Charles opened his eyes. His back and limbs had been strapped to a metal harness, while a small white lamp was shining over his head. He pushed the frosted glass of the door of the capsule he was inside, but it wouldn’t budge.
“Hey!”, he struggled, but the straps were too strong. He pushed against the door again, then beat his hands against it. “Let me go! You don’t know who my father is! He may not be strong, but he can sure pay someone to scare you!”.
“Thank you for having chosen Lazarus company”, said a robotic voice, “The respawn process is now complete. If there had been any errors with the procedure, please provide to commit the extreme act. We’ll give you a reparation sum”.
The door opened, and the straps were lifted automatically, making him fall on the ground of the safe-room with a groan. The capsule closed itself again.
When he tried to push himself from the ground, he fell again and again; it was like he had forgotten how to walk.
“What’s wrong with me?”. Lowering his gaze on his legs, he found that now he had two left feet. It could have been worse, but it was just that one small mistake that made a perfect machine such as the human body completely unusable, at least to survive in a dungeon.
Charles sighed. He was starting to not like this adventure anymore: getting beheaded by a minotaur weren’t part of his definition of fun, and neither of anybody who was sane of mind. At least the Monster was merciful enough to not make him suffer much, but it had been sure scary: one moment you existed, breathed, thought and the next one you faded into obscurity. But he needed some little faith, as there was nothing in the world he couldn’t do if he really wanted it.
After resolving the problem with his feet he’ll try to catch with his friends. Maybe they didn’t know that the monster was lurking around, or maybe they were so strong that a Minotaur, according to them, was a low-level enemy. What he really believed was that they had good intentions, like every good friend of his did, or at least it was true for the imaginary ones, and his mother, if he could consider her a friend.
Charles crawled towards the power-o-matic and, after grabbing it, he stood up again. If he could use his father’s bank account, the one in the USA—there was no need to dig up the secret one in the Cayman Islands, with billions of dollars inside, and he could say it now because nobody of the IRS would read a story like this— he’d buy all the powerups and turn that minotaur into dust with a snap of his fingers.
He pushed the MENU button:
PERSONAL STATS SHOP ENTERTAINMENT COMPENDIUM
The power-o-matic looked like an arcade machine with a vending one next to it, with a screen, two joysticks, and two series of buttons on one side. It was like the ones he saw in the films, as his parents never let him have one of them because they hated videogames with ardent passion, but then he remembered that poor people didn’t have them neither.
Charles used the joystick to select the COMPEDIUM:
Level 1, Enemies discovered 2/?? Cave Goblin Click here to learn more; Minotaur Click here to learn more;
Charles moved the cursor on the Cave Goblin voice and pressed the joystick to click on it:
Cave Goblin (Bootleg Gollum)
From DungeonWiki, it might not be the best encyclopaedia around, but it will sure save your ass out there;
STATS
Lv1-3;
Class: useless creature without any redeeming quality because, according to the Overlord, ugly creatures are always evil, and the humans are always good.
Exp: 3
Drops: nothing valuable, but the strongest ones might have some stash they stole from the adventurers they killed.
STORY
The Overlord isn’t really known for his imagination, especially in the first level of the dungeon, where most of the adventurers don’t even know the correct way to hold a sword. After reading LOTR he thought ‘Why not?’, and the rest was history, but don’t tell him of his cheapness or he’ll get angry.
The story has been illicitly taken; should you find it on Amazon, report the infringement.
TIPS
You can lure them with bright objects. Their arms are very long, and their hands have sharp nails, so don’t let them grab you or they’ll gauge your eyes out of your sockets. Fire works wonders against them.
Or maybe surprising them in their sleep was another valid choice. He opened the Minotaur window.
STATS
Lv.25.
Class: High-level monster, strength based, unique;
Exp: ?
Drops: ? (Nobody ever killed him)
STORY
Most high-level monsters weren’t created by the Overlord, but they were recruited, imprisoned, or arrived before he did. The minotaur belongs to none of these categories: they say that he was born by a human male adventurer and a female monster, and we don’t really know if that guy had a weird fetish, or he was just unlucky. Because he wasn't a full human, and neither a true monster, nobody liked him, and when his mother was killed by an adventurer, he’s been left alone since.
TIPS
You can’t win on a fair fight against the Minotaur in Level 1, and you’d be dumb for even trying. To get past him you could either befriend him—but I wouldn’t count very much on it—or try to come up with something else because this is an encyclopaedia and not a walkthrough guide.
Charles gave a look to his stats too see if at least he got better. “Your profile has been registered in the database”, said the same robotic voice.
Level 0 (You need other 4 points to level up) Exp gained: +2 Strength +1 (Killed a Cave Goblin with a blunt weapon) Endurance +1 (Expolored the dungeon for the first time) Agility 0 Constitution 0 Perception 3 Dexterity 0 Intelligence 0 Willpower 0
They were better, but he was still very weak compared to his friends. He wondered what they were doing in this moment: maybe fighting the boss in an epic battle.
The Respawn machine started shaking with a whirring noise, and the shape of a girl appeared inside. The glass door slid, and, as it happened with him, it pushed the person on the ground. Lucy rubbed her forehead and grabbed the red headband from the ground. “Damn!”, she said, and punched the ground, making her close her eyes in pain.
When her eyes met Charles’, she made a nervous smile, “Oh, hi”, she said, “I didn’t see you”. She moved towards him, “Well, how are you?”, her gaze shifted to his feet, “N-not so well I guess”, her giggle was cut short, “It happened even to me once”.
“Why did you send me that way?”. She looked down, biting her lip until something might have lit in her head and she raised a finger, “W-we had to teach you a l-lesson, yes! A lesson. We did it for your good because dying is part of the experience of every adventurer, and it’s nothing to be afraid of”, she took a breath, “Every death is a way to fix your mistakes…”.
The respawn unit spat Matthew on the ground.
“I’m sorry, Lucy”, he said, “but it’s hard to go on with only two people. I think Andrea will join us soon”. He cleaned his leather jacket from the dust of the ground, “I heard you talking about a lesson from the capsule”. Lucy winked at him, “I was trying to explain the noob why we sent him that way”;
“Because we are shitty people who, instead of trying to improve ourselves, would rather bring the others down?”. Lucy rolled her eyes, “The truth is that we didn’t want to have you around”, she said, “We thought you’d be a dead weight”;
“I guess it’s fine now”, said Charles. He prefered the harsh truth instead of lies. “What killed you?”;
“The minotaur gets very angry when someone intrudes in his home”, said Matthew;
“He’s always angry”, said Lucy, “Especially against humans, but I would really like to know why”. You’d be angry if someone broke into your home with a weapon, even if you were a monster.
“He pursued us, and we took a shelter in a cave which he couldn’t fit inside”, continued Matthew, “Sadly, it was full of Cave goblins. We did our best, but we were screwed from the beginning”.
“What we’re going to do now?”, said Charles.
Lucy sighed and let herself fall on the ground, “I don’t know anymore”, her eyes filled with tears, “We’ve been here for three months, and each time or it’s either that fucking Minotaur that kills us, or a horde of cave goblins, or both together. It’s not fair!”;
“We’ll make it”, said Charles, “We shouldn’t let ourselves down”;
“Shut up”, said Lucy, “Just spend a little more time here and you’ll become like us”;
“Just give me a chance”, he said, “I may not be strong, but I assure you that I will get better”.
Matthew and Lucy looked at each at other for a long time.
“Fine”, said Matthew, “You can join us”;
“Halt!”, said Lucy, “First he needs to pass the initiation; something that all of us did before joining the group”. She winked again to Matthew, but he stared at her with a blank face, “I’ve never heard of it”, he said, “You invented it on the spot”;
Lucy groaned, “Listen, rich kid, you need to show us that there's something inside that head. Bring us the teeth of three different cave goblins, and you’ll be with us”;
“I can do it”, said Charles. Matthew pointed at his feet, “Not like this”.
Andrea stepped out from the respawn unit.
“Sorry guys”, she said, “At last, they found me”. Her gaze went to Charles, “Oh, no. The machine made a mistake again”;
“Can you fix it?”, Charles said. She aimed the revolver at him, “I think I can”;
“Wait!”.
BANG!