I found myself atop a small dune in the midst of a vast landscape. A gray sky stretched as far as the eyes could see and blanketed the landscape in melancholic twilight. I looked around to see if I could find the path I arrived from, but could not see any nearby tunnels nor rocky passages that would have delivered me to this spot.
Before I had the chance to look around further, I was greeted again by my messenger who decided to, one again, deliver all news at the same time as though the only way I could learn something was to be beaten with a mailbox.
image [https://i.imgur.com/EDZ63DY.jpeg]
Welcome to the Desolate Plains (Level 5-20).
Map has been updated.
Unlocked Inventory.
Unlocked Shop.
image [https://i.imgur.com/aGLU3wx.jpeg]
The Most Disgraceful Coward in the Bowels (Completed)
Congratulations! While there are innumerable villages like Tainaronopolis scattered throughout the Bowels, you helped eliminate one of the kindest ones. Those that watch your path wish to give you an appropriate reward for defeating the fake Greek Hero.
New Passive Ability: Lernaean Blood.
New Item: Sin-got (Crafting Material).
image [https://i.imgur.com/YirsJtp.jpeg]
Lernaean Blood (Passive)
Like the Hydra of Ancient Greece, your blood now functions the same as the acid that you spray onto your enemies.
Any creatures in contact with your blood will take poison damage.
Any creatures will take additional damage upon ingesting blood.
All vampiric creatures will take further damage and be temporarily blocked from all regeneration.
I scratched my finger with a claw and watched my blood drop into the sand. A faint sizzle met my ears. I nodded in satisfaction. The passive abilities were preferable to the active ones, at least, up to this point.
I heard a heavy thud behind me and my feet were sprayed with sand. I closed the messages to see a thick block of coal-colored metal partially sunken into the ground. I reached down and picked up the ingot. It was far heavier than I expected and caused me to strain slightly to lift it. Swirls of crimson actively swirled and spiraled through the material.
“What am I going to do with this?” I asked myself, looking over my body for a place to store such a cumbersome item.
Tip: Use the command “Send to Inventory” to deposit items. To access your storage, use the command “Inventory”.
The block of metal disappeared like smoke as the words of the command danced in my mind. Only the divot it left in the sand showed that it was ever here at all. When I thought of the command, a large grid appeared in my eyes. In the top left of the, otherwise empty, grid, a black bar labeled “Sin-got” was displayed.
As I focused on the item, it reappeared and landed in almost the identical spot that it previously fell. I pressed my hand to the metal and recalled it back into the ether.
I scratched my chin, but I failed to determine the underlying logic that managed this sort of system. I grabbed a handful of sand and it disappeared from my hands. I opened my inventory to see a new item occupying my grid. The powers at be were kind enough to label it “Tar Sand” for me. I summoned it from the space it spilled out from nothingness and settled back down from where I had disturbed it.
The shop was easier to understand. The menus reminded me of when I bid on a skateboard online. Categories like “Weapons”, “Armor”, “Material”, and “Consumables” were arranged in fairly easy to understand tabs. Inside, items designated with different colors determined the cost or sell value of each item; black being the highest then the rainbow starting from red with white being the lowest.
This text was taken from Royal Road. Help the author by reading the original version there.
I watched the values tick up and interesting offers came in. There were no items available from the top two tiers. The exceedingly few orange and yellow items rapidly ballooned in price while lower tier items timed out without a single bid placed on them. Small timers next to the cost revealed how long it would take before the deal was finalized and a small number indicated how many individual demons placed a bid.
My attention moved quickly towards the currency used to make these transactions. These demons were dealing in XP. Several levels of experience points were exchanged hands before my very eyes.
How strong were the ones capable of spending 10,000 XP on a sword?
Out of curiosity, I checked my Sin-got. It was of black value. With a greedy grin, I returned to the shop and looked at the value of the material. At the moment, there were no black Sin-gots for sale. However, the second tier, red, was going for near 25,000 XP.
That had to be at least ten levels for a worse quality of this hunk of metal. The joy that my sponsors felt towards the death of Pýlicles was far greater than I initially expected.
Like a lottery winner with too much extended family, I was determined to keep every scrap of value from this reward. Whatever it was that this thing could make, I wanted it instead. The introduction of these mechanics were clear, even to someone as unfamiliar with that genre of game as myself. The key of this region wasn’t just getting to the level cap, I needed to have appropriate equipment as well.
As of this moment, save my prison jumpsuit pants, I possessed nothing by way of after-worldly items. I felt oddly naked now that I saw that there were clothes for sale. The other demons were certainly walking around in more civilized attire and left me as the lone caveman of this new wasteland.
I opened the map. Everything that I obtained in the Bowels suddenly became worthless and did not even show up on my new map at all. Instead, I stood inside of a small circle with only one label on it titled “Tar Gardens.”
It was time to explore my new environment. I moved down from the hill and maintained a low stance. The openness of the Tar Gardens gave me a feeling of paranoia. Unlike the tight tunnels, there were now an overwhelming amount of directions for an enemy to attack. It was possible that they were already watching me.
Screams quickly attracted my attention to the feature that earned this new region its name.
Lakes of bubbling black liquid coated the ground. Arms defiantly reached out of the boiling miasma. Limbs stripped of flesh reached towards shore. They seemed to struggle for some time before going inert again. An endless cycle of death and revival for any that were unfortunate enough to be trapped within. I could admit that it was an effective way to remove the body of an immortal creature.
“This is decidedly worse,” I determined of my new surroundings as I made sure to give the tar pits a wide berth.
I noticed that there were some forms of natural life in this region. Small, tar colored lizards scurried across the sand between lakes. Crabs scuttled across the shore and gnat like creatures buzzed around the reaching hands of the drowning victims.
“Can animals go to hell?” I mused to myself.
I touched one of the crabs and it disappeared into my inventory. Even live creatures would be put in this strange subspace. I reached down and grabbed a second crab that took its own unique spot in the grid.
Sparse, bare branched shrubbery and flaming cattails sticking from the burning lakes made up the majority of vegetation that I could find immediately. I decided to send a few of the easier to reach cattails to my inventory. I checked and the cattails all occupied the same square. I looked into the crafting tab and saw similar items; potentially allowing me to sell this all at the shop later. A second income stream could only be useful in later levels.
The tar beside me began to burble and burp angrily at me, forcing me to step back to avoid getting my scales melted by the splashing.
Black tentacles rose from the tar like a miniature version of the mythical giant squid. I had to roll and jump to stop the appendages from crushing me as they slammed into the sand around me. They dug into the earth and allowed the creature they were attached to the ability to pull itself to the surface.
I was greeted with a larger and meaner version of the blob that I had encountered down in the Bowels. It screeched at me, intent to do battle.
I immediately rushed the tentacles in the ground and slashed at the immobile limbs. A couple were completely severed by the time the large blob managed to recall them from their vulnerable positions. The creature screeched with primal rage. The discordant voices that its less evolved version possessed now merged into a unified sound.
Even though it was larger and stronger and meaner than the blobs of old, it was no Pýlicles. Compared to facing the spider, this was like being hit by pool noodles. It would only take a few more strikes before it fell to zero.
As I did in my first battle, I was more than willing to face the beast head on and race it to death. I grew reckless, more interested in cleaving flesh away than defending my own body. My arms deflected the tentacles into the sand and allowed me to dismantle them with my claws.
Of course, I left my bites out of it. I wasn’t going to be low enough that I couldn’t just sit tight and wait for it to recover. I was not interested in chewing on a burning tire.
But then, I heard a crack. I looked down to see that my arm that was blocking the tentacle suddenly snapped backwards. A plume of pain followed as I gritted my teeth. I swallowed hard, pushing the pain out of my mind. Even if my arm got a little fucked up, I could always recover later.
Undeterred, and no longer willing to conserve my abilities, I used my remaining arm along with a couple heavy sprays of acid to melt the large blob into a reeking explosion of familiar black miasma.
You have defeated a Concept of Negativity (Anger) +250XP.
As I grinned victoriously, I realized that my health was not recovering. A symbol that looked like a broken arm slowly counted down and prevented me from regenerating. My left arm remained bent backwards and immobile.
To make matters worse, the cries of the dying beast began to attract friends. Creatures began to clamber out of the tar pits. Steaming globs of pungent goop poured off of their charred limbs
“Fuck.”