Chapter 1
Change of Fate
My eyes fluttered open in a start.
“I had the worst dream last night,” I sighed as I got out of my bed, I tripped on a bottle that wasn’t there last night and fell, as usual. I looked around and examined my room. It was spot-less, after I threw out that bottle. With my bed in one corner, to the right of where you walk in, and a desk with a picture of my deceased parents on it, in the other corner, and a window right next to my bed. It wasn’t big really, just enough so I could lay down horizontally, I’m not that tall though, barely five and a half feet.
With lots of fuss, I changed clothes and got ready for the day. I opened the door and walked out. Nice, I was able to get out of my room without bleeding or any bruises. I walked with my head looking down, not because I was shy or sad, but because if I don’t pay attention to the ground, there’s no telling when a hole or hill will randomly appear. I walked from my cottage to the market. I noticed a few people see me and wave out of the peripherals of my vision; I waved back without looking up from the ground. The market was really just a big circle of stalls that sold essentials like food and clothing. There were a lot of people milling about, always was.
As I walked past, many people wished me good luck with solome expressions. Today is the day, I thought to myself in fear. Today I plunge into the Dungeon of Chance!
I was able to reach Old Rain’s stall without tripping.
“Young Fei, today’s the day, are you ready?” Asked Old Rain, cheerfully.
“How can you be cheerful when I’m going to die in the Dungeon of Chance,” I asked, not so sarcastically.
“I don’t think you’ll die, I believe you can at least make it to the mandatory tenth room and become an Old without dying,” shrugged Old Rain
“Can you really say that when you can site my whole life as the unluckiest person on Eaterial,” I snapped. “I’ll get the worst stuff in there! I’ll be lucky if I don’t get something that kills me on the first room!”
“Listen, Young Fei, I believe in you. You don’t need luck, you can rely on everything else great about you,” Old Rain attempted to encourage me.
“Who cares about my athletic body, or my top student scores in the learning room, or even my aboveaverage looks? It’s nothing compared to my horrid luck!”
“Alright, the test starts in twenty minutes, you should eat something before you go. And beauty is in the eye of the beholder, you look darn ugly to me,” joked Old Rain as he handed me a piece of bread.
“Thanks...If I do die in there, please make sure that I’m buried next to my parents,” I asked sadly.
"No” refused Old Rain with his arms crossed.
“What?” I wheeled incredulously.
“No, I won’t do that because I refuse to believe that someone as great as you will die because of your luck.” I looked at him and started tearing up.
“Thanks,” I said quietly as I rubbed my eyes on my sleeve.
“Off you go, it will start in thirteen minutes,” Old Rain said as he motioned me forward. Carefully shoving the last piece of bread in my mouth, I continued forward, filled with new vigor. Today is my test day. No one from this or any other clan can go in the Dungeon of Chance today, except the tested. Today I am one of those tested. Every year on this day, each clan sends a young into the Dungeon of Chance, and when they make it to the tenth room, they will be able to leave and become an old.
I showed up at the entrance, without tripping again, maybe today is my lucky day. There was a crowd at the entrance. Noticing who I was, the crowd parted and let me through. Only a minute left. That minutes passed silently, like everyone was holding their breath, until they heard the horn and the door slide open.
As I walked in, the crowd behind me yelled, “GOOD LUCK!” As I stepped through, the previously shaded hallway turned into a spacious blue, well lit room. As I stepped forward, I felt some weird, fundamental, energy shift inside of me. What was that? I thought. There were three sand golems standing in the middle of the room, making me quickly discard any questions. The door closed with a thump. The golems looked at me with deep holes for eyes, and started running forward, well their clumsy stumble of a run. There is no way I am going to die to some pitiful golems, I thought indignantly. I ran forward to greet them and, when they got into range, I spun into a roundhouse kick, connecting with the golem to my right. Millions of grains of sand exploded outward, and the golem collapsed, dead. The other two punched at me with their stubs. Thankfully, they were painfully slow. I side stepped and released two punches, one with each hand. The previously standing golems met the same fate as the first.
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I heard a pleasant ding noise and a clatter directly after, followed by a door sliding open. I turned in the direction of the clatter and saw a wicked looking, blue thunder sword. I tossed the idea around in my head, but decided to pass it up. I thought I would get something like a spoon or sombrero, instead I got a thunder sword. It’s probably because my luck is worse than I thought and the sword will shock me to death when I touch it, morbid but true. I regretfully moved on to the next room. The first room room was pretty easy, maybe I will make it out without dying. A small amount of hope started welling up in my chest.
The second room was filled with goblins. Real goblins in the wild are somewhat intelligent, but goblins in the dungeon are rabid beasts. At least, that's what I was taught in the learning room, but they also say demons are vile beasts and that's a giant lie. There were six in total, they rushed at me while grumbling and yelping like a pack of sick dogs. When they neared, I did the tested roundhouse kick from before. The goblin was sent flying, but didn’t die. It was then that I noticed, two of them were armed with rusty daggers, easily sharp enough to pearce my leather gear. But, the ones without daggers surrounded me while the ones with daggers stayed on the edges. Why aren't they all rushing me? Is it possible these goblins have some sort of intelligence? An insane possibility popped in my head.
“Can you understand me?” I asked, feeling a little silly.
“Of course, stupid human,” replied one of the goblins with a knife. It’s voice was garbled but, other than that, it was fine. Still, the sound hit me like a slap to the face.
“Do you think we could reach an arrangement?" I asked.
“We already reached an arrangement with the dungeon,” waved the other goblin with a knife. With the dungeon? Why are they referring to it as if it was alive?
“Attack!” commanded the knife goblins in unison. The three surrounding goblins rushed me. I jumped when they punched and, to my surprise, They hit each other. With my luck, they should have accidently tripped and hit me or something. Oh well, I’ll take it as a good omen. My fists sprang out and hit two goblins square in their chests, making them double over. The last goblin, I kicked in the gut. Without my notice, as soon as I initiated my attack, the two knife goblins rushed towards me. I managed to disarm one with a simple counter, but before I could turn, I was stabbed in the back by the other. I gasped in pain. The goblin pulled out the knife and readied another stab, allowing passage for a scary amount of blood to flow out. I didn’t allow them another hit, though. I sweeped its legs, making it drop and I flipped backwards for distance. On my last flip, when I landed on my feet, searing pain came from where I was stabbed, and I dropped to the floor. The pain was too much, I couldn’t move. The goblins all got back up and surrounded me. They all had ear to ear, toothy, and cute in a way smiles seeing I was in too much pain to move. NO! I can’t die here. Not by anything. I even promised Old Rain that I would come back. The goblins raised their daggers in unison. I can’t die! move! The goblin brang the dagger downward. MOVE! But the dagger stopped. Not because I did anything, but because they heard the sound of the door opening. Another person entered the room? But It’s strictly one person per room, how can this be?
The goblins were just as surprised, they looked at each other and muttered things, I could vaguely hear them say something along the lines of,“Is this why the dungeon told us to respond to the human?” The person who stepped through the doorway was a girl with shoulder length brown hair and beautiful facial features, defitnitely a noble from the level of self groom. The girl was wearing the standard tested gear, with a wool shirt and leather vest, pants, and shoes. The feature that attracted the most attention was her heterochromic light green and red eyes. She looked surprised, but then she shrugged and her face quickly formed into a sneer. She raised her peculiar sword and pointed it at the goblins. Wait, what? That was the thunder sword from my earlier room. The weapon stayed? It didn’t shock her to death when she touched it?
Suddenly she said, “Y’know, you must be really stupid to leave behind this amazing drop, and proceeding to get yourself surrounded by goblins.” The goblins forgot about me and rushed the girl. But before they even got half the distance, a blue lightning bolt shot out of the sword. It instantly disintegrated the first goblin it touched, then bounced to another and another. It quickly killed all the goblins, then disappeared into the air. That sword... was this powerful? But how had my luck produce something so strong? “Really, I was facing off against twelve demon knights in that room earlier, if I hadn’t seen this sword on the ground, that has amazing lightning abilities and cut through their armor like butter, I would be dead by now,” the girl laughed. “Here use this, I’m only saving you for being a dimwit and leaving behind this sword for me. Of course, if you just grabbed the sword then you could have killed those goblins with a flick of your wrist,” mocked the girl as she threw a potion. I struggled to not drop my saving grace with my shaky hands and greedily drained the bottle. My wound closed up instantly, it must have been high quality.
“Is it really that good? I thought it would have shocked me to death if I touched it,” I said bitterly.
“Why would you think that? You’d have to literally be the most unlucky... wait. Are you Young Fei?” asked the girl. I nodded grimly. She burst out laughing. “Wow to think the person everyone in every clan knows as the most unlucky person on Eaterial would have this unfathomably strong sword as their first drop. I would have thought it would be a spoon or sombrero,” she said trying to stop herself from another round of laughter.
"Those were my exact same thoughts! But when I saw the sword I thought I was so unlucky it would kill me if I touched it,” I exclaimed.
“I take back what I said about you being stupid, but you really are the most unlucky person alive. To be so unlucky that when you finally got extremely lucky you left the chance thinking it was more bad luck." The girl burst out laughing again. I couldn't help but feel like she was intentionally rubbing it in.
"Well, good luck, is all I can say, hopefully you don’t die,” the girl bid goodbye as she walked through the newly opened door. My head lifted as a clatter sounded in the room. That girl left without getting her drop. Hey, wasn’t she just making fun of me for leaving my drop? Too late now, the door already closed behind her. I looked over and examined the item. It was an ebony wood rod with a red hexagonal crystal on the top. Is it a wand? I picked it up and tested it out. When I willed for it to activate, it shot out a laser beam. The laser was a beautiful orange in the center flanked by red. It left a deep scorch mark on the blue wall. That’s insanely strong. The only question was, was it my luck or the girl’s that made this item drop? No way it could be mine, but at the same time, no way could my luck have dropped that lightning sword either. I lied about there being only one question, now that the door closed, how am I supposed to get out? As soon as I thought this, a door slid open behind me. That’s neat! I threw away all of my previous questions and focused on surviving for the time being.