking. They would probably be adapted to darkness and if he could dazzle them it would at least be some advantage.

The idea of sneaking through pitch blackness gave him the feeling that he wouldn’t even know how he died. And ‘don’t die’ was the bonus objective after all. In video games, Jason was the kind of player who could take it or leave it with secondary goals. In this one instance, though, his motivation levels had reached a previously unseen zenith.