Chapter 2

Oh great, Jackson thought as he stepped through the vagina-shaped opening and into the mountain, more of the stupid organ-grinder music playing in the background. Another damn earworm that was going to be stuck in his head for the next week. Other games had moved on to atmospheric doom chords and blasts of heavy metal. JRPGs were still stuck in the land of rainbows and unicorn farts.

And whoa.

Okay, so that was impressive. The mountain was hollow inside. A cross section was revealed to him like the glass wall of an ant farm. Or termite farm, he supposed, given the shape of the mountain. It was a complex mass of scaffolding arranged in a stack of blocky rooms that extended up the inside of the mountain. They went up a long way, too far for Jackson to see the top. Each 'room' was illuminated with different coloured lamps. They all teemed with monsters.

Fuck. That was a shit load of levels, Jackson thought. Do not be another fucking Blighttown. Once through there was enough.

He spotted a stone archway at the base of the tower. Looked as good an entrance as any, he thought, walking towards it. To the right of the archway was a small pedestal. Sitting on top, under a glass dome, was a giant bubblegum sweet in a garish, stripy wrapper. On top of the dome was a folded note with the words 'Eat Me' written on it in large letters.

Yeah right, did they really think he was that gullible? Jackson thought.

He ignored it and walked through the stone archway. There followed a strange feeling of dislocation, as if the universe had been turned sideways and passed through a funhouse mirror. The world on the other side looked different. Jackson thought one of his eyes might be playing up, but a hand over each revealed both were working fine.

Which was more than could be said for the world around him. Three slabs of coloured concrete floated in the centre of the room. They formed three floors, each separated by a height of around seven feet. Nothing appeared to be holding them in place. Or maybe they were attached to the back ... side wall. Jackson shook his head in an attempt to fix his screwed up vision. Nothing appeared to have any width. Not even the outcroppings above his head. There were three of them, all on the same level as the platforms in the centre of the room. That Jackson could currently see all three of them despite standing under the lower one said a lot for how the perspectives were all fucked up in here.

A trapdoor in the far ceiling opened and three unusual monsters dropped onto the top platform and started running towards him. They looked like giant wind-up toys--nothing more than metal heads on oversize clown feet. They had a chin a boxer would be proud of and their metallic jaws clanked up and down as they marched across the top platform.

Typical JRPG, Jackson thought. Commonplace orcs and goblins were clearly too passe. Let's throw cutesy giant clockwork robot heads at the player instead. They even had bowtie-shaped keys turning in their sides as they walked.

The lead monster dropped down off the top platform and landed on the same level as Jackson. Despite a three-floor fall the thing didn't break apart or--more likely given it seemed to be made out of solid metal--bust a hole through the floor. It landed smoothly on the floor and continued marching towards Jackson.

Okay, come and get it, Jackson said, drawing his sword. He took up a fighting stance and waited for the battle music to announce the beginning of turn-based combat.

The lead clockwork head didn't instigate turn-base combat. It carried on marching forward and trampled Jackson into the floor. Then it rebounded off the far wall and trampled him again on the way back.