《Sleep Infinium》 Chapter 1- What To Choose. Spoiler: Spoiler It''s important toread thePrologue. If you have not done this, please do so now or don''t I''m not your mom. I awoke to an alarm like sound making me think it was time to get up and go to work but I was not in my room. This place is stark white and with no walls that I can see. I yell ¡°Hello?¡± and suddenly a word pops into existence about a few feet away saying:
START
I move to press it and my hand passes right through the button. Confused I try again with the same result at this point I was getting a little frustrated so I yelled START! In my head and the button disappeared and was replaced with new buttons:
ROMANCE AND DRAMA
ACTION AND ADVENTURE
VACATION
Of course, I think these all sound cool but I don¡¯t have any clue what they mean or what they could entail. So I yell all! In my head and the buttons disappear replaced with a warning sign saying
YOU HAVE SELECTED ALL, THIS CAN BE TOO MUCH FOR SOME PEOPLE
again a little irritated I yelled in my head IT''S FINE. Suddenly I''m not in the white space anymore I''m in a forest. My ears are filled with the sounds of birds chirping and fluttering leaves. There are rocks seeming to dot the landscape with moss growing on them. In the distance, I can hear the sound of flowing water but I can''t see it from where I''m standing. I look and see that I''m on a wide dirt road that has a small trail that leads of into the woods that has a small shack that seems to be in somewhat disrepair at the end. I start walking along the outcrop path toward the shack. But just before I reach the door I hear a scream and a bang. I take a step back from the door as it bursts open to a beautiful black haired girl with Brilliant blue eyes that are currently filled with fear. she pushes past me I have a sudden realization as to why this girl is running there is a beast about as tall as my chest chasing after her with its teeth bared it was about to continue after her right past me. But more on instinct than the reason I tackle the beast to the ground and start beating on it with my fists. I have never beaten anything with my fists before. So this is a new experience but I take it in stride because I''m not feeling any pain and this beast is getting its face pounded in. This only lasted a few seconds and then the beast had countered me and its teeth were suddenly in my lower right forearm causing a remarkable amount of pain.
-3 HP
As it slammed down on me I notice a fist-sized rock just to my left. So I grab it and smash the beast in the side of the head with a sickening crack making it fall to my right side. I jump at this opportunity and fall on top of the beast and bring my rock down on its head four or five more times until I''m sure I had killed it.
1-LVL 2 ¡ï DIRE WOLF KILLED
EXP EARNED: 10
GOLD EARNED: 4
I stand bloodied and hurt from the bite when I hear ¡°Is it dead? Did you kill it?¡± it''s the girl from before she is staring at me now. She looks to be about thirteen or fourteen years old which is weird because you normally don''t see kids outside the academy but I''m in a dream world so I guess anything can happen. So I reply ¡°yeah I killed the beast, what even is this thing? It looks like a dog but I have never seen a dog act like this or even one of this size.¡± she seemed a little shaken by the attack but me asking this seems to have pulled her away from her shock. ¡°We call them dire wolves there are not many of them during the day so we thought we were safe staying in this shack.¡± I look at her a little surprised and somewhat confused because she had said ¡°we¡± but before I could ask what she meant by it she let out a yelp of fear and exclaimed ¡°Oh no! Your hurt look at your arm!¡± she then rushed to my side and grabbed my bitten arm and examined it. A worried lookappeared across her face. I tried to relax her by saying ¡°it''s not that bad it doesn''t even hurt that much¡± she gives me a reproachful look and proceeds to pull me inside the shack and says ¡°Don''t give me that! I know how much being bitten hurts and if we don''t treat it quickly it could become infected.¡± She sits me down on one of the small wooden chairs that are in the shack and starts to work on my wound. I watch her intently and ask questions along the way trying to learn how to do this in the future as she finishes wrapping up my arm I see a little alert in the corner of my eyes say
YOU HAVE ACQUIRED THE SKILL:
FIRST AID LVL: 1
I furrow my brow at this wondering exactly what the prerequisite is to acquiring a skill and what other skills there are. The girl is looking at me intently probably wanting to be thanked for the First Aid. So I say ¡°Thank you for fixing my arm, I''m sure It will be good as new in no time.¡± she blushes a little and says ¡°It''s the least I could do, you did save my life after all.¡±
HP +2
But before I could put much thought into that we heard hurried steps of someone running to the front door of the shack. I stand thinking it might be another threat. But the door slams open and the girl runs forward toward the figure that is now lit up by the sun to be an older woman about the age of nineteen or twenty with older but remarkably similar characteristics to the girl. She exclaims ¡°Lucy! Are you ok sweetie did the dire wolf hurt you? Have you been bitten anywhere?¡± Lucy looks at me and says ¡°No I''m fine thanks tothis man he saved me and killed the dire wolf¡± the women for the first time seems to register me standing in the room and looks from me to the girl glaring her bright blue eyes slightly then she asks ¡°who are you?¡± in a tone that sounds a little distrusting as she puts a hand on her bow that''s on her back. I try to reply quickly but her question stops me up a bit because saying GRN 55323 would probably sound weird to her based on the fact that the little girl''s name is Lucy. So I say ¡°My name is Green. What''s yours?¡± Green is what people around the office call me so it''s not exactly a lie but she seems to have taken it as one because she replies ¡°OK, Green well my name is Blue.¡± she says this in a condescending tone that says that she thinks I made up my name and has come up with one for herself. Lucy looks up at her confused but says nothing. I say ¡°OK, blue well I will just be on my way then. But if you could tell me the direction of the closest town from here It would be much appreciated¡± at this point I had lost hope of recovering from my lie and just wanted to leave so I looked a little downtrodden. She seems a little taken aback by this probably expecting me to have asked for some sort of reward for saving the girl and says ¡°What? You don''t want to do that their lots of monsters out in the woods at night and the sun is going to set injust a few hours.¡± her saying this completely catches me off guard. I catch myself and say ¡°Monsters? What monsters I haven''t seen any monsters up till now on my hiking trip through this forest.¡± I catch a surprised look from both Lucy and Blue before I get another alert in the corner of my visionThis narrative has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road. If you see it on Amazon, please report it.
YOU HAVE ACQUIRED THE SKILL:
LYING LVL: 1
So it seems that my half-truth earlier about my name was not enough to gain the skill but telling a blatant lie about hiking through the forest was, interesting. Blue pipes up saying ¡°That seems Highly unlikely. How long have you been traveling through the woods?¡± with a look of remorse I say ¡°Ok you caught me I have not been in these woods but for about half an hour. Lucy was the first person I found upon getting to these woods.¡± A look of shock crosses Blue¡¯s face and she exclaims ¡°an hour? But the nearest edge to this forest is at least six hours walking distance so how is that possible?¡± I look concerned at her and say ¡°I woke up here and I''m not even sure where I am right now or how I got here.¡± I say in an exasperated tone hoping she will believe me. She looks bewildered and says ¡°You woke up in the middle of the forest? Justa bit ago? What do you remember before that?¡± pondering for a second wondering how to reply I respond with a simple ¡°Nothing all I remember is waking up.¡± I feel the back of my head trying to look confused which I definitely do because upon feeling the back of my head I realize that my chip port is missing and that all I feel is skin. Blue upon seeing my reaction seems to believe me and seems a little regretful for being hard on me and says ¡°You must have amnesia, I don''t know any magic that would fix something like that but someone might have the spell in the town we are headed to. If you want you can tag along with us? We could use some extra muscle¡± relaxing a little I return to my chair and say ¡°that sound like a good idea.¡± We continue to talk and I ask questions about the forest and learn about how monsters have different classes from one-star monsters like the dire wolf to ten-star monsters like a Demon Lord or Vampire King. the two girls talk about how they are trying to reach their relatives in the next town over because their parents had been killed when their hometown had been ransacked by monsters a few weeks ago. Apparently, most of the townspeople that survived went to a neighboring town but these girls are headed to a town about a week''s journey on foot from here because they have relatives there. After we talked for some time Blue told me her real name was ¡°Abby¡± she said a little embarrassed that she had lied and I had responded saying ¡°I don''t remember my real name but I like the name Green so I''m just going to stick with that for now.¡± Abby and Lucy seemed to understand as they nodded. Then Abby stood up and said ¡°Well guys I didn''t catch anything while hunting but thanks to Green we at least have something to eat¡± we went outside the shack and examined the Dire wolf. Abby then explained to my quizzical looks ¡°Monster flesh is edible it just tastes really bad.¡± she then hands me a Knife and we start cutting up the Dire wolf after slicing it up she then showed me how to start a fire which I had quite a lot of trouble doing. Then showed me how to cook the meat on skewers of wood at which point after finishing cooking the meat I got another alert
YOU HAVE ACQUIRED THE SKILLS:
COOKING LVL: 1
FOOD PREPARATION LVL: 1
FIRE STARTING LVL: 1
we enjoyed our meal and although it tasted very bitter and somewhat sour I couldn¡¯t really complain because it tasted way better than the slop they feed us at the office. This food actually had flavor and I was relishing in it. Apparently, it showed because the girls both looked a little confused by my overzealous eating. Abby then decided that it was time to take shelter in the shack for the night as it was getting dark. So we went inside the shack and Abby started bolstering up the defense with sharp spears pointed at the front and back door and brandishing her bow. Abby handed Lucy a Knife almost identical to the one she gave me Lucy held it in a way that looked rather menacing. I tried to copy her but I probably look like a fool. As the last ray of light fell below the horizon Abby said ¡°get ready¡± and not thirty seconds after her saying that did we hear an unearthly moan come from ten feet outside the house which was soon joined by more and more moans of hunger and desperation. With fear in her eyes Abby looked to me and saw my confusion and in a whisper said: ¡°Zombies aim for their head!¡± I didn''t know what a zombie was but I knew that It couldn¡¯t be good. Within seconds the zombies were upon us they banged and bashed at the doors and made holes in the ramshackle doors to which Abby shot arrows out of into the zombie''s arms and legs and when she was lucky a head. Unfortunately right when I thought we were making headway we heard banging and moaning from the back door. Abby looked to me and Lucy and said ¡°you guys go cover the back door don''t let them in or we are done for¡± me and Lucy jumped into action and started stabbing at the arms and legs that were pushing through the door. Right after this, I got an alert:
YOU HAVE ACQUIRED THE SKILL:
KNIFE PROFICIENCY LVL: 1
I stabbed at least three zombie heads before the door buckled and collapsed inwards. Revealing a massive zombie that was at least two feet taller than me with a gut that protruded out of its tattered shirt. Lucy screamed and backed away and I dropped my knife thanks to the door hitting me on its way down.
HP -1
I scrambled and grabbed one of the spears and stabbed the giant zombie right in its fat face it fell backward on top of two other smaller zombies crushing them under its weight at which point I received another alert
YOU HAVE ACQUIRED THE SKILL:
SPEAR PROFICIENCY LVL: 1
I then grabbed the fallen door and slammed it back on its hinges. We then continued to stab and shoot the rest of the zombies until it was silent again at which point Abby said ¡°I think it''s over¡± we watched through the holes in the doors for any new threats but after a couple hours we could see it the sun was coming up again on the other side of the house but it was a dark blue color compared to the yellow one the one we saw set just two hours prior. So I came to the conclusion that this place has two suns and as a result has a very short night cycle. I then received another alert:
5-LVL 1 ¡ï ZOMBIES KILLED 1-LVL 2¡ï ZOMBIE KILLED
XP EARNED:35
GOLD EARNED: 14
ACHIEVEMENT UNLOCKED:
FIRST NIGHT SURVIVED +1 TO ALL STATS
Of course, I had no idea what an achievement is or what it meant that it was now unlocked but I didn''t have time to ponder it because Abby had handed me a hammer. I looked down at her confused, to which she said: ¡°We need to fix the shack before we can take a rest¡± and so that''s what we did she showed me how to repair the broken doors and the outside of the shack with the spare lumber around the back of the house. To which I got an alert:
YOU HAVE ACQUIRED THE SKILL:
REPAIR LVL: 1
She then explained that there is a shack like this one every couple of miles down this path throughout the forest to help protect travelers during the night and that it''s common courtesy to repair the damage done to them during the night. After we finished Lucy started to complain that she was tired so Abby said ¡°we can sleep in the shack for a couple of hours but then we need to a move on if we want to get out of this forest today.¡± so we moved into the shack and locked up the doors and went to sleep. Before falling asleep I pondered about how you leave this world and go back to the normal world but failing to come up with any ideas I drift off to sleep. Spoiler: Spoiler It is important to note that this isthe rough draft and is very prone to change so don''t expect it to stay looking like this I might even change this first chapter entirely if I decide to go a different direction with this story. Also if you see any errors please post them down in the comments. Thanks for reading! Chapter 2- Waking Up ¡°Sleep¡± as it turned out was how you switched between the two worlds because when I woke up I was not in the shack I was back in my room. Although I''m back in the real world it''s not exactly the same my vision had changed in the bottom left of my vision there are buttons that say:
PROFILE
STATS
INVENTORY
After seeing this I Thought profile and a new screen popped up before my eyes. This one showed me in a 3d model listing my characteristics:
HEIGHT 6''1"
EYE COLOR BROWN
HAIR COLOR BLACK
WEIGHT 180
AGE 21
SEX MALE
Apparently, the Sleep Infinium chip scanned my body and clothes before putting me in the game. I then thought stats and a screen showing my information stating:
NAME: GREEN OCCUPATION: NONE
CLASS NONE
HEALTH 199/200
MANA 80/80
GOLD 18
LEVEL 1
STRENGHT 8+1
AGILITY 6+1
INTELLECT 4+1
WISDOM 2+1
DEXTERITY 6+1
CONSTITUTION 8+1
I think Inventory And a new screen pops up with a small list of items.
INVENTORY: DPS (DAMAGE PER SECOND) AT CURRENT SKILL LEVEL DURABILITY ENCHANTMENT
GRANITE ROCK 2-5 20/25 NONE
IRON HUNTING KNIFE 6-8 198/200 NONE
WEAK WOODEN SPEAR 5-7 25/50 NONE
SMALL WORK HAMMER 5-8 195/200 NONE
Deciding to think more on this stuff later I check my clock and realize my alarm didn¡¯t wake me up on time because I now have 5 minutes before I need to be in my office working on today¡¯s orders. So I ran frantically putting on my work clothes and skipping most of my morning routine. I ended up being a couple minutes late arriving at my desk my boss is waiting for me with a sneer across his face. He says ¡°Green! Get your ass to work or I¡¯m going to have to report you to IWB!¡± Mentally screaming I reply ¡°y-yes sir right away!¡± My boss gives me a disdainful look and walks away. Luck was on my side today as I have seen my boss fire people for much less than that. I let out a sigh of relief and start working. The day passes pretty uneventfully after that. I get told I¡¯m trash by customers and then repair or replace there broken Sleep Infiniums. Sure it¡¯s not great but compared to what the manual labor slaves go through this is completely fine. In most cases, manual labor slaves don¡¯t last more than a few weeks before their bodies just can¡¯t take it anymore and they die of exhaustion. After working my 12-hour shift I return to my room and fall onto my bed and almost instantly fall asleep. ¨T¨T¨T¨T¨T¨T¨T¨T¨T¨T¨T¨T¨T¨T¨T¨T¨T¨T¨T¨T¨T¨T¨T¨T¨T¨T¨T¨T¨T¨T¨T¨T¨T¨T¨T¨T¨T¨T¨T¨T¨T¨T¨T¨T¨T¨T¨T¨T¨T¨T¨T¨T¨T¨T¨T¨T¨T¨T¨T¨T¨T¨T¨T¨T¨T¨T¨T¨T¨T¨T¨T¨T¨T¨T I wake up to the feeling of something warm pressed against my right arm. I open my eyes to find myself back inside the wooden shack. I look down at my arm and see Amy gripping my arm with a scared look on her sleeping face she is slightly shaking. I do another mental scream I reach with my left arm to wake her up but as soon as I touch her shoulder her eyes open and she stares directly at me she then notices how she is wrapped around my arm her face immediately turns beet red and she instantly lets go and scrambles to her feet saying ¡°WHAT, NO! It''s not what you think! I was just sleepwalking! That¡¯s it sleepwalking!¡± trying to end her embarrassment by saying ¡°don¡¯t worry we should pack up and get on the road I don¡¯t want to spend another night in these woods¡± she relaxed a bit after hearing me try to change the topic she said ¡°Yeah that sounds good, I will go wake up Lucy¡± but Lucy had already begun to stir due to all the noise saying ¡°Ammmyyy why are you being so loud!¡± She then gets off her cot and opens her eyes with a glare pointed at her sister. Amy looks at her sister and with mournful eyes says ¡°sorry Lucy didn¡¯t mean to be loud I just had a bad dream¡± shooting me a look that says to keep quiet about what happened. The girls packed up their belongings while I sat and watched as I don¡¯t have anything to pack because all of my items are kept in my inventory system. The girls were confused by this at first but they seemed to believe that it was some type of magic so they soon forgot about it. When they finished we left the shack and returned to the main road the second sun was steadily rising and was making a beautiful sunrise. Which cast a soft blue light on the surroundings. Strangely I could look directly at the sun and not hurt my eyes. I also could not feel any heat on my skin from this sun. The sun felt almost cold and almost oppressive for some reason. Truly this place was strange I thought to myself. We were headed toward the rising sun so I assumed we were headed east. We walked all day taking short breaks every hour or so. We talked about how the world works and how magic works. Amy explained that during the blue sun mana is released onto the world and during the blue sun mana is recharged in every person and monster and During the yellow sun heat is released to keep the world from getting too cold. Monsters usually only come out at night because that is the only time portals from our world and the monsters world open as the suns banish these portals keeping the monsters away. She also explained the adventure guild and how it¡¯s their job to hunt monsters and collect their bodies as they can be used in powerful potions and spells. After around 6 hours we finally arrived at the edge of the forest the sun was quickly setting and Amy said that it should only be only 20 mins till the next shack so we hurried along the path and when we got there we hurried inside just as the blue sun vanished from the horizon. the shack was almost exactly the same as the last with five cots to sleep on a small set of table and chairs in the middle and one window on each wall with the entire structure made out of wood. I peaked out the shack''s windows checking to see if there were any threats and as I looked around I noticed a light slowly growing brighter just outside the front of the shack. When the light had grown to around 7 feet tall and 10 feet wide a figure stepped out of the light and as it got further away from the light its features became clear. It had a bull face with large horns on each side of its head it looked to be about the same height as me but much wider as it¡¯s weight could only be described as obese. It walked on cloven hooves and had an ax that looked like it was meant for battle rather than cutting wood. It lumbered toward the shack I whispered for Amy in a frantic manner she came over to where I was and looked outside spotting the portal first and then the hulking beast. Gasping she whispered that¡¯s a 3-star beast know as a Minotaur!¡± She pulled her bow out from behind her back and grabbed an arrow from her quiver and notched in on her bow and pulled back and released the arrow sending it flying straight at the Minotaurs face with a sickening thwack it sunk into the Minotaurs right eye. With a roar, the Minotaur grabbed the arrow out of its eye and threw it to the ground looking around to see who shot it. Spotting the window with Amy standing in its frame it roared again causing the shack to vibrate. It rushed much faster then I would have expected of something of its obese weight. We ran away from the window as the Minotaur burst through the wall leaving it in shambles. Lucy screamed and ran to hide behind Amy. Amy quickly notched another arrow and fired at its face but unfortunately, it hit one of the Minotaurs horns and deflected off. I grabbed my spear from my inventory and jumped toward him but before I could even get close it swung its war ax and cut the point off my spear and when he swung the ax back he clocked me in the jaw with the back end of the ax knocking me to the floor.
-5 HP
I heard him stomp his way over to where I had fallen and I looked up at his bullish face and then I heard a whisper ¡°use me¡­¡± I looked down at my now unpointed spear and felt a weird cold sensation travel from the center of my chest down my right arm and down the shaft of the broken spear and then the top of the spear began to glow. But during all this, the Minotaur was getting into position to cleave me in half. Right as he had raised its ax over its head I unleashed my spear and shot a ball of pure blue light up at him. Unfortunately, my aim was not as good as I had hoped and even at point blank range my shot only hit his hands and not his head like I was aiming for. The brutes ax was not as lucky as it was flung from his hands and launched out of the hole that the beast had made in the cabin. But that was not where my blue bolt stopped as it kept traveling past the Minotaur it smashed through the middle of the roof of the shack. The Minotaur fell backward after having its hands get rather melted. It landed on its fat ass causing the shack to shake in an unsettling manner. It was at this point that I realized that my bolt had been too damaging for the shack and it was coming apart at its seams. I quickly got to my feet and picked up Lucy and grabbed Amy¡¯s hand and rushed out of the gaping hole in the wall just as the shack fell in on itself. I looked at Amy and Lucy and said ¡°well that had to have killed it right?¡± just as I finished saying this we heard boards creaking and being lifted we turned back to the shack and I heard Amy say ¡°nope¡± and ready her bow and drop down to one knee and just as the Minotaur stood up from the wreckage Amy let loose another arrow this time striking its last remaining eye. It¡¯s howled in pain and anger as it ripped out the arrow from its eye. During his anger I noticed the Minotaur¡¯s ax laying just a few steps to my right. The howling from the Minotaur stopped just as I was running to the ax. Seeming to have heard me running the Minotaur wailed and sprinted at me. Gripping the ax in both hands I raised it above my head and right when the Minotaur was in range I slammed in straight into the top of its head. Unexpectedly it just cut right through almost like it was butter. Blood and brain matter splashed all over me as the Minotaurs momentum carried it straight into me collapsing on my chest I couldn¡¯t even breath. I tried to push it off me but the fat fuck just wouldn¡¯t budge then just as my eyes starting to lose focus the weight was lifted and me, Amy, and Lucy were able to push the body off to my right side.
1-LVL 1 ¡ï¡ï¡ï MINOTAUR KILLEDIf you stumble upon this tale on Amazon, it''s taken without the author''s consent. Report it.
EXP EARNED: 1,000
GOLD EARNED: 200
LVL UP! 1045/50 EXP NEW LVL: 2 + 3 STAT POINTS
LVL UP! 995/100 EXP NEW LVL: 3 + 3 STAT POINTS
LVL UP! 895/200 EXP NEW LVL: 4 + 3 STAT POINTS
LVL UP! 695/300 EXP NEW LVL: 5 + 3 STAT POINTS
LVL UP! 395/400 EXP NEW LVL: 6 + 3 STAT POINTS
I sat up and looked around to make sure that there were no more immediate threats. Seeing none I moved over to Amy and Lucy and asked, ¡°are you two OK?¡± They seemed a little surprised by my question and Amy replied ¡°were fine, are YOU? That was a 3 star Minotaur and you were just in close combat with it. Most people would not have survived let alone kill it¡±inspecting my self my stats screen comes up and tells me my health
NAME: GREEN OCCUPATION: NONE
CLASS NONE
HEALTH 194/200
MANA 75/80
GOLD 218
LEVEL 6
STRENGHT 9
AGILITY 7
INTELLECT 5
WISDOM 3
DEXTERITY 7
CONSTITUTION 10
UNALLOTTED STAT POINTS: 15
I say ¡°I¡¯m a little beat up but I will manage. If it wasn¡¯t for you blinding it there¡¯s no way I could have pulled that off so you take just as much credit for this kill as I do.¡± I then spot the destroyed shack and with a grimace, I ask ¡°are we going to have to fix that?¡± Amy and Lucy look back and see the shack and then turn back to me with a smile ¡°no, this damage is beyond our ability to repair we will have to report its destruction to the authorities at Serpenridge luckily we only have to pay a small fee. The workers guild will be sent out and they will replace it. So that other travelers won¡¯t be stuck outside at night. Like we are now.¡± She took a glance around after saying that looking for any threats. We built a fire so that we wouldn¡¯t be in the dark and stood watching the darkness hoping we wouldn¡¯t have to deal with any more enemies. After another hour we see the bright yellow start to dye the skyline and just 20 min after that the sun is visible and we let out a collective sigh of relief. We pack up our things and then Amy asks for my iron knife saying ¡°we need to remove the horns and mana core from the Minotaur¡± I hand her the knife and she starts the process of removing the horns which come off rather quickly but the mana core was another matter. She slashed open the skin from the top of the chest to the bottom of the stomach releasing a disgusting amount of fat that sloughed off onto the ground revealing a fist size blue orb right in the middle of its chest cavity. Amy looks at me and asks ¡°can you reach up through the stomach and rip out the core?¡± I look at her in mild horror but do as she asks. I reach up into its chest and rip out the core taking quite a bit of its lungs with it. The core is not a perfect sphere like I had originally thought. It has dents with small holes in the middle in an almost symmetrical pattern all around it the holes are only about the size of a worm and seem to go all the way through it. The core gives off a cold glow of blue that sends shivers down my spine. Amy takes the core and puts it into a bag and says ¡°this is a good size and quality core it will definitely pay for the fee for rebuilding the shack and even give us some gold to spend on ourselves. She then hands me the core and horns and I put them into my inventory. We clean ourselves off at a stream near the trail and move off toward Serpenridge. We get there an hour later and meet the guards the entrance. The guards surprise me as we get close to them as they appear to not be human. They have scales all over their bodies and have more of a reptile shaped heads. They stop us and ask our names and what our business is in the city. Amy replied saying ¡°we look to buy citizenship here and I¡¯m looking to join the adventurers guild.¡± we look at Amy in surprise because we had no idea she wanted to join the adventurers guild. The guard eyes her and Lucy up and down and then proceeds to ask me ¡°and what about you?¡± I reply ¡°I also plan to buy citizenship and maybe join the adventurers guild.¡± The guard''s nods and Amy then says to the guards "we also need to sell some monster parts" the guards bring out a city official who looks to be half human and half reptile with blue and gold scales he is wearing a rather luxurious robe and has a book in his hand. I hand him the horns and the core and he says after inspecting them "The core and the horns together equal up to 80 gold" Amy gets a look of anger on her face and says "80 gold! the core alone is worth that much! 120 gold sounds way more accurate." the official seemed to expect this outburst and smiles saying "Fine, fine how about we meet in the middle and make it an even 100 gold?" Amy smiles and says "that sound better. you have yourself a deal." we then told the official about the destroyed shack and paid the 20 gold for the repair. we collected our remaining gold and Amy give me half and we head into the city My first opinion of it is that it is big but not nearly as big as the city I live in. It¡¯s not even ? the size of my city. But it seems much cleaner then I would have expected and I notice that a lot of people are using some form of magic to do tiny things like cook food or clean a window. But no one is using magic like I had used on the Minotaur at least that¡¯s what I assume I did I don¡¯t actually know what I shot at the Minotaur. Some of the houses are made of wood but most seem to be made of some sort of greenish blue stone. Most of the people are human-ish most of them have scales but there are a few that don¡¯t have any apparent scales. The people who have scales ranging in all colors of the rainbow and honestly their scales are beautiful. Amy walks us to a rather large building with a sign outside that says, "Stiff Cooper Guild Hall" we walk inside and approach the inside of the guild hall looks clean and is mostly made out of that green stone with around 15-20 tables with quite a few people enjoying food and drinks at them. We walk up to a table and sit down. Amy asks, "Green, do you want to join the adventures guild? The guild offers a way to make an income by taking quests and missions that have gold as rewards for completion. joining also gives a reduced price to rent rooms to sleep in. It costs 5 gold to join but you easily get that back by " I think about what she said and as I have no reason to decline so I say "Yeah that seems like a good deal" Lucy had been staring daggers at Amy since getting to Serpenridge and had finally decided to voice her concerns "Amy why do you have to join the adventures guild? Why don''t we go to aunt and uncles house and live with them?" Amy frowns and says "Unfortunately the more I thought about it the more I came to the realization that there is no way that aunt and uncle didn''t already claim our parent''s wealth and possessions. Plus if they find out that we are still alive they would sooner have us killed than give that wealth to us. So I plan to have our last names changed when and Green and I register with the guild." Lucy gasps in shock at Amy and says "you really think that Aunt and Uncle would do such a thing?" Amy shakes her head yes and says "Unfortunately wealth makes people do unreasonable things, so we are just going to prevent this by changing our last names." We walk up to the clerk at the counter who appears to be a full reptile person with beautiful blue and green scales that blend in well with the green stone behind her. As we approach her she smiles and says "Hello! what can I do for you all today?" Amy takes the lead asking for me and her to join the guild and for her and her sister to have their last names changed. The clerk has us approach something called a "Status Stone" Amy reaches and places her hand on the stone and her status pops up
NAME: AMY BLUEBIRD OCCUPATION: NONE
CLASS NONE
HEALTH 240/240
MANA 50/50
GOLD 60
LEVEL 8
STRENGHT 7
AGILITY 12
INTELLECT 4
WISDOM 1
DEXTERITY 15
CONSTITUTION 12
After examining her status the clerk changes the last name to the requested "Songbird" and adds the Stiff Copper adventurer to her occupation section. She then motions for Lucy to grab the status stone. She approaches the stone and places her hands on it
NAME: LUCY BLUEBIRD OCCUPATION: LOCKED UNTIL AGE 15
CLASS LOCKED UNTIL AGE 15
HEALTH 100/100
MANA 30/30
GOLD 0
LEVEL 2
STRENGHT 4
AGILITY 6
INTELLECT 2
WISDOM 1
DEXTERITY 7
CONSTITUTION 5
The clerk changed her last name to "Songbird" and then motioned me to come forward. I stepped up to the stone and placed my hands on it. But my stats didn''t show up like Lucy and Amy, instead, I got an error message saying
MUST ALLOCATE STAT POINTS BEFORE USING A "STATUS SONE" WOULD YOU LIKE TO USE AUTO SELECTION?
YES NO
Thinking quickly and in all honestly not very intelligently YES and then my stats page showed up for everyone to see
NAME: GREEN OCCUPATION: NONE
CLASS NONE
HEALTH 234/240
MANA 125/130
GOLD 258
LEVEL 6
STRENGHT 15
AGILITY 8
INTELLECT 7
WISDOM 6
DEXTERITY 8
CONSTITUTION 12
The clerk gave me the Stiff Copper adventurer occupation and then we proceeded rent two rooms for the night we paid which cost me 10 gold altogether and cost Amy 15 gold. Just as we ended our transaction and headed upstairs to our rooms we were stopped by a shorter girl who looks to be a half lizard with white and gold scales on her forearms and legs that end in sharp claws she has pale white skin and is wearing a white and gold robe that gives off a "Holy" vibe she looks to be around 16 years old. She says "HI! my name is Sletha and I noticed that you two just joined the guild. I joined the guild a few days ago and was wondering if you would be interested in letting me join your adventuring party? I promise not to be a burden, plus I''m a great healer." after saying this she pulls a long staff out from behind her and points in my direction and chants "Heal" a beam of black and red light envelops me in what feels like a warm blanket.
+6 HP
I turn to Amy who looks at me and then turns to the girl saying "We would love to have you on our team! my name is Amy and this is my sister Lucy and this guy is Green. How about we meet here later today to decide what our first quest will be? we just got into town and are pretty exhausted" Sletha Smiles wide and exposes her rather sharp looking teeth and says "Yes! Alright, I will meet up with you in a few hours" after saying that she skips out of the guild hall. I turn to Amy and say "well she seems full of energy." Amy replies "Yeah, I hope I didn''t just make a mistake." we head up to our rooms and say sleep well to each other" My room had a shower that apparently runs on some kind of magic so after cleaning myself I appraised the room and found that it was rather lavish I have never experienced something this fancy before and it kind of surprised me. The bed was more than three times the size of the bed I have in my room at the office and it had blankets made of really soft red fabric. When I entered the bed the mattress seemed to almost hug me it was so comfortable and I was so exhausted that I fell asleep almost instantly. Chapter 3- What鈥檚 a Class For the first time, I can remember I woke up with a smile on my face. I had killed an impressive monster and registered as an adventurer. I looked over at my clock and noticed I had woken up 30 mins before my alarm so I went through my morning routine. After finishing getting ready I sat on my lumpy bed and thought about my experience in the sleep Infinium. I went over the fight with the Minotaur in my head and then I remembered the ax that I got. I hurriedly opened my inventory to check its stats
INVENTORY: DPS (DAMAGE PER SECOND) AT CURRENT SKILL LEVEL DURABILITY ENCHANTMENT
IRON BATTLE AX 15-30 +5 +3 CONTINUED BLEED 235/250 SHARP 3: +DAMAGE +BLEED
GRANITE ROCK 2-5 20/25 NONE
IRON HUNTING KNIFE 6-8 198/200 NONE
BROKEN STICK 2-5 0/50 NONE
SMALL WORK HAMMER 5-8 195/200 NONE
Is that enchantment why it was so easy to slice through its head? I¡¯m inclined to think so. I also wonder why Amy doesn¡¯t have very much gold compared to me. Is she not getting gold when she kills stuff like I am? I¡¯m not sure. There is a lot I don¡¯t know. What about that Sletha girl she seemed nice but maybe a little too excited to go out and kill monsters. I wonder if she has ever killed one before. I stand up from my bed with a smile on my face I say ¡°well, time to go to work¡± the day is boring I mean like remarkably boring and kinda sad. Up until this point not many people have been nice to me, it¡¯s mostly been a lot of yelling and people telling me that I¡¯m trash but I was used to that it was my normal. But now that I have people that I could almost call friends it really makes me feel like my life is shitty in comparison to my life in the sleep Infinium. Sure I¡¯m not putting my life at risk to earn money in this life but at least in my other life, I feel like I¡¯m doing something interesting. During my lunch break, I decided to use some of the minuscule amounts of money I have earned to go out to eat. I walk out of my building onto the sidewalk and immediately get shoved into the crowd of people going about their day. I slowly make my way to the restaurant that I had overheard my boss talking about called ¡°Just Eat It¡± he had said that it was ¡°the tastiest food around.¡± You know now that I think about it that Minotaur kind of reminds me of my boss at least when it comes to being remarkably overweight. I finally make it to the restaurant but you can¡¯t really even call it that it¡¯s more of a fast food joint but I¡¯m always up to try anything so I go inside. When I get inside and wait in line I notice that the cashier looks kinda familiar and then it clicks it¡¯s Sletha but she doesn¡¯t have any scales. but she is the spitting image of her so when it comes to my turn to place my order I quietly say ¡°Sletha?¡± She looks shocked for a moment before recovering and says ¡°stop don¡¯t say anymore I will explain more tonight. Now place your order.¡± I give her my order with a confused expression and wait at my table for my food. My food is delivered by some other employee and I dig in expecting the ¡°tastiest food around¡± but sadly it was not meant to be as I took the first bite of my sandwich my taste buds immediately revolted due to the overwhelming taste of fat and lard. There was hardly any meat in the sandwich it was mostly just fat ¡°disgusting¡± I said out loud which brought some awkward glances from people around my table. Comparing this lardwich and the cooked direwolf makes me want to just starve so I rewrapped my lardwich and headed back to my office. After arriving back to my desk my boss noticed my lardwich in my hand and wobbled over and snatched it from my hand saying ¡°Wow! How did you know that I was craving a sandwich right now?¡± My mind recoiled in disgust when I saw him eat my partially eaten lardwich in just two bites. My boss then said ¡°wow, that really hit the spot thanks Green. Keep up the good work!¡± He then wobbled off to his cubicle. Slightly stunned I sat back into my seat. My only thoughts of this interaction were of revulsion. Finally finishing my shift I returned to my room. Although I call it a room it¡¯s more of a small closet there really isn¡¯t even room to walk around, there is a bathroom so I guess that¡¯s something. I climbed into bed just now realizing how uncomfortable it is and drifted off to sleep. I wake up and immediately I¡¯m filled with warmth and comfort as I shift in my bed. It¡¯s like I¡¯m resting on a clouded compared to my other bed. I hear a knock on my door so I put on my clothes and walk to open it and on the other side is Sletha I invite her in and she takes a seat on my bed. I ask her ¡°so you work at ¡®just eat it¡¯ huh?¡± She makes eye contact and says ¡°ya but it¡¯s strange, I haven¡¯t met another player since starting my Sleep Infinium a couple weeks ago. I just figured that everyone was an NPC.¡± I shake my head in agreement saying ¡°yeah, I honestly thought I was playing with just NPC¡¯s when I started but now I have to question if everyone I meet is from the real world.¡± She seems to hesitate before asking her next question ¡°so did you choose all when the system gave you the three options on what kind of adventure you wanted?¡± I shook my head yes and asked, ¡°did you spawn out in the woods like I did?¡± She looked at me in mild horror and said ¡°no! I spawned in Serpenridge. Is that what happened to you? Did you die yet? What happens when you die?¡± Based on my reaction of shock to her tirade of questions she stopped talking letting me answer ¡°Yes I spawned just off the main road about 8 or 9 hours walk from Serpenridge. But due to my luck, I have yet to die so I¡¯m not sure what happens. I have survived two nights outside of town and both were rather dangerous. Have you been out of town since getting spawned in?¡± She looked downtrodden and replied, ¡°No I have been practicing my Priestess class in the safety of the city but I¡¯m confident that I¡¯m ready to head out and do some quests.¡± I hear Amy¡¯s voice on the other side you of my door ¡°Green, it¡¯s time to go meet up with Sletha. Meet me downstairs.¡± I reply ¡°ok see you down there¡± I get up from where I was seated and say ¡°ok well that answered a few of my questions but I want to continue this discussion later.¡± She shakes her head yes and says ¡°ok sounds good I will meet up with you guys in about thirty minutes I have some stuff to get done.¡± We say our goodbyes and head down stairs I near our table and overhear Amy ordering food for us. As I sit at the table I say ¡°hey guys, how did you two sleep?¡± Lucy replied almost instantly with ¡°like a dream! That is the best I have slept in weeks.¡± Amy seemed to agree as she shook her head. Our server brings over our food and I thank them while paying for our food with the requested 3 gold. The food seems to be some kind of meat with a sauce that kind of looks to have the consistency of barbecue sauce but has a strange blue color to it. While the side is some sort of vegetable with what looks like rice. The vegetables are leafy with odd little balls at the end kind of like a beet but have blue leaves and the ball part is black. I take a bite of the meat and I¡¯m taken aback by the rich flavor, I don¡¯t have anything to compare it to as I have never had food this tasty but for sure it¡¯s way the hell better than the direwolf. Amy and Lucy are silently watching me eat with a look that says ¡°dude it¡¯s just meat, chill out¡± but I don¡¯t care. After finishing the meat I take a bite out of one of the strange beets and it tastes good but not nearly as good as the meat. It has a sweet flavor with a little bit of a mild spicy flavor, not unlike celery. We finish our food and our plates and silverware are taken away. We sit for a few minutes digesting our food when Sletha walks up with her sharp toothy smile and sits on the only open seat at our table saying ¡°hey guys how did you sleep?¡± Giving me a subtle wink. She places a few pieces of paper on the table saying ¡°so these are the quests I think would be good for us.¡± We look over the quests, they read:Stolen story; please report.
TYPE REWARD
MONSTER PART GATHERING- SPIDER MONKEY TAIL 5 GOLD EACH
DUNGEON MAPPING- COMPLETE MAP OF NEW DUNGEON 50 GOLD
DUNGEON BOSS HUNTING- GET A BOSS MONSTER CORE 200 GOLD
I¡¯m a little confused and ask ¡°what¡¯s a dungeon?¡± Amy and Sletha look at each other before coming to some sort of silent agreement and Amy says ¡°dungeons are places that are able to spawn monsters all the time and not just during the night. They are relatively common and have higher level monsters than the ones that come out at night. This is due to them fighting and killing each other to gain levels. This keeps the total monsters in the dungeon down but makes the ones that survive stronger.¡± I shake my head in understanding while Sletha says ¡°the reason these quests would work well is because the new dungeon is said to have spider monkeys and we could map it as we collect their tails and if we find a boss monster then we can try to kill it for its core or just run away if it¡¯s too strong.¡± We all agree that this would be a good plan and as a group, we head over to the reception desk. Amy talks to the clerk saying ¡°we would like to take these quests¡± handing the clerk the sheets of paper. The clerk takes the sheets and says ¡°I will take down your names for these quests and I would recommend getting your classes chosen this morning before you depart. We have our guilds class expert here today.¡± We head back over to our table and Sletha pipes up saying ¡°You guys are lucky! The Class Expert is never here. Normally he is holed up in his house and you have to seek him out to get your class assigned. When I got my class Priestess I had to go find his house and that¡¯s not easy because of how much it moves. The damn thing teleports into empty lots around the city whenever the class expert feels like it. So finding it is always a chore you have to ask around for the last place it was seen. But you almost always end up walking the whole city trying to find it.¡± She points out the expert in the far corner of the guild hall. He is wearing a pointed hat covering his eyes and a thick black robe covering his body. We walk over to where he is seated and just before we get to him he lifts his hat away from his eyes and looks me dead in the eyes and says ¡°well it¡¯s about time I almost thought coming here would have been a waste of my time.¡± He lazily swings his left hand and two of the chairs at his table slide out and he says ¡°Green, Amy take your seats so we can get this underway.¡± We are baffled as to how he could have known our names but take our seats anyway. Lucy and Sletha sit at a table across from us and watch us closely. The Expert takes my hand and I get the same cold sensation from when I had released my magic on the Minotaur but instead of it flowing out of my body this magic is flowing into my body traveling from where the Expert had grabbed my hand to the rest of my body after a few minutes I was completely consumed by the cold feeling. But as soon as he removed his hand the coldness disappears. He nodded his head saying ¡°impressive, my first class to be assigned today is a rather rare one. From this point on you will be a Spell-sword if you want to know more about your new class I¡¯m not the one to explain it to you, there are one or two Expert Spell-swords in this city so seek them out if you want advice¡± He then grabs Amy¡¯s hand and the same process occurs. But it ends much faster with him shrugging his shoulders saying ¡°well you at least have some attunement to fire magic but that¡¯s about it. Thankfully you are good with a bow or you really wouldn¡¯t be cut out for being an adventurer. I have changed your class to Archer. Now if you will excuse me I have other classes to assign today as he pulls his hat to cover his eyes and slouches back into his chair. We look behind us expecting to see more people waiting in line but there is no one there. I give Amy and Sletha a confused look and we all head back to our table. Amy is the first to speak up saying ¡°my class is pretty self-explanatory but what the hell is a Spell-sword?¡± Sletha shakes her head saying ¡°the church I practice at is called the Church of Ithaqua they told me that when you have a class it levels up as you use it and for every five levels in your class, you are randomly assigned a skill and an extra stat point. I¡¯m currently a level 11 in my Priestess class with the skills ¡°Heal¡± which has some range but less effect and ¡°Healing Hands¡± which is my more direct healing skill. So based on that the spell-sword class probably levels by using magic or the sword so let¡¯s go to the market and get green some armor and a sword. He is going to serve as our Tank after all. The yellow sun has just hit its highest point when we enter the market. it is flooded with people not unlike my real world. We bustle through the crowd led by Sletha who takes us to an armor and weapon shop called the ¡°Skinned Elk¡± we walk through the door as it makes a ringing sound alerting the shopkeeper that he has customers. I take a glance around the shop noticing that there are no customers and not a piece of armor or a weapon in sight. We get a grumbled greeting and the shopkeep says ¡°armor or weapons?¡± I say back ¡°I could use a set of armor and a sword¡± the shopkeeper seems excited by my words and rushes over to me. He starts measuring me out saying mumbled numbers and figures after getting me measured he then asks ¡°you are not wanting enchanted gear right? It''s pretty expensive.¡± Not knowing exactly what expensive would be I say ¡°right no enchantments¡± after hearing my words he rushes into the back room. He comes back out a minute later carrying a full set of armor its iron with a tinge of greenish blue in the metal that seems all too common in this city so I assume it must just be the style. He helps me put the armor on and it fits me good leaving only a few places a weapon could get through without meeting my armor. He says ¡°the armor set will run you 200 gold¡± I look to Amy but she just shrugs her shoulders. It appears she doesn¡¯t know how much this type of armor should cost. So I say ¡°could you do 175?¡± The shopkeeper gets a sour look on his face and says ¡°no, but I can cut off 15 gold if you promise to get one of my swords.¡± Not wanting to push my luck I say ¡°fine, 185 gold is good. Now let¡¯s see what swords you have¡± he takes my gold and returns to the back room and brings out four swords one is a short iron sword with a blade of around 2 ? feet. The next pair sword seems to be of a better quality at it is made of what appears to be steel with the same length blade as the previous but they have a more curved blade with only one side being sharp. The next one has a blade almost twice the length of the others and is edged on both sides like the first and has the steel of the second and the handle is made of what appears to be the same greenish blue iron of my armor so it seems fitting. So I ask ¡°how about this longer sword?¡± He smiles and says ¡°the long sword is not enchanted and costs 75 gold¡± shit I only have 60 gold remaining well I guess I better barter good then, so I say ¡°eh the best I could do is 50 gold¡± the shopkeeper gets that sour look on his face and says ¡°no, that¡¯s too low how about 65?¡± Now it¡¯s my turn to use a sour face shaking my head I say ¡°how about 55 gold?¡± The shopkeeper seems ok with this and shrugs his shoulders saying ¡°sounds good to me¡± I pay him the 55 gold and he helps strap the sword to my back showing me how to draw it and how to sheath it. We leave the store saying thanks to the shopkeeper. Sletha says ¡°we have everything we need let¡¯s see if we can¡¯t get to the dungeon today it should only be a 4 hour walk from the city.¡± We stop by the guild and drop Lucy off much to her dismay. she was apparently under the assumption that we would take her with us but she would only get in the way. So, Amy talks to Lucy about how she needs to be 15 before she can become an adventure and how she only needs to wait a few months. She still seemed upset but not nearly as much as before and she headed upstairs to Amy''s room. We then leave the city and start our journey towards the new dungeon. Our journey takes us through a rather dense forest that makes us take longer to reach our destination but thanks to Amy being vigilant she also nabbed us a dinner. She was able to shoot three black squirrels that have red eyes. We stopped about a mile from where the dungeon was supposed to be because we wanted to prepare for the coming night fall. The sun will set in about 30 minutes so we set up camp in a small clearing and started a fire and cooked the squirrels. They tasted like barbecue sauce even though we didn¡¯t put any on them it was wonderful. Just as we finished eating the yellow sun disappeared from the horizon. We put a few more logs on the fire and watched the tree line of the clearing for any movement. Luck seemed to be on our side as we only heard a loud roar from at least three or four miles away throughout the entire night and as the blue sun started to rise on the horizon I felt a rush of cold flow through my body. I checked my status screen and noticed that my mana was fully restored so it seems the blue sun is what restores your mana.
NAME: GREEN OCCUPATION: STIFF COPPER ADVENTURER
HEALTH 240/240
MANA 130/130
GOLD 5
LEVEL 6
CLASS SPELL-SWORD LEVEL: 0
STRENGHT 15
AGILITY 8
INTELLECT 7
WISDOM 6
DEXTERITY 8
CONSTITUTION 12
UNALLOTTED STAT POINTS: 0
We decided that it would be a good idea to rest before making our trek into the dungeon so Amy said she would take first watch. So Sletha and I fell asleep on the grass. Chapter 4- Dungeon Diving I wake up to my alarm blaring at me. I slap the stop button and get off my lumpy bed and proceed through my morning routine. I then head into my office. I work through my daily workload as I wait for lunch. I plan to go back to ¡°Just Eat It¡± so I can talk to Sletha. But right before I was about to leave for lunch someone important unfortunately entered our office. This woman¡¯s name is Elizabeth James she is the inventor and owner of the Sleep Infinium she has stark white hair and a short pixie haircut with cold blue eyes to match, she is relatively short at around 5¡¯5¡± and almost always has a sour look on her face. Whenever she visits there is bound to be trouble for her slave employees. The last time she visited the office my best friend Nav who was much better at fixing the Sleep Infinium chips then me was fired and sent to work as a manual labor slave. She didn¡¯t give a reason why she fired her it just happened and within a few days the IWB came and removed her from our office. Due to this, I have chosen not to get close to anyone in the office because I¡¯m not sure how long they will last. Everyone in the office tried to avoid her gaze as we hurried about our work. She proceeded past us and opened the door to our bosses office and with a slam the office door was shut. I looked around the room but everyone had a scared look on their face while staring down at their work. 30 minutes passed like this before the door to our bosses office opened again revealing Elizabeth James. We all continued at our frantic work pace while she strolled through the office and out the exit slamming it shut on her way out. A lot of people let out sighs of relief while I just sat at my desk contemplating what she could have wanted with our boss. Sure he is fat and lazy but he has always been like that. What could they have talked about for that long and why had she seemed so angry? Well it above my measle pay grade. So I¡¯m not that worried about it. After she left I went out for lunch. I¡¯m really not looking forward to eating at ¡°Just Eat It¡± but I would like to see Sletha. I made my way through the crowded streets and arrive at the fast food joint. I expected to see a bunch of people inside but to my surprise, most of the lunchtime rush has passed and there are just a few people inside. I walk through the doors and see Sletha standing at the cash register. I wave to her and she smiles and nods her head and walks into a back room. I then sit down at a booth in the corner. She comes out of the back room a few moments later with two lardwichs she hands me one and sits down across from me and says ¡°I wondered if you were going to come in today. What made you so late?¡± I replied, ¡°The big boss came in today and put everyone into freak out mode.¡± She nods her head and asks ¡°where do you work anyway?¡± I explain to her about how I work at the Sleep Infinium office and how I work on fixing damaged Sleep Infinium chips. She seems taken aback by what I said and says ¡°doesn¡¯t that mean you are an office slave?¡± I nod my head saying ¡°Yes, are you not a slave as well?¡± She shakes her head no saying ¡°My dad owns ¡°Just Eat It¡± and wanted me to know what basic employees feel and work like so I will be better equipped to take over the business when he retires.¡± Now it¡¯s my turn to be shocked as I say ¡° well I guess that makes more sense for you to have a Sleep Infinium chip. I was wondering how you could have afforded one.¡± She nods and says ¡°yes my mom gave it to me for my birthday and I have been using it ever since. She said that she hoped it would help me pass the time while I¡¯m working as a slave.¡± She then asked me ¡°So I know the Sleep Infinium is relatively new and you work at the Sleep Infinium office but do they give the chip to all the slave employees?¡± I hesitate for a moment wondering how I should explain how I got my chip and how I¡¯m totally not supposed to have one and just as I was about to explain she holds her hand up to stop me saying ¡°nevermind it¡¯s probably better if I don¡¯t know, that way I can fane ignorance.¡± She stands up and says ¡°I have to get back to work but I¡¯m glad we could talk. Now that I think about it I never gave you my real name, I¡¯m Ellie I hope we can have lots of fun together¡± She waves bye and heads back into the back room. I stood up and leave thinking about how crazy her story with her dad was. Her dad has her live as a slave to help her understand how slaves act and feel so that she can lead the business better in the future. But the more I think about it the more I find that she is missing out on some of the major aspects of what it¡¯s like to be a slave. She never has to worry about being fired and forced into hard labor. She never has to experience being created and implanted with the knowledge for the decided job. She is lucky but unlucky In the respect that she will never understand what being a slave is truly like. I return to my office and return to my cubicle and finish out my work day. Exhausted I returned to my room and fall onto my bed. Before falling asleep I wondered briefly about what Elizabeth James and my boss talked about. Honestly, I hope my boss got fired. ¨T¨T¨T¨T¨T¨T¨T¨T¨T¨T¨T¨T¨T¨T¨T¨T¨T¨T¨T¨T¨T¨T¨T¨T¨T¨T¨T¨T¨T¨T¨T¨T¨T¨T¨T¨T¨T¨T¨T¨T¨T¨T¨T¨T¨T¨T¨T¨T¨T¨T¨T¨T¨T¨T¨T¨T¨T¨T¨T¨T¨T¨T¨T¨T¨T¨T¨T¨T¨T¨T¨T¨T¨T¨T¨T Waking up I hear shouting and a commotion going on to my right. I try to stand but my armor makes it a little hard while I¡¯m dazed due to waking up so fast. Soon my vision clears and I stand and see Amy and she screams again ¡°we are under attack!¡± As she fires a couple arrows into a nearby tree. A monkey the size of a dog falls from the inside of the tree but this is no ordinary monkey it has an arachnid-like head with sharp mandibles and even though it has the normal monkey appendages it has two extra arms coming out each of the monkey''s sides that end in sharp gleaming points. It is covered in a deep furry black and red color. The spider monkey stands and rips Amy¡¯s arrow from its gut where it had been lodged. It gives a guttural scream that ends in a hiss as green goo leaks from its mouth and its stomach wound. Finally coming to my senses I rush the spider monkey drawing my long sword from behind my back and with an overhead arch, I swing my sword hoping to cleave the spider monkeys head in two. Unfortunately, I was either not quick enough or too predictable as the monkey was able to move slightly to the side and only take a shallow cut to its right shoulder. The spider monkey proceeds to jump away from me and whip its tail out from behind itself and from the very top of its tail shoots a rope made of some kind of white sticky substance that lands directly on top of my left foot. The monkey then grabs the other end of the rope off its tail and pulls with all its strength ripping my left foot out from under me making me drop my sword and fall on my ass. The monkey then proceeds to jump from its position and land on my chest piece and knocks me fully to the ground. It unleashes another guttural scream right in my face showering my faceplate with green ooze. in the next second, another one of Amy¡¯s arrows shoots it straight through the top of its head causing its many monkey eyes to roll up into its head. With the last twitch of its mandibles, it falls onto my chest dead Spider monkey two stars exp for class and character blue box
1-LVL 15 ¡ï¡ï SPIDER MONKEY KILLED
EXP EARNED: 325
CLASS EXP EARNED: 65
GOLD EARNED: 80
CLASS LVL UP! 15/100 EXP NEW LVL: 1
LVL UP! 320/500 EXP NEW LVL: 7 + 3 STAT POINTS
I shove the monkey off my chest and stand. I pick up my sword and scan my surroundings for anymore threats. Seeing none I move towards Amy and see Sletha cowering behind her. I say ¡°thanks for the save! I thought that monkey was about to finish me right then and there.¡± Amy smiles and says ¡°I¡¯m just glad you were able to wake up fast enough to distract it while I finished it off.¡± At this point, Sletha has figured out that the danger has passed and speaks up with a look of horror and confusion on her face she says ¡°how the hell can you not be rattled by that? That fucking thing was almost touching your face!¡± Somewhat surprised by her outburst I say ¡°that is not the first time I have come face to face with a monster. At this point, all it does is give me a jump scare and thanks to my armor I didn¡¯t even take any damage from it. So what¡¯s there to be rattled about?¡± She seems taken back by my response saying ¡°what the hell have you guys fought that makes that thing only give you a jump scare?¡± I think back to the last few days and say ¡°Well when I first met Lucy and Amy I killed a Dire wolf with my bare hands and a random rock I picked up. After that, we killed a small horde of zombies that had wondered up to our shack that night. The next night right before we made it to Serpenridge we got rather unlucky and had a Minotaur come out of a portal right outside of our shack. We all almost died. But in the end, we pulled out a win when Amy blinded it and I cleaved its head in with its own ax.¡± Sletha stood there for a second in awe as Amy went over to the monkey and retrieved her arrows Sletha spoke up again saying in an almost unbelieving voice ¡°you killed a 3 star Minotaur without any armor or class skills?¡± Shaking my head yes I said ¡°but to be fair the Minotaurs ax was enchanted to cut more easily. So slicing into its head didn¡¯t take nearly as much strength as it should have.¡± She just kinda shook head in awe and said in a whisper ¡°unbelievable, amazing, I can¡¯t believe¡­..¡± She sauntered off In an almost daze.Stolen from Royal Road, this story should be reported if encountered on Amazon. Amy came up to me and handed me a long fleshy rope that I recognized as the spider monkeys tail and said ¡°well it¡¯s better she figured out what adventuring is like before we reached the dungeon. Can you please put this in your inventory and keep watch while I take a rest? Wake me up in a few hours OK?¡± I shook my head in agreement and sat by the now smoldering fire watching the tree line as Sletha sat nearby deep in thought with a frown on her face. By the end of the two hours, Sletha seemed to have overcome her stupor and was back to her normal happy self. maybe she came to some sort of self-realization. I woke Amy up and we packed up and head to where the dungeon was. As we got closer to where the dungeon was supposed to be we heard screams and shouts coming from the direction we were headed in. We hurried toward the noise and I unsheathed my long sword. We came upon what had to be the entrance to the dungeon it looked like a normal cave but with way to many spider webs around and inside to be natural. Just as I was about to shout out to see if anyone was there a group of three people burst out of the entrance to the dungeon. Two people were carrying a third that looked to be unconscious and missing most of their right arm. They stopped when they saw us and the girl on the left of the injured guy said ¡°Help us! The spider monkeys are coming!¡± And just as she finished saying this a spider monkey launched itself from the cave and landed on the group knocking the three to the ground. I rushed the monkey just as the four hit the ground. Right as I was about to spear my long sword into the top of the monkey''s head it looked up at me realizing too late that more people had joined the party. My sword entered its left eye and pierced all the way threw its head. Killing it instantly I withdrew my blade as the monkey started to fall onto the three people, I grabbed it with a free hand and tossed it to the side and helped the group to their feet. The man that had stayed silent before carried the unconscious man over to where Sletha and Amy were standing and Sletha got to work on healing the unconscious man. The girl stayed behind me and to my left. She drew a set of daggers and said, ¡°more are coming, get ready!¡± We only had to wait a few seconds before a set of two spider monkeys emerged. One was the same coloration as the one we fought in the woods but the other had a green and black coloration. The red and black one launched itself at me but I was ready and swung my sword and it sunk deep into its neck and collarbone spraying green blood. The girl then launches herself at the impaled spider monkey as it makes lots of horrible high pitch screeching screams. She stabs it in the back of the head bringing its screams to an abrupt stop. The green and black spider monkey saw all this and instead of fleeing it stood its ground which immediately made me question these creatures intelligence but I immediately recanted that thought as it was joined by two more red and black spider monkeys emerging from the dungeon. The green spider monkey started making a strange gurgling sound and I took up a defensive stance as it launched a glob of green fluid from the back of its throat. But Instead of launching it at me it launched it at the girl. With a split second decision, I jumped in front of the glob before it could hit the girl. The glob hit me on my right side and just happened to hit a spot where my armor only partially covers my body. The glob where my armor covered did nothing but the part that hit my skin started to burn and sizzle as I cried out in pain.
-12 HP + -3 HP FROM ACID PER MINUTE
I turned to look at the green and black spider monkey only to see it on the ground with one of Amy¡¯s arrows sticking out of its left eye. But the two red and black spider monkeys didn¡¯t miss a beat and jumped toward me. In pain, I raised my long sword in front of me and was able to pierce through the chest of one of the monkeys but the second was able to knock me to the ground making me lose my grip on my sword. But the spider monkeys success was short lived as a dagger was stabbed into the back of its head by the girl making it fall on top of me dead. The spider monkey that had my sword sticking out of its chest screamed and tried in vain to remove the long sword from its chest. Luckily it didn¡¯t have to struggle long because Amy finished it off with a shot to the forehead.
1-LVL 12 ¡ï¡ï ACID SPITING SPIDER MONKEY KILLED 4-LVL 10 ¡ï¡ï SPIDER MONKEYS KILLED
EXP EARNED: 1,560
CLASS XP EARNED:162
GOLD EARNED: 364
CLASS LVL UP! 77/150 EXP NEW LVL: 2
LVL UP! 1,380/750 EXP NEW LVL: 8 + 3 STAT POINTS
LVL UP! 630/1000 EXP NEW LVL: 9 + 3 STAT POINTS
We all take a rest at the edge of the dungeon and I take in the group that we helped save. The girl is of average height with black hair at shoulder length. She has green eyes and is wearing a dark set of leather armor. She appears to be around 16 or 17 years old. The unconscious guy who is missing his right arm is well muscled in at least his remaining arm and has tan skin with bright red hair. And the remaining guy is a full lizard person with brown and black scales and bright blue eyes.I sat up and looked around to see if there were anymore of the little demons. But there was none to be found so I got up holding my side as it continues to burn and sizzle. I walk up to the spider monkey and remove my sword from its chest and resheathed it and walk over to my Sletha and say ¡°I¡¯m in pain, please help as I point to my acid covered side¡± she gasps and grabs a cloth from her inventory and wipes away the acid and puts her hands on the burnt skin and says a quick chant ¡°OH, GREAT ITHAQUE, BLESS THIS WOUND!¡± she then took a breath and said "HEALING HANDS!" my side is shadowed in dark black light and immediately I start to feel better as the healing regrows my melted away skin.
+10 HP AND CURE CONDITION: ACID BURN
Amy starts talking to the girl and says ¡°my name is Amy I¡¯m obviously an archer, this is Green he is a spellsword and our healer is Sletha. We are in the Stiff Copper guild in Serpenridge. Who are you guys? And what guild are you from?¡± The girl replies ¡°my name is Diana My class is an assassin and the unconscious guy is James he is our swords man and the quiet lizard man is Snapper he is our bard but he lost his Lute when that green and black spider monkey shot it with its spit while we were running. I failed to notice a ceiling blade trap and it came down right on James¡¯s arm making him lose it and his sword. He screamed so loud that it alerted every single one of those spider monkeys. He then passed out from blood loss while we were running away and we had to carry him. If it was not for you guys then we probably would be spider food. We are also in the Stiff Copper guild. We sincerely thank you for your help.¡± The lizard man shook his head in agreement and said in an almost inaudible voice ¡°yes, thank you¡± Diana continued saying ¡°we need to head back to Serpenridge to see if one of the churches can regrow James¡¯s arm, thank you again for saving us. Come find us at the guild some time maybe we could do a quest together.¡± And with that, their group got up and left. We proceeded to retrieve the spider monkey tails there were five here so we had six in total counting the one that tried to ambush us earlier. We rested a bit longer and then headed into the now emptied out dungeon. Amy started the map and when we came upon the spot where James lost his arm we made sure not to set off the trap and Amy made a mark on the map to show the trap. Strangely James¡¯s arm and sword were nowhere to be found. Amy noticed my look of confusion and said ¡°the dungeon eat anything that is left behind inside it. We continued on and came into a den type room that had multiple nests made out of web material. This must be where the spider monkeys lived before we killed them. The den had another outlet on the other side so we headed toward it. We entered into a new hallway and it lead us to another room. But before we entered Sletha stopped us and said in a hushed voice ¡°do you guys hear that? It sounds like deep breathing.¡± I couldn¡¯t hear it but Amy said ¡°ok. We go into this room quietly¡± she crouched and we followed behind her as we entered the room. in the middle of the room laying on its side facing away from us was a spider monkey but it was different in that it looked more like a gorilla than a monkey. Its monkey arms were like barrels its spider legs looked long and strong. It had no tail and Its coloration was purple and black and as soon as we entered it seemed to sense something was wrong. Because it stood up and started to turn toward us. I broke my silence and unsheathed my long sword as I rushed the spider gorilla it looked at me with anger and in a low chest shaking roar it lunged to meet me. We clashed and my sword plunged into its stomach as it slammed me with its right arm making me let go of my sword and sending me flying back toward the girls. I landed on my back with the wind knocked out of me.
ARMOR BLOCKED 40 DAMAGE -60 HP
I forced myself to stand and saw Amy let loose an arrow that plunged into the beast''s throat causing it to turn its attention toward her. In a split second decision I took my battle ax from my inventory and charged it again. I intercepted it halfway before it could reach Amy and with all my strength swung the ax into the shoulder of the spider gorilla.This had two effects one being that the spider gorilla lost its left arm and second it cause it to let loose a roar so loud that it made the whole room shake. Unfortunately, we are in a cave dungeon so the ceiling has many stalactites which proceeded to break off and start falling. The girls ran for the room entrance while I got stuck with the spider gorilla between me and the exit. The gorilla gave me a febal swing from its right arm but at this point, it had lost to much blood to stay alive much longer. So with a final swing, I decapitated the spider head off the gorilla¡¯s body.
1-LVL 15 ¡ï¡ï¡ï BOSS SPIDER GORILLA KILLED
EXP EARNED: 1,075
CLASS EXP EARNED: 515
GOLD EARNED: 230
CLASS LVL UP! 442/200 EXP NEW LVL: 3
CLASS LVL UP! 242/250 EXP NEW LVL: 4
LVL UP! 705/1250 EXP NEW LVL: 10 + 3 STAT POINTS
At this point, I was smiling and thanking the shopkeeper for making such sturdy armor when a stalactite fell and smashed me right in the helmet
ARMOR BLOCKED 20 DAMAGE -30 HP EXTREME BLUNT FORCE TO HEAD EFFECT: UNCONCIOUS