It is foolish and wrong to mourn the men who died. Rather we should thank God that such men lived their first lives with such honor.

  ~George S. Patton Jr

  By the time Sarah got back to her apartment, it was nearly midnight. Despite the rush of strength and energy from the quest rewards and her level-ups, she felt totally wrung out.

  The police had been professional and thorough, but thankfully kept the interrogation brief. They wanted to focus on the gunmen, and only needed to run her through the sequence of events three or four times before saying she could go, but they might have more questions later.

  One tough-looking female officer had even thanked her for risking her life to help Mark stop the gunmen. The lead investigator admitted that without their quick action, there might have been dozens of casualties.

  Sarah was glad it was over and no one had died, although both Mark and Tawnya were in serious condition. Jill had again somehow managed to steal the spotlight when all of the news cameras showed up moments after the police arrived.

  An attack on the Alterego body donors so soon after the explosive destruction of the business was an instant top story. Reporters aggressively swarmed the area, trying to snag everyone they could for interviews.

  Theories already flooded social media, with people suggesting maybe angry renters had hired hitmen, or a government Black-Ops group that wanted to steal the technology was trying to silence competition. Some even suggested that aliens who used the technology to pass as humans were trying to cover their tracks.

  Word had spread quickly about Sarah's involvement in stopping the shooters, and she had not managed to totally avoid the press. She did insist upon making only a single statement to everyone, and kept it brief, promising to release a longer statement after speaking with her lawyer.

  Hopefully she would not need a lawyer. The police had made it clear they did not expect any charges to be filed against her. The fact that she had not actually killed anyone probably helped. Either way, the excuse helped her escape the press sooner.

  Once back home, she barely managed to strip out of her bloody, ruined outfit and climb into a pair of soft cotton sweatpants and t-shirt before dropping onto her bed. With a sigh, she closed her eyes and let herself drift toward welcome sleep.

  A floating blue screen popped up in her vision, dragging her eyes open with a surprise message.

  Daily Quest failed. Secondary Challenge Quest dream sequence initiated.

  “What?” Sarah started, but then blackness consumed her vision and dragged her under.

  A second later, bright light erupted all around her, illuminating a totally different location. Her bed was gone, as was her entire apartment. Somehow, she'd been transported to some kind of stone-lined chamber, like inside of an underground dungeon.

  The walls, made of enormous blocks of stone, were fifty feet apart, while the ceiling reared another fifty feet above the stone ledge where she stood. Five feet in front of her, the ledge ended in a deep pit that spanned the entire width of the of the chamber and extended for over a hundred feet before solid ground continued.

  From there, the passage continued maybe twenty feet before it made a sharp turn to the right, so she could not see any farther.

  The long pit in the floor was spanned by only a single narrow beam of stone, barely three inches wide. A sullen, red glow emanated from the pit, and when she took a couple of tentative steps forward to peek over the edge, she grimaced.

  The bottom of the pit fell away at least one hundred feet, ending in tall, sharp stone spikes, packed close together. They had to be three feet tall, at least that was the part she could see. The bottoms were covered by what looked like lava flowing slowly past.

  That was where the red glow came from, as if she was really looking at liquid stone, flowing slowly past the spikes. Intense heat wafted up from the hole, along with vapors of smoke that stank with the rotten-egg reek of sulfur.

  Sarah retreated, again looking around in confusion. There was no exit door behind her.

  The chamber ended about ten feet behind her in a smooth, unbroken stone wall. She realized she was still barefoot and dressed in her sweatpants and t-shirt.

  “Where am I? How did I get here?” She muttered, trying to fight down a flash of panic that was quickly replacing her initial confusion.

  The screen had said something about a dream sequence. It hadn’t mentioned a nightmare. Another blue screen popped up in front of her.

  As a result of failing the daily quest, an alternate challenge quest dream sequence has been initiated.

  Unauthorized usage: this narrative is on Amazon without the author's consent. Report any sightings.

  Challenge: Traverse the Challenge Dungeon successfully. Rewards based on performance.

  A little timer icon popped up in the corner of her vision and started running. Sarah glanced around again, still confused. Was the system serious?

  Maybe. It had somehow dumped her into this challenge dungeon as some kind of punishment for failing to complete her daily quest. How was that possible?

  Her thoughts were interrupted by a deep, sinister rumbling sound behind her. She spun to find the stone wall sliding forward toward her. In seconds, it would reach her and push her off the edge of her platform and into that deep death pit.

  “You've got to be kidding me,” Sarah growled.

  It really was some kind of challenge dungeon, and the system really did expect her to run it. It was like she'd been dumped into a level of a dungeon-running game like Tomb Raider.

  She honestly loved games like that, but did not love the idea of getting stuck in one herself. It was far too easy to die in those games. Real life didn’t have respawns.

  She didn't have a choice, though. The stone wall would hit her in seconds and there was no way she could stop it. The only way to escape the wall was to cross the pit, but when she glanced again at that narrow stone beam spanning the pit, it looked way too fragile to hold her weight.

  That meant she had to move fast. Her stats had just evolved, and that Agility rune had bumped her agility to E10. Hopefully that would provide a big advantage. Pushing her confusion and fear aside, Sarah took a deep breath and sprinted toward the end the stone platform.

  She would have preferred crossing slowly and carefully, but what if that moving wall continued past the end of the platform and broke the end of her beam? She might have already delayed too long.

  So she ran, changing a cry of fear into a shout of determination as she shot past the end of the platform and onto the narrow stone beam. She held her breath for the first few strides as she raced across the deep pit, refusing to look down, focusing entirely on the beam in front of her.

  “I can do this. Running in a straight line is easy. Who cares how narrow the beam is if I just keep running straight,” She told herself as she ran across the deep drop.

  Actually, it really was easy. The super narrow beam felt plenty wide with her boosted stats. Her new Basic Tumbling ability might be helping too.

  Either way, as she ran out across the beam, steps light and fast, she felt no vertigo, no shakiness, and that tiny beam seamed three feet wide. No problem.

  Until the narrow stone beam started to flex and sway underfoot. Subtle cracking sounds of stone beginning to move rippled up from the beam, and her heart nearly stopped with panic. If it broke under her weight, she was doomed.

  She couldn't stop, though. If she let herself slow, she would freeze in fear, and then she'd be stuck out there until the beam really did give way. So she kept running, drawing every bit of speed and nimbleness from her stat and ability.

  The air stank, and it was incredibly hot. Almost instantly, her t-shirt clung to her sweaty skin and her sweatpants felt like they were gaining water weight with every step. She pushed on anyway, refusing to get distracted and sped across the beam like a professional sprinter.

  She crossed the entire pit in a matter of seconds, although to her it felt like forever, like the far side of the pit would never draw closer. On solid ground again, she stumbled to a halt, only barely keeping herself from dropping to her knees in relief as she laughed and blew out a breath.

  “That was terrifying.” She was sweating, her legs trembling, her heart racing, but she'd done it. She'd beaten the challenge.

  Then the walls to either side of her started to move, closing on either side with that same sinister grinding sound.

  “More?” She groaned.

  With a growl, Sarah sprinted to the end of the chamber and turned right where a new corridor punched through the wall. It was a short segment, and she speed down it in a blink. As she ran, something clicked underfoot, and spears of stone shot out right behind her.

  Pressure plate traps? Was this a challenge dungeon or a death trap?

  If she'd moved any slower, those stone spears would have impaled her. That thought ratcheted up her fear to a whole new level, and she struggled to maintain her calm. This place was insane.

  The hallway turned left, opening into a massive chamber. Sarah skidded to a halt at the edge of another platform to gape.

  The chamber had to stretch at least a hundred yards across to the far side. It was a giant stone box, with a high ceiling more than two hundred feet above her head.

  Sarah was standing on a ledge about fifty feet above where the floor should be, but once again it was covered by slowly-moving lava and a forest of sharp stone spikes. The massive open space was packed with the craziest assortment of obstacle course challenges she'd ever seen.

  Pillars rose from the floor, narrow beams spanned sections, some supported by other pillars, others somehow seeming to float untethered. Hoops and burning archways and swinging ropes and what looked like a stone chimney with no handholds were all jumbled in there together. It was totally insane.

  Despite her astonishment, she started picking out potential ways to navigate the insane challenge. There was a platform high on the far wall with a bright golden door. Hopefully that was the exit, but getting there seemed impossible.

  From her current position, she’d have to begin by jumping across the tops of several tiny pillars that rose from the burning floor nearby. They were barely as wide as her foot, so she’d have to land using only one leg.

  From there she'd have to traverse a steeply-inclined rope bridge, climb a net upside down, and even use one of those movable pull-up bars to walk her way up part of a wall.

  She'd never tried anything like that, and before a few days ago, she never would have been able to manage it. It might be possible now, but a crazy death dungeon was not the place she would have liked to learn how to do the maneuver.

  Another message box popped up in front of her.

  Additional challenge. Test your marksmanship for bonus rewards.

  The open cavernous space seemed to blink and shimmer out of focus, and when it sharpened again, some elements of the crazy obstacle course had changed. Now various firearms were secured to brackets placed at random locations.

  There was even a shotgun bouncing between what looked like two vertical trampolines near a couple of metal hoops. It looked like she'd have to leap through the hoops, catch the shotgun out of midair, and shoot targets as she landed on a rope ladder that was swaying back and forth, as if being blown by an intense wind.

  Around some of the firearms, targets started popping up, then disappearing again. Others floated in the air randomly. Sarah bit back a laugh that would probably have been tinged with a bit of panic. She was supposed to not only traverse this crazy space, but also practice her marksmanship?

  She'd better not waste any more time, or who knew what extra challenges the dungeon would add. The timer was still running in the corner of her vision, and had already reached 20 seconds. She had no idea what a good time was, but her main concern was not dying.

  Of course, that was when a pillar of stone rose up right behind her, blocking the corridor back to the first chamber, then started sliding forward. It would knock her off of her platform in about three seconds.

  “I hate this path,” Sarah growled and she took a running step forward and jumped to the first narrow pillar.