Complicated Reality

I delved into a creepy cave, looking for enchanted loot.

With my potions and my mace, and freshly tailored mining suit.

I had no trouble with the lurking spiders or the creeping slime,

the few who dared to challenge me were bashed into the grime.

It wasn't 'till the seventh floor, I began to hear the whispers

and saw the shadows twist at the tugs of wispy drifters.

Time has treat these tortured souls to tedium and toil

as they wander aimless in the dark, deep down below the soil.

My presence here has spooked them, they'll return the favor

My terror and my anguish are the flavors that they savor.

But I came prepared tonight with a holy water tonic

and earplugs made of dwarven wax to drown out the demonic

shrieking and the moaning as I cast a scroll of holy light.

But it sputters and corrupts. Wait, something isn't right!

Maybe I misspoke a rune, or skipped over a word

but it's hard to pick a verb for the disaster that occurred.

The spirits, flush with power, began to twist reality,

traps and dangers rearranging, testing my mortality.

I fell, I panicked and I scurried, lost down in the dark,

and spent hours or maybe days down there before I saw a spark

of midnight stars up in the sky, through an opening below.

so I hopped down in and popped back up. How? I still don't know.

But there I was where I had started, the entrance to the cave.

This time it was a little different, no longer feeling very brave.

I journeyed home and found my bed to finally get some rest,

but the nightmares that I came with me make me wonder if I ever left.