《The Sieve》 Chapter 1: Alex has left the building Authors note: English is not my first language, I never took a book writing course, I love LITRPG, it''s National Novel Writing Month, I read several good books on Royal Road, so I decided to post my story here first. Let me know what you enjoy/dislike/love/hate/meh. Sis was hiding. I had about 5 minutes spare before leaving my family for who knows how long. And on top of that my sister was hiding. She had always been the quietest about my decision, a spectator while my parents were alternating between screaming bouts and the silence treatment. I had no time for this. I would need my head in the game, literally, and I could not do it without her support. As I ran around yelling for her, I saw grandma looking at me. Her eyes were a little moist, but the way she holds her head shows her pride in me. Something actually seems off about where she is looking at and I follow her stare to the ceiling. The roof hatch door! Our favorite hiding place from when we were little kids, Sis must be completely cramped up there. I gave grandma a quick peck on her head, and walked silently towards our old hiding place. I opened up the space and saw Sis shivering and crying; eyes red, her hair a mess. She jumps at me from the opening, holds me tight. She said half crying, ''Stay here, please''. I doubted for a second, nobody had actually tried to ask me nicely. As she feels me regain my conviction she whispers, ''Fine, but you better not come back as a deadhead loser.'' She looks at me one last time straight in the eyes and runs away again. It''s all good, this was the best blessing I would get from her. I would miss the people, not the place. A poor folks building; it had a sixty square room per person, sparse second hand furniture, and an ambiance of pointlessness. It was a building for people just wanted to live of their basic universal income, have kids, and die. No greatness, no challenges, no hopes for the future. I took my jacket, left the house, and went for the elevators. As I pressed a faded button with a ''lobby'' icon, I noticed that more elevators were out of order than usual. The first elevator that stopped on his floor was even worse, it was completely empty. When you saw an empty elevator, you were not lucky, you were simply risking your life. Those were the elevators who everybody knew would fail soon. On the way down I felt like I had forgotten something. I had no luggage, no backpack, not even a wallet. Everything was going to be taken care of at the Sieve center, I just needed to be on time in the lobby. Down in the lobby, there was the usual crowd; kids, trainers, traders, officials, and guilders. Lobbies had replaced the open spaces of old; they were parks, playgrounds, meeting points, food plaza''s and so much more. The ceilings were enormous and had beautiful but fake sun rays shine into them. I looked for a sign of the Reps. The Reps were representatives of the Sieve, they were supposed to come three days in advance to prep the Players. This called then for massive celebrations of course. My building did not have the resources for these celebrations. There was barely enough for keeping the generators, recyclers, and elevators maintained. Somehow this resulted in the Reps not getting us our three days of prepping. I didn''t care, it was game time. As I was scanning the crowd in the lobby, I saw a middle aged woman walk towards me. She looked puffy, scruffy, and miserable. "Alex?" she called out. "Yes Madam". "I almost left without you, you are wasting my time." "I am sorry Madam, I had to get my head in the game." "Just call me Abby. And you better have your head in the game, I can''t take any more deadheads on my watch." I nodded and started following her through a bunch of kids playing tag. "Deadheads, is what they called the Players who come back brain-dead. As far as the Sieve rumors went, these players went through such a traumatizing experience that their brain shut all incoming senses down. Even when the Player got transferred back into their body, they remained comatose. The Reps were responsible to find a home for these deadheads and pay for their care." Waiting at the revolving doors were two more kids. A boy and girl, possibly brother and sister. He looked really muscled, possibly genetically enhanced or modded. She looked as if she did not want to be here, her hand resting on the boy''s shoulder as if he could go off any minute now. I had never seen them before, nothing surprising given how many people lived in these buildings.Unauthorized duplication: this narrative has been taken without consent. Report sightings. The four of us now walked silently towards a gleaming chromed vehicle. It bore the Sieve symbol, a black circle with 1 tiny white dot in the center. The symbol represented the odds of success for the Players, only 1 was chosen at a time. This vehicle was a last generation maglev car, it provided a smooth ride at very high speeds. It also stood out in these streets and was drawing quite a bit of attention. The car seemed to sense us and recognized Abby. It opened first the driver seat door for Abby and only then the other doors opened. "To the Sieve Center?" queried the car. "Yes". The car had 3 separate back seats, the AI within the back seats connected to our mobile devices and retrieved the correct settings for the memory foam. Satisfaction guaranteed. The car smoothly started hoovering and orienting itself towards the Sieve center as Abby''s chair swiveled towards us. She searched and found resolve in herself and drew herself up, trying to project a sense of formality. "Alex, Ronan, and Harley. You have chosen to become a Sieve Player on your sixteenth birthday. The law says I must explain to you what this means. You will be transported now to the Sieve Center and while your body will be stored in cryo freeze storage, your mind will be uploaded into the Sieve." "The Sieve is a virtual reality, it tests for young adults with the right combination of grit, integrity, and compassion. It cannot be tricked, bribed, or corrupted. It will drive Players to their limit, and reward each Player according to their performance at the end of their Game." "In the Sieve you will find the other Players with only one ultimate goal; beat level one hundred. You will only have one shot at that, and you will almost certainly fail. Your performance will dictate the rest of your life. You should at a minimum reach level twenty to make your families proud, at the very least don''t come back as a deadhead." Ronan tensed, his fingers digging into his seat and asked "How can we avoid that, how is this even possible, this test is supposed to find unique minds. Instead kids are returning like vegetables." "We don''t know, we suspect that the AI controlling the Sieve program has gotten too creative with simulating the demonic monsters, but nobody''s really sure. Preventing brain-dead players is the number one priority for our scientists. All I can say with certainty is that no player making it past level thirty has ever become a deadhead. And that we have not found a better way to find top talent". I looked outside, buildings were passing by at an incredibly fast speed. I didn''t think i had ever traveled this fast before. Oddly enough the experience felt like just another passage before the real deal started. She had not mentioned that most folks were evaluated and designated to be troops in the Interstellar Army, got shipped off to faraway planets to die in endless wars. Every year fewer and fewer people sent their children to the Sieve, only the desperate, the dreamers, and the very well prepared were still interested. Or, you could win. You could become a Monarch, ruler of star systems. It had been over a decade that someone had beat the Game, but somebody had to next. Everybody became quiet in the car, until Harley finally spoke up. "We were supposed to be briefed for three days. Is there anything else we need to know?" Abby cleared her throat, turning only a little red. "Yes. You should know that a lot of Players stay up for years in the Game. They grind the beginner levels extensively to assure higher survival odds in the deeper levels. Some Players grind each level for at least a month, squeezing every point of experience out of the monsters before descending another level." "The Players also have formed guilds. Players in guilds share their finds, and provide equipment to player according to their role in the guild. Sometimes one guild will fight with another guild over dominance of certain levels or sections of levels, but that''s rare since death by another player will also make you lose the game. But they all try kill loners on sight if they are sure to win. You pretty much have to sign up with a guild, I would propose you choose a guild related to your building." Ronan started at Abby in disbelief, "That''s all?". "Can you at least give us access to the wiki?" The wiki of the Sieve game was blocked for all non-Players, and returning Players never spoke about what happened there, this was supposed to keep every new Player at the same level. "I can do you even better, I can give you access to the game now. There is a section of the game that can be accessed before entering the Sieve, it is called the Antechamber. Inside of it you can play with the different combinations of races, classes, and star signs. You can''t die in there, so it is completely safe. From there you will also be able to access the wiki." Abby tilted her head a little, and commanded ''Open Armrests''. Three armrests opened up, inside of them was a small space with a pair of Virtual Reality glasses. "These glasses are only a shadow of the true Sieve experience, but they will help you get familiar with the Sieve world. These glasses connect with your brains using magnetic waves, they both override your sensory inputs and cut you off from your body. They are rated for triple speed, which means that every hour you spend in the game will feel like three hours." I did not wait for more explanation, I immediately took the glasses and put them on. I felt as if was slowly falling into an icy lake. I felt like I wanted to breathe, like my lungs were no longer cooperating with me. Then a blackness came over me, pushing me to fall asleep. My arms and legs were both freezing cold and burning hot, my blood circulation felt all messed up. Seconds after blacking out completely I stood in a shadowy cavernous room. In the middle was a silvery glowing man-sized spinning disc, a Sieve symbol. Chapter 2: The Antechamber I reached out to the Symbol, and heard a voice. "Character creation initiated, please select your gender." I grinned, "Male!". Some players liked to switch it up, I was not one of them. Even if female avatars statistically got more often free gear from ''generous'' players, they also had to deal with a lot of unwanted attention. I needed to focus instead of dealing with all that nonsense. "Please select your genus." This started well, I had no idea what a genus was. Was this a game for brainy types? I really hoped it wasn''t. I had decent grades at school, but I was definitely not first in class. "What is a genus?" "A genus is a race type, there are four race types: Human, Faerie, Spawn, or Elder." I doubted for a second, that damned Abby had not given even remotely enough time to prep. How bad could being a human be? "I choose human." "Please select your blood trait." "A blood trait?" "Blood traits are either defined by your ancestry or events in your life. You can have either an Elven, Dwarven, Ogre, Troll, Giant, Titan, or Angelic heritage. Or you can be an afflicted human; Vampire, Werewolf, Zombie, Mummy, or Spectre. Finally, you can also play as a pure human." That sounded all very interesting to me. "Pure human sounds boring and not very powerful, tell me more about vampires". "Vampires have an innate resistance to dark magic, nether magic, cold, poison, and draining attacks. They are vulnerable to light magic. They have superior strength, intelligence, health, and charisma. They suffer however from a lowered wisdom and speed. Finally, they gain experience at half the human rate." "Vampire it is." "Please select your class." "What is the most common class?" "Out of the thirteen available classes, warlock is the most common class for vampires." I figured that he might as well leverage the research that other players had put into this. He had not gotten the full three days of answers and questions, but he would make up for it with his wits. "Tell me more about the Warlock class." "Warlocks are people who have studied the magical arts of the demon realm with the aid of an Infernal Patron. They cast spells like a mage, they get access to all the demonic spells and the choice of one more realm. They are better at demonic magic than any other class. They receive gifts from their Patron whenever they gain a new level. They have trouble wielding any weapon that is not a Demonic weapon." "Aren''t the demonic powers causing people to become deadheads?" The rotating Sieve circle in the center of the row started to gain flecks of red, the room felt smaller. A different, more malevolent voice quoted "With great powers, come great rewards, and risks". I felt a presence in the room, power, like I had never felt before. Promises of greatness, but also dire consequences for failure. I wanted to become a Monarch, only winning mattered. Ever since I had heard of these star system lords with their incredible powers had wanted to become one of them. "I choose to be a Warlock" "What will be your second spell realm?" Sensing that I was not well informed, the voice offered the possibilities without being asked. "The choices are Miracles, Sorcery, Nature, Chaos, Death, Charms, Somatics, and Chance." "What are Somatics?" "The Somatic realm focuses on mind over body, offering spells that enhance and restore both the body and the mind. The ultimate spell for the Somatic realm is ''Invulnerability''".This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere. "Invulnerability, well that sounds pretty sweet. How often is Somatic chosen as a second realm?" "About eleven percent of the Players chose Somatic, most players choose either Sorcery or Death." "What are the ultimate spells for those?" "Sorcery has Globe of Invulnerability, Death has Wraithform. Wraithform reduces all damage by 75% and allows the player to walk through walls." "Sorcery does not sound all that different, are there many ways to get Wraithform?" "Wraithform can be achieved through a demonic corruption, artifacts or scrolls." "Demonic corruption, interesting. Fine, I choose the Somatic realm." "Loading training grounds, mortality: OFF." My surroundings faded away, getting replaced by a medieval looking courtyard surrounded by high castle walls. The sky was blue, the sun was shining, not good! I felt my skin tingling, and started smelling an unpleasant odor. Gah! I dashed into the shadow of the castle walls and looked around. Wooden armor, shields, and various types of wooden weapons were strewn around. I picked up a shield and wielded a wooden sword and felt a shock in my hands. Then I heard a voice booming : "Mortal, you displease me, only Demonic weapons are worthy of my disciples!" "You are hit by a vortex of Chaos. You die." The pain hit me so hard that I did not recognize my own voice screaming at first. A wave of suffering kept cycling through my body, making feel being ripped apart over and over. I was not prepared for this, I felt my mind buckle under the pressure. In the haze of pain I felt suddenly a way out, an end to the suffering. I sensed I could just cut off the VR feed and retreat into myself by simply shutting myself down. Wasn''t that better than this unending pain? I instinctively understood that this would turn me into a deadhead. Man, brain-dead from the get-go, what a waste.. My attention was now drawn to a voice, a voice I barely understood. As if I was underwater trying to listen to a bus announcement while getting shredded to pieces. "You have revived. You have lost zero experience points." All the pain was gone. The relief was incredible. I could not believe how close I had been to just give up on the Game, on the rest of my life. Only because I had wielded a wooden training sword. It pissed me off. I was close to cursing out the booming voice, but scared witless of possible further suffering. I needed to know more about this booming voice, I needed to protect and arm myself with knowledge. "Stats". Name: Alex Race: Vampire Class: Warlock Realms: Demonic & Somatic Patron: Kobal, the Dark Entertainer Star Sign: Free -- Experience: 0 Intelligence: 24, Constitution: 16, Strength: 14, Charisma: 11, Wisdom: 7, Dexterity: 7 Social class level: 15 -- Hit Points: 11/11 Mana Points: 3/3 -- You are excellent at stealth, and using magic devices You are very good at resisting magic You are good at disarming traps You are fair at fighting and recognizing magic You are bad at with bows and crossbows You are poor at detecting traps -- You arose from an unmarked grave. You have white hair, eyes like read coals and a deathly pale complexion. "Tell me more about my Patron" "Kobal has always been on the sides of Hell''s rulers, a staunch support of clashes with the Heavens because of their entertainment value. Some say his last stay on planet Earth was in the form of Loki, the Trickster. Kobal is the only Patron without a favourite race or class. Level ups can be rewarded by gaining Demonic servants, Demonic Weapons, minor stat increases, greater stat increases, and mass destruction of your enemies. Leveling up too fast or too slow can result in cursed weapons, cursed armor, loss of experience, stat decreases, physical damage, minor stat decreases, major stat decreases, and the summoning of dangerous monsters." That.. did not sound so good. I felt screwed for a moment. At least I knew what I was potentially in for. Kobal could be really bad news, I had to stay on his good side. If that was even possible. "Does Kobal have any temples?" I felt the snorting laughter more than I heard it. "Temples! You might become most entertaining after all. Temples are for the celestial fools, the closest thing you will find to a temple of Kobal are theaters. Not that there are very many of those in the Sieve. A shame really. Now, go find some kobolds and giant rats to kill so that I can reward you for your next level." The malevolence of that last sentence got me wondering whether I ever wanted to level again. It might just be better to stay level 1 than risking another Chaos vortex. Though with my luck, staying level 1 would probably also upset Kobal and get me killed for real this time. I wasn''t sure what to do next. I only saw simple wooden weapons, perhaps I would have to bash monsters to death with a shield? Or two shields? "Can I wield two shields?" Deafening silence followed. I would rather be beaten by a rat than face another of those chaos waves. I grabbed the largest shield I could find, the game helpfully granted me the knowledge that this was a ''Large wooden shield (4)'', it was adding 4 points of defense. I also wore a wooden breast armor, adding more 1 point of defense. I really needed to get better gear. I also swung a small shield over my shoulder, in case I would want to risk that chaos wave after all. The court yard had a number of doors, all but one seemed to lead to other painfully sunny courtyards. The one door that was different seemed to lead to the dungeon of the castle. While remaining in the shadow of the castle walls I walked towards it. I listened at the door, but no sounds come from behind this particular door. I was not sure whether that was good news or bad news, probably bad.. When I touched the handle it almost felt as if the door itself was looking me up and down, a barely passable adventurer soiling it''s handle. "Afflicted status verified; Vampire. Access granted." Chapter 3: Another level Right, I guess zombies and spectres also would have hard time in that sunny weather outside. The door opened into a bog standard five by three room with 4 doors. The door gently closed on itself, while the door right in front of me opened up. I was ready for my first monster! It turned to be a two headed dog, it was pretty large, coming to my waistline. It had a brown, mottled fur and long tongues quivering in both toothy mouths. Without further ado it jumped towards me with open jaws. I had never been a big fan of medieval games, I had way more experience with first person shooting games set in space. I had expected that a game that could crown me a Monarch would be a space game. Still, I had this. I moved my shield in position and smacked that double headed monster down hard. A text log appeared at the top of my view, it stated "You hit the Two Headed Jackal". I had clearly wasted time reading the message as I suddenly had one mouth biting me in my shield arm, and the other mouth chomping at my wooden breast armor. I could barely move my shield arm, and realized that I was in trouble again. The only move I saw possible was using the small wooden shield on my back to chop at the jackal. The pain was real, I had to act. In one swoop I took the small wooden shield of my back and whacked at the head locked onto my left arm. "You have hit the Two Headed Jackal. Critical hit. You have stunned the Two Headed Jackal" Nice. No chaos storm to punish me. It also helped that whacking one of the heads got both of them stunned. I was feeling much better about this combat. I tried a fancier move where I bashed the left head with my large shield while I chopped at the second head with the smaller shield. "You hit the Two Headed Jackal (2x). The Two Headed Jackal flees in terror" I got him! I confidence grew even further and I jumped on the Jackal. It was more crawling in terror than running in terror. I gave one more full strength shield bash and the Jackal died. "You have killed the Jackal. You have gained 2 experience points." I was curious how bad my wounds were. "Health status!" "Hit Points: 8/11, Mana Points: 3/3" Not too shabby, one at a time I could handle three, perhaps four of these. I was feeling good about this. With a more confident step I walked towards the room the Two Headed Jackal (who came up with these names?) had come from. Another bland dungeon room, except for a chest standing against the north wall. Remembering that finding traps was my worst skill, I decided to just open it. "You have found your starting equipment" Cool! No experience for that though. Another window appeared, more in my consciousness than in my view. It contained the following items: * Demonic Spellbook [Lesser Pacts] * Somatic Spellbook [Basic Chi Flow] * 2 scrolls of Darkness * 3 scrolls of Teleportation * 1 scroll of Recall * 3 scrolls of Satisfy Hunger Excitedly I opened up the Demonic Spellbook to see what I could cast. The book felt odd, it seemed to wriggle and whisper with different voices. Inside the book, the old yellow pages revealed mostly unreadable scribbling except for the first page which had two spells. ''Unholy Strength'' and ''Detect Evil''. Detecting evil seemed pointless to me, evil would probably be great at detecting me.. Unholy Strength sounded cool though. "What is Unholy Strength ?" A whispering, lisping voice emanated from the spell book, making it just that much more creepy. "Unholy Strength is a spell found both in the death and the demonic realm. At your spellcasting level it will increase the to hit bonus by 12, protect the caster from fear, provide an extra 10 hit points. This comes at the cost of 3 mana points, and 5 hit points." Shocker, another big trade off. Essentially this would take all my hitpoints, and pretty much half of my health. It still sounded better than Detect Evil though. I guessed I''d just have to find some healing resources to offset the damage from Unholy Strength. "So I just chant this incantation and that''s it?" "No. You must declare your intent to learn this spell. I am in essence a magical symbiote, I will know when you want to cast a specific spell. Learning a spell will provide me access to your mana pool for that specific spell; I then cast these spells for you using your mana. At your current level we can only sync up on one spell." Wow. A spellbook symbiote, that was cool. Even if it was a creepy, whispering, wriggly symbiote. He felt anticipation radiate of the spellbook, it wanted to bond with me. It wanted access to my mana pool, and now that I thought about it, my hit points. I would be feeding this thing for a long time, and I didn''t care all that much really. I needed to win, that was all. "I choose to learn Unholy Strength". I felt what I could only describe as a tugging on the back of my mind, a door that had never been opened before was now opened for my spellbook. At least I did not feel physically weaker. "You have gained 15 experience points for gaining a new spell." I quickly checked my Somatics book, perhaps I could pull this off twice. Disappointment struck. I was not able to read anything in it. All I saw were circles pulsing and moving around on the pages. Just holding the book open seemed to relieve me of any distractions, providing a focus on what I needed to do next. There was at least that. I checked the room one more time, but there were just 4 bland grey walls, a hewn stone floor and the emptied chest. Time to move back to the room I came from. This time there were no doors bursting open. I decided to use my excellent stealth levels and listened at each door. At both doors I heard what seemed a snoozing, snoring sound. I was guessing there were Two Headed Jackals behind those doors. I opened the first door as quietly as I could, to no avail. The door screeched, I even had to put muscle into opening it. Ientered what looked like a lair. It was an assault to my senses; it stank, it was littered with disgustingly half eaten carcasses, and more importantly it had a jackal piercing my ear with a primal scream. Another two headed jackal. A little bigger though. Instead of just jumping at me, it tensed it''s body. The left head just kept staring at me in a calculating way, the right head was still howling so loud that it could wake up the whole dungeon. I felt a rage suddenly towards the monster. These were supposed to be beginner level monsters, a stepping stone to greatness, not an actual challenge.This tale has been pilfered from Royal Road. If found on Amazon, kindly file a report. I screamed, jumped, and bashed into the left head of the jackal. It seemed the calculating head had not figured me out just yet, it yelped and tried to move backwards. The right head was going for my small shield arm, and bit me. We just went at it. I ignored the lines of text scrolling on the top of my view, I would not get distracted this time. I had almost destroyed the jackal when suddenly I felt a sharp pain in the back of both of my legs. I didn''t need to check the status messages to know that I now had two assailants. I could not win this, I had to retreat! I went over my available options with lightning speed. The only viable way out seemed to be the scrolls of Teleportation. I focused on them, and suddenly the game world seemed to freeze up. In slow motion I saw disappointed looks appearing on the jackal heads. I now had plenty of time to check my battle stats. "Hit Points: 3/11, Mana Points: 3/3" Not good, not good at all. Then, the world sped up again and I was in a different room. This had to be the last room. It looked like the previous room except that the door clearly had been bashed to pieces by a dog sized creature. I heard the jackals two rooms away. They were pissed, not giving up, and coming up my way. I needed more time and I only had two more scrolls of Teleportation. Maybe I could hide in the dark, I was good at hiding. I focused again, this time on my stack of scrolls of Darkness. The whole room and a good portion of the central went ink black. I made an awesome discovery, I had infra-vision! The jackals had not, they could rely on their other senses, but it helped little. The stench of their lairs was overpowering so they could not smell me and I was moving around the jackals like a ghost. I crept closer to the jackal that was most hurt. One head had been completely bashed in, the other head was frantically trying to locate me. My small shield had seen better days, I guessed that one more hit would be the end of it. With all my might I heaved my small shield and bashed it into the second head and jumped away, not even checking whether I had killed the jackal. "You have killed the Jackal. You have gained 3 experience points." Three experience points! This game was ridiculous, leveling up would take forever.. The other jackal had turned around, staring intently at where the first one had died. My shield was still solid, and what''s more, I started to feel a little better, so I checked my stats. "Hit Points: 5/11, Mana Points: 3/3" Awesome, I seemed to regenerate slowly over time. All I had to do was move around, never let the last jackal catch me. Moving around was boring, the regeneration was slow, and the jackal also seemed to heal. Possibly faster than me. Another thing was that I subconsciously started to avoid the deeper end of the lair, and started to notice that the jackal while searching for me also never went near the deeper end. Traps? I knew I was horrible at finding traps, but shouldn''t I get a bonus when I expected there to be traps? I started to make inroads into the deeper end of the lair, very slowly, very methodically. After what seemed like an eternity, but was probably more like a few minutes, I got a status message. "You have detected a trap." Awesome, I knew it. A blinking caret(*) appeared a few feet away from me, helpfully indicating where I had detected the trap. I still had no clue what the trap was about. Could it kill me? Could I use it to kill the jackal? No idea.I crept as close as I could to the blinking caret while still avoiding the jackal, which seemed easier than before. That thing really did not want to be around here. "You have detected a trap. (2x)" Three carets now blinked in my view, and they seemed to be clustered. I came closer, slowly, to verify my theory and five more carets appeared around an empty space. I could not see anything special about the empty place. Perhaps I needed light to tell the difference, perhaps I was simply not good enough to find the ninth trap. I was so tempted to just jump in the center of the traps and taunt the two headed jackal, but that would have been stupid. I knew now that dying was a very painful business. I checked my stats and noticed I was fully healed now. It was time to change tactics. I grinned at the jackal, brandished my shields and started attacking. The jackal had issues with connecting withme in the darkness and I won really really quickly. "You have killed the Jackal. You have gained 3 experience points." Gah. I just couldn''t get over the low amount of experience points, this Game would last forever. I took a look at the jackal carcass and wondered if I could use it to set off the traps in the back of the lair. I then dragged the corpse to about 3 feet away from the nearest trap and threw it straight into that trap. Something immediately shot out of the ceiling at a violent speed. "You have disarmed a Poison Dart Trap." I checked out the damage on the dead jackal, and saw indeed three poisonous darts stuck in it, making the jackal look even deader. I carefully plucked the darts and put them in my inventory. "You have picked up 3 poisonous darts" I chuckled, this game was way too verbose at times. I lifted what little remained of the jackal, stepped back again about three feet and threw the jackal into the mysterious center. Nothing happened.. With some reluctance I went to the center myself, and nothing happened to me either. I couldn''t see much, the scroll of Darkness was still in effect. I hoped that my beginner equipment would not be so evil as to provide scrolls that could kill me. So I focused on my stack of scrolls of Light to activate it. I felt no pain, I guess only actual sun light could hurt me. The lair was lit once more, I was greeted againby a horrible collection of half eaten corpses. I started to look around me, and after a few seconds I realized I that the tile I stood on was loose, I could lift the tile. Under the tile was what looked like a magic wand. I pocketed it without hesitation. "You have picked up a triple plated wand". "What does a triple plated wand do?" Silence. It seemed that only my spellbook was still willing to part with information. Perhaps I just had to try the wand, I was more than willing to sacrifice a charge of my wand to know what it was. Information was a resource in games, and I needed more of it. I focused on the wand and immediately a grid was overlaying the lair. I instinctively knew that I just had to focus on a part of the lair to make the wand go off. I picked a spot, a good distance away of me, and a massive green and purple swirling ball of poison came out of the wand, scary but also kind of awesome. The ball flew towards the spot I had picked and lost all momentum there. It drenched the floor in poison, giving it a sickly sweet smelling odor of death. "You have a wand of Wonder {Unknown}, you have gained 7 experience points." A wand of Wonder, it seemed a bit overpowered. But I would take any advantage I could get. Plus extra experience points, though I still had not even hit level 2. It seemed I got experience points every time I tried something new. Maybe I should just cast my Unholy Strength spell now that I was completely safe. I connected with my spellbook, it took immediate action and drained me of all my mana points and half of my hitpoints. I felt great though; fearless, dangerous, ready for action. "You feel like a hero! **Low Hitpoint Warning**" You have gained 15 experience points. Welcome to level 2. You can learn 2 more spells. You feel magically reinvigorated. You are full! The voice of Kobal booms out: Thy deed hath earned thee a worthy blade."