Muck duty saved his life, muck duty saved his sanity, muck duty saved his mind, muck duty was the most horrible thing he ever had to do in his life, muck duty saved his life.
Marid thought over and over about the last three days, he couldn't count the number of times he got despawned but apparently everyone else including the captain knew about the new game on the ship.
At least when he logged off they could only kill him once, the punishments from the high ranks made sure it was always done in a surprise attack after thinking he was safe, it could be someone in the work crew or a random sailor he never met before, but it happened so often that he became a joke.
Muck duty had two parts, shovel the muck collected in the bowels and exterminate the rats that spawned from it each day, with a simple spade as his only weapon the extermination part wasn't going so well for Marid, it was just another way to die if he wasn't fast enough and the small loot from the creatures and prizes from his mucking quest either went to Nariza for safekeeping or to whoever got to kill him after he got it.
In only three days he died more times than in nine years of playing as a pirate, more times than all his friends together?
Hearing the squeak he tightened his grip on the spade, finding the rat struggling half buried in the muck made him laugh at their mutual fate and when he raised his weapon to get the easy kill he couldn't, the little guy was stuck in the muck just like him, taking a piece of the half ration he had for today he handed it to the creature and saw how he used his little hands to munch on the biscuit and then beg for more.
"I don't have any more little guy", his own voice surprising him after hours of silence in the dark.
As soon as he freed the rat the creature bolted away and he knew that he will never recognize it among the others, "thanks for telling us where you were hiding poopsqueak", was the last thing he heard before feeling the dagger finding his heart for a critical hit that despawned him.
He really needs to shut his mouth, seeing the mocking glares from his shipmates, he got a new spade and started going down to the muck pits, this time without the half ration, the rat got to eat more of his food than he did.
Muck duty saved his life for most of the day, he just needed to shut up and go even lower in the pits and in two days they will get to the armada and he will be shifted to another ship.
After another hour of shoveling and dumping muck to the barrel for the furnace he noticed a rat was following him, seeing Marid was looking it made the begging motion with he hands but Marid had nothing to give so he just continued with the muck quest until the hunger finally broke him and he paid thethe fifteen gold reset price for a ration and ate it as fast as he could, leaving just a bit of biscuit he threw at the rat.
Two more hours of not dying was a nice change from the last few days, quietly shoveling and barreling, he knew once he started bringing the barrels upstairs his chances of survival will drop dramatically, on the other hand when they looted a bunch of muck barrels they couldn't turn in without questions it should serve them right, you couldn't drop quest items like muck barrels, only pick them up and then submit for the completion prize, it was one of the best features for doing this, because it tagged his killers for the captain to punish or got them stuck with a two gold piece worth of quest item that didn't stack.
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Picking up his first batch of fifteen barrels Marid sneaked out from the pit, looking all around before rolling from the top of the ladder, sliding slowly along the wall and listening to try and figure where the attack will come from, taking a different route each time was impossible, there were only so many ways to get out and they all crossed at the five main hatches, hearing voices from an open door he quickly rolled to the other side, "what was that?", someone asked, "probably just a rat", came the reassuring answer.
Making it all the way to the furnace holds was nerve wrecking but he made it, delivering the barrels and sneaking back to his pit he made another round before starting to notice something was different, the rooms he went by were all quiet, feeling like the whole ship was holding its breath.
Finally delivering the barrels and recieving the next part of the muck quest along with a stack of fifty barrels.
Walking fast to the pit, avoiding his previous routs Marid stopped with the blade holding him at neck level, "marry chase you gave us mucky mouse", the man chuckled, "but now you finally have something to take from you", snickering, "give me fifty gold coins and I will protect you on yer way to the pits", twisting the blade, "otherwise each barrel in your nice lil stack will cost you one and a half gold coins and who knows how dangerous the way to the pits is as good as you do".
Tears stung Marid's eyes as he formed the protection quest for fifty gold, his life just got that much worse, walking back with his 'guard' was fast, others joined them along the way with laughs and mocking words he didn't want to understand, as a final gesture of cruelty his 'guard' pushed him through the pit hatch, "nice doing business with you mucky mouse", to the roaring laughter of the others, getting dimmer as they walked away from the stinking pit.
More muck, more rats, noticing he hadn't seen a rat for a while, he looked up to see one fat rat sleeping on its back over a pile of muck, almost twice as big as the usual monsters which didn't start as small specimens of the rodent family.
Ignoring the fat rat sleeping and getting back to shoveling he finished three more barrels before another rat spawned and scurried around, trying to hit it with his spade he banged an empty barrel and in the blink of an eye the fat rat snatched his tiny cousin and he was gone into its mouth, Marid stared in wonder as he got the experience and reward from his extermination quest, "thanks buddy", the fat rat did his begging show, "I don't have enough gold to reset the timer again", tears stinging when he finished the sentence, "I wish I was a rat like you and could just eat the other rats".
[System: Attention Marid, becoming a
"Yes", having his wish granted by the system was sweet, "I have no one to talk to anyway", the familiar feeling of despawning filled him with dread, when incarnating on the top deck he quickly realised this was not the right place for him when a sword slashed down at him like a mountain of steel, running between stomping feet and more weapons smashing around him he found out his action timers refilled much faster than he was used to and started evading, rolling, jumping, sliding and strafing a lot more before he noticed a hole in the wall beside him and dived in.
Breathing hard while his eyes got used to the darkness he started cursing every choice he ever made in his life.
Looking around Marid found himself in a long tunnel dug in hard sandstone, analysing his last few minutes it was obvious this was actually the sand barrier between the inner and outer deck walls meant to absorb damage and prevent deadly splinters from direct hits to the wall, he still had his map of the ship but not to the micro level of these infinite tunnels, still useful to get back to the pits.
An hour later he was still in the tunnels and nowhere near the lower levels, at least he found some food when he stumbled on a nest of grubs and the system told him it would taste like chicken he devoured them faster than was probably healthful because he fealt slugging and fat afterwards, still a long way away from the pits it was time to log off and Marid sighed in relief knowing no one could find him inside the walls.