An ear-splitting roar, one thick with the coppery stench of fresh blood, forced a bedraggled young boy to press himself against the rooftop on which he was currently trying to catch his breath. There had been many shitty days thus far in his nine years of life, but without a doubt, this one took the cake. Sharp chunks of asphalt the size of his head were raining down from the sky. It was all he could do to cover his head with his tiny arms, and curl up into a compact ball. It was then a matter of doing his best to remain motionless, praying that someone would come to his rescue.
Unfortunately, as far as he knew, he was the only person left alive in this monster infested city.
He was unwilling to do so much as take a breath, terrified that the vile beast down below would be able to trace the faintest sound back to his location. His wishes of getting a short nap had yet again fallen on deaf ears. When the dust began to settle, he was greeted with a harsh realization. For the fifth time this morning, the Cyclops he thought he had lost in his mad dash through the sewer had yet again caught up to him. Not even coming all the way up to the surface had been enough to lose the beast's pursuit.
Even though the surface was the last place he wanted to go, the street above the sewer was the best defensive measure his young mind could come up with. Unfortunately, it took the Cyclops less than a minute to smash through the road and dash those hopes aside.
Standing at well over 15ft tall, the dull grey, fleshy rolls of its massive, unclothed stomach were liberally coated in rapidly rupturing and reforming greenish-yellow pustules. Even after eluding the beast all afternoon, he still couldn't work his mind around how something so unnaturally rancid, and disgustingly obese was able to move in such a stealthy manner. Neither did he have any desire to stick around and find out.
He lifted his head off of the floor just enough to peek over the rubble. A slight movement in the heavy shadows within the mouth of the nearby alley caught his attention. He looked over just in time to witness a shockingly bright flash of light. His vision cleared just in time to see a hooded figure stroll forward casually, both arms extended. A bolt of green fire from poured forth from his right hand, and arcs of lightning as black as pitch burst from his left.
Striking first, the black lightning punched directly through the beast's chest. The Cyclops thrust both of its flabby arms out to the side in a feeble an attempt to grab onto the nearby walls. It dropped to one knee, yet somehow managed to stay upright, fighting through the dark currents of power coursing through its body. Given no chance to prepare a defense, the Cyclops could only watch with wide-eyed shock as the bolt of green flames slammed it into the nearby building. With nothing to stop it, the torrent of ghostly fire roasted the beast where it stood. It was almost as if the flames had a life of their own. Taking advantage of the deep wound left behind by the black lightning, and burrowing into the beasts insides. A split second of confused silence was all the terrified child was allowed before the strange green flame fully inserted itself into the monster and vanished from sight.
The beast opened its mouth in a silent scream. It began to collapse into itself like a deflating balloon, quickly losing most of its height and mass. Without warning, the collapse reversed itself into a rapid outward expansion. The child's eyes met those of the hooded figure, and the Cyclops exploded. He was greeted with a sad smile right as the concussive force of the shockwave tossed him away from the edge of the roof, dashing his head against a concrete beam, and propelling him into unconsciousness. The hooded figure quietly surveyed his handiwork, looking for and inefficiencies in his craft. With a resounding boom, the surrounding area flashed emerald one final time, and what little remained of the Cyclops simply ceased to exist.
"HEY DICKHEAD, WAKE UP!!"
Amidst the sound of high pitched laughter, Alan Robbins the eleventh, and likely the last Human to bear the ancestral name, pushed himself up off the gravel and blinked his eyes wearily.
"Oh! Well look who's finally awake! For someone who's been fishing for his whole life, you're pretty terrible at this bro." Still reeling the receding memories of his nap turned nightmare, Alan tried to peer through the unkempt mop of brown hair mostly covering the amused brown eyes of his younger brother Rexus.
It took him a moment to gather his bearings. Taking note of the annoying grin on his brothers face, Alan gave a tired smile of his own, and flashed him the middle finger.
"You're about to lose another fishing pole," Rexus responded, gesturing off to his left.
"That's my last one!" Alan gasped, rolling over and searching for his fishing pole. Luckily it was close. At just over six feet tall, he didn't even need to stand up, he simply stretched out his lanky arms, and grabbed it. He was hesitant to move the pole just yet. His bright blue eyes peered intently at the surface of the water, attempting to locate his cork bobber.
I had ANOTHER one of those fucked up dreams, Alan thought. In all honesty, it was getting old. He could still feel a lingering trace of fear and dismay, although the details of what he might've dreamt about to rouse such bleak emotions had already begun to fade. He was left with nothing more than vague impression of a faceless figure hidden within the depths of a hooded cloak.
Alan blinked his eyes rapidly, trying in vain to clear the remaining fog of sleep from his mind.
Before he had a chance to resume the search for his bobber, the fishing pole jerked so hard it was nearly torn from his grasp. He looked down shock as it bent nearly in half under the weight of the fish tugging on the line. The only thing that kept his fishing pole from being pulled into the cold, green water were the two large rocks Alan had wedged his reel between. After getting a firm grip, Alan gave the rod a quick tug, yanking it back over his head. "Fish on" he set the hook and grumbled, still half-asleep.
The words were said out of habit more than anything. He was only keeping with family tradition. Though if he was being honest, Alan had absolutely no idea who Jeremy Wade was. Or why he had always yelled out those words when hooking a fish.
It was a tradition started by his ancestor Alan Robbins the First, nearly 300 years ago. Alan Robbins the First grew up before the world fell to a spatial rift, marking the coming of the System.
The stories told that Alan Robbins the First was just as unprepared as everyone else. A relaxing afternoon spent fishing at the near-by lake ultimately ended up in chaos as the sudden appearance of this "System" and the Mana brought along with it; which sparked rapid, almost immediate, and nearly always violent evolutions in the planetary Flora and Fauna. The weather systems themselves rapidly became nearly cataclysmic as the System's Mana strengthened them to levels never before seen. Include the System Administration's subsequent banning of all humanity from any System access for a period of 10 years, and you had a delicious recipe for world wide chaos.
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Within a week, humanity was evicted from the top of the food chain. By the two week mark, the average adult human was unable to survive an encounter with a house cat, let alone a German shepherd. By the end of the first month, all the world's standing military (along with the population centers) were decimated. Eradicated simply by all the rioting, looting, and wave upon wave of vicious, System-enhanced animals that rapidly evolved into actual monsters.
Dawn of the sixtieth day, less than a million humans were left to greet the sunrise. Horrendously energetic mana-driven environmental and weather fluctuations finally reached their climax, remodeling the very face of the earth before finally beginning to dissipate, leaving behind an unrecognizable landscape.
The System lived up to its word, as day 72 brought with it the multitudes. Scarlet Elves in their colonial class spaceships, sentient Undead in ships seemingly wrought of metallic bone, Dwarves, Gnomes, and Halflings in their dreadnoughts. Orcs, Goblins and Hobs exiting from what can only be described as flying dumpster fires.
An enormous cube of liquid-looking silver blotted out the sky, dropping down to within 1000ft of the planet's surface, opening a miles long hole on the underside, and unleashing millions of flying monsters. Among the first to exit were the Dragons, Wyverns, and Drakes, followed closely by Manticores, Hippogriffs, and Pegasai.
The Phoenixes, Thunderbirds and other Elemental avians were followed out by all the lesser flying monsters. Harpies, Furies, Gargoyles, Bats, and various insects, both large and small. Titans, Giants and Cyclopes began to leap from the colossal opening and drop hundreds of feet to crash like meteors to the surface. Their massive legs easily handling the impact.
These thunderous impacts were the heralds of an enormous ramp extending from partway up the silver, moon-sized structure. It plunged to the ground promptly crushing the forest below. Allowing hundreds of millions of monsters of all shapes and sizes easy access to their new hunting and spawning grounds.
It was four days later, while leading a small hunting party that Alan the First fell headlong into an open manhole, plunging into the sewage below. Separated from his group, he began his journey out of the sewer.
It was during this trek of the sewer that Alan the First located the Guadalupe River Beginners Dungeon. At a measly Lvl 0-3 it was only a matter of days before Alan the First and his hunting party were able to clear out the Dungeon's first floor, and made it their spacious new home. Beset on all sides, all they could do was hunker down, occasionally sending out small scavenging groups, and hunting parties.
While not at all an optimal situation, there were a few immediate benefits of Dungeon dwelling, the first, and most important of which was time itself. Due to a phenomenon called time dilation, for every 30 days spent within the dungeon, only a single day passed in the world outside. Giving the survivors ample time to plan, to rebuild a bit of what was lost, and to prepare for the day humanity would finally gain access to the SYSTEM.
With SYSTEM access they could then simply grind levels in the dungeon while minimal time passed outside, giving them at least a small growth advantage. Then the plan was to eventually take the fight back to the outside world in a last ditch effort to try and reclaim a bit of what was lost. But as was once said by some guy in the past, 'The best-laid plans of mice and men often go awry'.
They failed. Alan thought sadly, We failed. Between hunting parties being wiped out, to scavenging groups bringing back strange illnesses, and even a few instances of "cabin fever" leading to cases of murder. After subduing the murderers, they were then forced to exile the perpetrator from the dungeon, an obvious death-sentence in itself. Population numbers have always been on a steady decline. Within the dungeon it has been just shy of 300 years since the the spatial rift brought our planet to the Systems territories .
He glared down at his boots. 300 years for our once nearly over-populated dungeon to become the mostly uninhabited goblin haven it is now. 3 survivors. Alan sighed, We're down to a measly 3 survivors, And uncle Alex claims to be only partially human! While he definitely has odd eating habits, and heals much faster than what would usually be considered normal, AND was most likely a pirate in his previous life, due to his proclivity towards any kind of treasure. The mere mention of a ruby or gold coin gets him salivating. Literally. Aside from the peculiar behaviours, and his claims to be otherwise, Uncle Alex LOOKS human. So aside from the fact he seems to have System access, for all I know he's just talking out of his ass. Having been given no access to the System ourselves, all we've ever had is hearsay and rumors, so facts are few and far between.
An unexpected, and quite honestly unwanted smack to the side of the head shocked Alan from his reverie. "Less daydreaming, and more catching me a nice catfish sandwich" Rexus added quickly while barely dodging Alan's attempt to shove him into the river. Snorting in obvious amusement, Rexus retreated to the other side of the tree Alan always fished under. Giving Alan ample space to hopefully land their lunch, while also leaving him unable to retaliate for the smack. "I don't even like fish..." Alan grumbled to himself, continuing to reel in his struggling quarry.
Making sure to keep the fish up off of the bottom of the river and away from the few small shadows next to submerged stones, Alan persisted in his struggle, and man soon prevailed over fish. With a glance, Alan was able to determine that he'd caught a nice catfish.
It had smooth, scale-free skin colored a purple so dark it almost appeared black. Its purple flesh was dusted liberally with tiny white spots, reminiscent of stars hanging in the backdrop of space. It had a sleek, yet muscular body, with eyes far too large, and spaced eerily close together on the top of its head. A pair of gangly whiskers hung from each corner of its course, sandpaper-lined jaws. While certainly not much to look at, they did have one interesting and also highly annoying ability.
Using a skill Alan dubbed 'Shadow Shift" these particular catfish were able to somehow 'warp' from shadow to shadow, vanishing and reappearing seemingly at will. In addition to being amusing to watch, 'Shadow shift' had a tendency to make capturing them an infuriating fools errand.
Countless shadow catfish had bested Alan halfway through a fight by simply swimming into a shadow and disappearing, taking with them all of his attached fishing tackle. Using a simple hook, and cork for a bobber, it realistically wasn't much of a loss, but after happening fifty times or more, enough was enough.
Alan took a couple days off fishing and located several fishing holes along the river with minimal underwater shadows. An added benefit of being in a dungeon was that there wasn't a 'sun' in the sky, just ambient light originating from no visible source, the roof being nothing but flat, unblemished grey stone.
No sun moving around the sky jacking with the positioning of shadows made Alan's task far less complicated than it should have been, netting him his all time favorite fishing spot.
Aptly named 'The Tree', a singular towering Apple tree standing proudly next to the river provided the brothers plenty of shade on the shore, while casting none over the water. Meanwhile a flat beach of gravel, as opposed to the usual 3 ft drop off from the bank to the waters surface eliminated the only other source of mentionable underwater shadows for nearly 100 yards. Making this the perfect location for less frustrating fishing.
Grumbling to himself about lost time and equipment, not to mention the slime, and the stench of raw fish, he soon had the seven-pound Shadow Catfish unhooked. Unsheathing the dagger on his belt, Alan delivered a practiced cut through the catfish's spine, promptly ending its life, and marking the beginning of Rexus's promised lunch. Placing the carcass in a bucket of cool water, Alan removed the hook from his line, and unstrung his fishing pole.
Unwilling to be the recipient of another one of Uncle Alex's long-winded lectures about proper weapon maintenance, Alan thoroughly cleaned his blade before re-sheathing it. Only after he was sure his dagger was spotless did he begin to pack up his gear. After giving his hands a quick rinse in the cool green water, Alan turned around to collect his fish and was instead greeted with a living nightmare manifested directly into physical reality.