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I’ve always wanted to draw this.
> story
Red’s Dungeon Dairy
Day 14: Ghosts.

Upon entering the fourth floor of the dungeon, adventurers will immediately sense a shift in the atmosphere. Gone are the suffocating, pipe-maze corridors of the third floor. In their place returns the classic architecture of old dungeons—bare stone bricks, silent and enduring. Yet the structure of the fourth floor bears a distinct difference.

Often referred to as the Lonely Graveyard, this floor is composed of vast chambers, unusually spacious compared to the average layout of the dungeon. There are fewer winding tunnels and far less convolution; instead, the design leans heavily toward open expanses. In fact, Floor Four is the second-largest area in the entire dungeon, surpassed only by Floor Six—the so-called Great Lake.

A faint, ghostly blue light blankets the entire floor, though whether it arises from the dungeon’s own arcane nature or is merely a hallucinatory effect induced upon intruders remains uncertain. Throughout one’s time here, a thick mist persists at the edges of vision, shrouding the perimeter in fog. The mist withdraws as adventurers draw near—almost as if it watches.

Most of Floor Four is occupied by what are simply known as gravefields—stretches of damp earth dotted with nameless tombstones of varying size and shape. Beneath these graves, skeletal remains are often found. Occasionally, treasure or old jewelry lies buried alongside the dead. Yet none of these tombs belong to fallen adventurers. All are believed to have emerged alongside the dungeon itself. This is proven by the fact that, as the dungeon grows and Floor Four expands, new tombs of identical style appear within the added areas.

In addition to the vast open spaces, there lies a smaller section known as the Catacombs—a pitch-dark necropolis that suppresses light from all sources. It is within this shadow-choked maze that dangerous dark-dwelling entities make their lairs.

Floor Four is not a place for the unprepared. It is home to beings known only as ghosts—formless spirits with faintly glowing, translucent bodies tinged with blue. They rise from the earth, from the walls, or even from within the graves themselves, attacking with eerie silence.

Though light can harm them—and magic, runes, or blessed charms prove effective—physical weapons pass through their forms, useless as striking mist. And yet, these phantoms possess the power to strike the living as though their own incorporeality were but a veil, not a boundary.

The ghosts show hostility toward adventurers for no clear reason.
There is no need to disturb them, nor to trespass upon their resting grounds—they are simply inherently malevolent to all who do not belong to the dungeon.

Their wrath is not provoked; it awaits.
To encounter them is to awaken it.

A rare few among them seem to treat the pain they inflict upon explorers not merely as duty, but as a form of amusement—as if their cruel assaults were a twisted game, and the suffering of the living a melody they take pleasure in hearing.

Today, Red wandered through the vast gravefields of Floor Four, his bare feet chilled to the bone by the damp earth beneath the countless tombs.
He moved cautiously, a lantern held steady in his grasp—yet the fog around him remained almost impenetrably thick, coiling and clinging to his every step.

Then, something gripped his ankle.

Startled, Red looked down to see a translucent, softly glowing hand rising from the ground, its cold fingers curling tightly around his leg. He kicked and struggled to shake it free, but more began to appear—from the walls, from the graves, from the very shadows—ghosts slipping forth with eerie grace, laughter spilling from their mouths in shrill, savage tones.

"But I didn’t even do anything to them…" Red whispered to himself.

Then he remembered the warning passed down by those who came before:

They don’t need a reason.
Some of them simply enjoy this.

Poor dragon.
These ghosts are not only cruel—they are mischievous as well, their malice wrapped in laughter and play.

They also seem to know a disturbing amount about how a dragon’s body is put together, where to tear, where to break, and what brings the most pleasure.