Level Up – Level 2 Achieved
Congratulations system user, you have survived to the second level, System awards available.
New Skill – [Item Box]
1 Additional Skill point earned new total -48
Use your Skill points to upgrade or buy new skills, you can also store up points for more impressive skill options.
“Great, not sure what that skill is either, this is just one big mess.” she grumbled she had been walking for some time, ‘absorbing’ the junk. The level up alert made her jump back in surprise as she had been walking in silence just focusing on following the glass wall. She turned around and looked behind her, the tunnel curved away into the near distance. She realized she was not walking in a straight line, but instead following a gentle arc.
“Well, Crap” she exclaimed. “I was touching this wall the whole time, it must be curved.”
Shel reached out to touch the wall again to try and feel the curve and her hand did not meet any resistance, the invisible barrier was gone. She stepped towards the wall of junk and triggered Absorb Area, a new chunk of stuff cleared out where she had been blocked before.
“Where did the barrier go? What changed?” she wondered.
A short absorbing walk in the direction the wall had been blocking and suddenly she stepped into an open area, the trash loomed as a huge heap behind her and an open space ahead lead to a sheer wall of stone. Shel looked around and realized that the pile of stuff was in the center of a canyon of stone.
Shel looked up to the the top edge of the canyon, a slice of blue sky and a shaft of sunlight sliced into the dimness like a lighthouse beam. The energetic patch of sun illuminated the stark walls of the canyon. There was no obvious way up and out of the rift. The top of the canyon actually looked more like a crack in the ceiling of a cave network. Shel decided to investigate the walls of the canyon more closely. As she approached the wall she smacked into an invisible barrier. The glass wall was back. Rubbing her nose, Shel could almost reach the walls of the cave. They looked like cut and set blocks, each one the size of a refrigerator laying on its side. This is not a natural cavern, it looked like a castle wall built to withstand a siege buried in a cave system. She did not see any stairs or ladders so there was no obvious way up, and as she could not even touch them anyway, Shel decided to turn and follow the glass barrier. Walking along with her hand on the barrier she could tell that she was curving back into the enormous pile of rubbish. Shel triggered the Absorb area skill repeatedly as she walked, loose items and resources disappearing from around her feet into green sparkles as she did. As she approached the bulk of the pile Shel realized that she could hear the skitter of feet as small creatures reacted to her presence. She stopped, she decided she was not going to rush back into that pile if there are wild rats. Shel was not exactly afraid of rodents, she had handled them before, several of her collage roommates had kept some exotic pets. However she would give them a chance to clear out. She was confident that they would stay away as long as she did not rush in and gave them a chance to move.
Shel took a moment to assess her rolling messages, hundreds of messages had been ignored.
A few caught her eye as different from the others.
Object Found 5/5 – Mug
Blueprint unlocked – Mug [Basic] – A rough mug made of simple materials and basic design and simple patterns of glaze and etching.
When she focused on the blueprint an image of a rough clay mug popped up, it was obviously had crafted of clay, a faded glaze of earthy colors washed across it, it had a simple handle made of clay. A pattern in cross hatches across the body to give the user a grip.
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Informational Alert – Absorb more variations of an object to increase blueprint complexity.
Shel wondered at the message for a bit trying to parse what it was hinting at, she hit up the help menu
Blueprint – Blueprints are patterns that have been recognized by the system that can be used to transmute stored points of power into physical objects. The complexity of the resulting object is determined by the level of blueprint used, a basic blueprint is limited to the most basic concept of the object and cost less power/points. The more complicated, decorated, and useful versions of the object desired will require the use of higher level blueprints. To increase the level of available blueprints absorb more varied versions of the object to improve the training data. Additional levels of blueprints may be purchased from the System store, if unlocked.
‘What blueprints do I have available then’ Shel thought to herself.
Mug – Basic
Knife – Basic
Stool, broken – Basic
Plate – Basic
Spoon – Basic
Chair, partial - Basic
Several pages full of super simple items flashed by. What is a partial chair? She examined the entry and it expanded.
Blueprint – Chair (partial) – a Simple chair that supports a single bipedal entity while sitting down. Partial - Find additional pieces to learn the entire chair. Only pieces of a chair have been unlocked, Absorb a complete chair to fill in the missing pieces, alternatively find and absorb the missing parts to complete the Blueprint.
“Great, I am picking up trash from a dump, and hoping for anything useful. Why did Josephine dump me in a dump?” Shel grumped to herself. Shel remembered the message about her point deficit.
‘What is my Dungeon Point total?’ the interface popped up and let her know that she still owed 1343 DP.
“Well, 150 points in about an hours walk, so at about 100 - 150 points an hour I can be back to zero in about two days of effort.” She considered it, maybe three days is a better goal. Also she had no idea if 150 points an hour was sustainable. Would she be able to find enough novel items in the pile, there could only be only so many things dumped in here. While she was further considering the pile, a clatter sounded up at the lip of the cavern. Shel looked up and watched several items fall from above, she heard voices calling out up in the open air as the stuff hit the pile with a muffled crash.
“One more load today and we can go get paid, we almost have that building empty” a gruff voice echoed down the cavern.
“I can’t believe that no one complains about us throwing this junk down this hole” a higher voice commented.
“Ah, who cares? Anyway, apparently people have been dumping crap down here for years.” the gruff voice replied. His voice dropped to a husky whisper, “I heard this is a good spot to get rid of… evidence, no good way for anyone to get in or out of there.”
“Do you mean a body?” asked the second voice
There was a meaty smack sound.
“Dummy you don’t just say stuff like that out loud. That’s why I said it the way I did” responded the gruff voice.
Shel looked up but could not make out any details against the bright sky, just some silhouettes moving along the edge. She considered calling out but was unsure, she was new to the world and not sure if she was ready to interact with anyone. Especially people talking about getting rid of evidence or dumping a body. If this really was a regular dumping point she could certainly get another chance to make contact on a later day when they came back with another load. She wanted to get more information before she revealed herself. The rats had stopped moving, she triggered another absorb and stepped towards the pile. If people were dumping ‘evidence’ who knows what types of things she might find.
She followed the curving barrier into the hill of refuse, triggering the Absorb Area skill as she went along. She started looking for more interesting items as she did. After a bit of looking she found a knife of some sort, a kind of long dagger with a curved tip. She picked it up, feeling better about the rats simply holding it in her hands. She checked the edge, it was not sharp at all but did have a nice heavy feel. It was covered in grime and corrosion. She triggered another Absorb area and continued walking.
Level Up – Level 3 Achieved