I wake up to my alarm blaring at me. I slap the stop button and get off my lumpy bed and proceed through my morning routine. I then head into my office. I work through my daily workload as I wait for lunch. I plan to go back to “Just Eat It” so I can talk to Sletha.
But right before I was about to leave for lunch someone important unfortunately entered our office. This woman’s name is Elizabeth James she is the inventor and owner of the Sleep Infinium she has stark white hair and a short pixie haircut with cold blue eyes to match, she is relatively short at around 5’5” and almost always has a sour look on her face.
Whenever she visits there is bound to be trouble for her slave employees. The last time she visited the office my best friend Nav who was much better at fixing the Sleep Infinium chips then me was fired and sent to work as a manual labor slave. She didn’t give a reason why she fired her it just happened and within a few days the IWB came and removed her from our office. Due to this, I have chosen not to get close to anyone in the office because I’m not sure how long they will last.
Everyone in the office tried to avoid her gaze as we hurried about our work. She proceeded past us and opened the door to our bosses office and with a slam the office door was shut. I looked around the room but everyone had a scared look on their face while staring down at their work.
30 minutes passed like this before the door to our bosses office opened again revealing Elizabeth James. We all continued at our frantic work pace while she strolled through the office and out the exit slamming it shut on her way out. A lot of people let out sighs of relief while I just sat at my desk contemplating what she could have wanted with our boss.
Sure he is fat and lazy but he has always been like that. What could they have talked about for that long and why had she seemed so angry? Well it above my measle pay grade. So I’m not that worried about it. After she left I went out for lunch. I’m really not looking forward to eating at “Just Eat It” but I would like to see Sletha.
I made my way through the crowded streets and arrive at the fast food joint. I expected to see a bunch of people inside but to my surprise, most of the lunchtime rush has passed and there are just a few people inside. I walk through the doors and see Sletha standing at the cash register. I wave to her and she smiles and nods her head and walks into a back room. I then sit down at a booth in the corner.
She comes out of the back room a few moments later with two lardwichs she hands me one and sits down across from me and says “I wondered if you were going to come in today. What made you so late?” I replied, “The big boss came in today and put everyone into freak out mode.” She nods her head and asks “where do you work anyway?” I explain to her about how I work at the Sleep Infinium office and how I work on fixing damaged Sleep Infinium chips.
She seems taken aback by what I said and says “doesn’t that mean you are an office slave?” I nod my head saying “Yes, are you not a slave as well?” She shakes her head no saying “My dad owns “Just Eat It” and wanted me to know what basic employees feel and work like so I will be better equipped to take over the business when he retires.” Now it’s my turn to be shocked as I say “ well I guess that makes more sense for you to have a Sleep Infinium chip. I was wondering how you could have afforded one.” She nods and says “yes my mom gave it to me for my birthday and I have been using it ever since. She said that she hoped it would help me pass the time while I’m working as a slave.”
She then asked me “So I know the Sleep Infinium is relatively new and you work at the Sleep Infinium office but do they give the chip to all the slave employees?” I hesitate for a moment wondering how I should explain how I got my chip and how I’m totally not supposed to have one and just as I was about to explain she holds her hand up to stop me saying “nevermind it’s probably better if I don’t know, that way I can fane ignorance.”
She stands up and says “I have to get back to work but I’m glad we could talk. Now that I think about it I never gave you my real name, I’m Ellie I hope we can have lots of fun together” She waves bye and heads back into the back room. I stood up and leave thinking about how crazy her story with her dad was. Her dad has her live as a slave to help her understand how slaves act and feel so that she can lead the business better in the future.
But the more I think about it the more I find that she is missing out on some of the major aspects of what it’s like to be a slave. She never has to worry about being fired and forced into hard labor. She never has to experience being created and implanted with the knowledge for the decided job. She is lucky but unlucky In the respect that she will never understand what being a slave is truly like.
I return to my office and return to my cubicle and finish out my work day. Exhausted I returned to my room and fall onto my bed. Before falling asleep I wondered briefly about what Elizabeth James and my boss talked about. Honestly, I hope my boss got fired.
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Waking up I hear shouting and a commotion going on to my right. I try to stand but my armor makes it a little hard while I’m dazed due to waking up so fast. Soon my vision clears and I stand and see Amy and she screams again “we are under attack!” As she fires a couple arrows into a nearby tree. A monkey the size of a dog falls from the inside of the tree but this is no ordinary monkey it has an arachnid-like head with sharp mandibles and even though it has the normal monkey appendages it has two extra arms coming out each of the monkey's sides that end in sharp gleaming points. It is covered in a deep furry black and red color.
The spider monkey stands and rips Amy’s arrow from its gut where it had been lodged. It gives a guttural scream that ends in a hiss as green goo leaks from its mouth and its stomach wound.
Finally coming to my senses I rush the spider monkey drawing my long sword from behind my back and with an overhead arch, I swing my sword hoping to cleave the spider monkeys head in two. Unfortunately, I was either not quick enough or too predictable as the monkey was able to move slightly to the side and only take a shallow cut to its right shoulder.
The spider monkey proceeds to jump away from me and whip its tail out from behind itself and from the very top of its tail shoots a rope made of some kind of white sticky substance that lands directly on top of my left foot. The monkey then grabs the other end of the rope off its tail and pulls with all its strength ripping my left foot out from under me making me drop my sword and fall on my ass.
The monkey then proceeds to jump from its position and land on my chest piece and knocks me fully to the ground. It unleashes another guttural scream right in my face showering my faceplate with green ooze. in the next second, another one of Amy’s arrows shoots it straight through the top of its head causing its many monkey eyes to roll up into its head. With the last twitch of its mandibles, it falls onto my chest dead
Spider monkey two stars exp for class and character blue box
1-LVL 15 ★★ SPIDER MONKEY KILLED
EXP EARNED: 325
CLASS EXP EARNED: 65
GOLD EARNED: 80
CLASS LVL UP! 15/100 EXP
NEW LVL: 1
LVL UP! 320/500 EXP
NEW LVL: 7
+ 3 STAT POINTS
I shove the monkey off my chest and stand. I pick up my sword and scan my surroundings for anymore threats. Seeing none I move towards Amy and see Sletha cowering behind her. I say “thanks for the save! I thought that monkey was about to finish me right then and there.” Amy smiles and says “I’m just glad you were able to wake up fast enough to distract it while I finished it off.”
At this point, Sletha has figured out that the danger has passed and speaks up with a look of horror and confusion on her face she says “how the hell can you not be rattled by that? That fucking thing was almost touching your face!” Somewhat surprised by her outburst I say “that is not the first time I have come face to face with a monster. At this point, all it does is give me a jump scare and thanks to my armor I didn’t even take any damage from it. So what’s there to be rattled about?”
She seems taken back by my response saying “what the hell have you guys fought that makes that thing only give you a jump scare?” I think back to the last few days and say “Well when I first met Lucy and Amy I killed a Dire wolf with my bare hands and a random rock I picked up. After that, we killed a small horde of zombies that had wondered up to our shack that night. The next night right before we made it to Serpenridge we got rather unlucky and had a Minotaur come out of a portal right outside of our shack. We all almost died. But in the end, we pulled out a win when Amy blinded it and I cleaved its head in with its own ax.”
Sletha stood there for a second in awe as Amy went over to the monkey and retrieved her arrows
Sletha spoke up again saying in an almost unbelieving voice “you killed a 3 star Minotaur without any armor or class skills?” Shaking my head yes I said “but to be fair the Minotaurs ax was enchanted to cut more easily. So slicing into its head didn’t take nearly as much strength as it should have.” She just kinda shook head in awe and said in a whisper “unbelievable, amazing, I can’t believe…..” She sauntered off In an almost daze.
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Amy came up to me and handed me a long fleshy rope that I recognized as the spider monkeys tail and said “well it’s better she figured out what adventuring is like before we reached the dungeon. Can you please put this in your inventory and keep watch while I take a rest? Wake me up in a few hours OK?” I shook my head in agreement and sat by the now smoldering fire watching the tree line as Sletha sat nearby deep in thought with a frown on her face.
By the end of the two hours, Sletha seemed to have overcome her stupor and was back to her normal happy self. maybe she came to some sort of self-realization. I woke Amy up and we packed up and head to where the dungeon was. As we got closer to where the dungeon was supposed to be we heard screams and shouts coming from the direction we were headed in. We hurried toward the noise and I unsheathed my long sword.
We came upon what had to be the entrance to the dungeon it looked like a normal cave but with way to many spider webs around and inside to be natural. Just as I was about to shout out to see if anyone was there a group of three people burst out of the entrance to the dungeon. Two people were carrying a third that looked to be unconscious and missing most of their right arm.
They stopped when they saw us and the girl on the left of the injured guy said “Help us! The spider monkeys are coming!” And just as she finished saying this a spider monkey launched itself from the cave and landed on the group knocking the three to the ground.
I rushed the monkey just as the four hit the ground. Right as I was about to spear my long sword into the top of the monkey's head it looked up at me realizing too late that more people had joined the party. My sword entered its left eye and pierced all the way threw its head. Killing it instantly I withdrew my blade as the monkey started to fall onto the three people, I grabbed it with a free hand and tossed it to the side and helped the group to their feet. The man that had stayed silent before carried the unconscious man over to where Sletha and Amy were standing and Sletha got to work on healing the unconscious man.
The girl stayed behind me and to my left. She drew a set of daggers and said, “more are coming, get ready!” We only had to wait a few seconds before a set of two spider monkeys emerged. One was the same coloration as the one we fought in the woods but the other had a green and black coloration.
The red and black one launched itself at me but I was ready and swung my sword and it sunk deep into its neck and collarbone spraying green blood. The girl then launches herself at the impaled spider monkey as it makes lots of horrible high pitch screeching screams. She stabs it in the back of the head bringing its screams to an abrupt stop.
The green and black spider monkey saw all this and instead of fleeing it stood its ground which immediately made me question these creatures intelligence but I immediately recanted that thought as it was joined by two more red and black spider monkeys emerging from the dungeon.
The green spider monkey started making a strange gurgling sound and I took up a defensive stance as it launched a glob of green fluid from the back of its throat. But Instead of launching it at me it launched it at the girl. With a split second decision, I jumped in front of the glob before it could hit the girl. The glob hit me on my right side and just happened to hit a spot where my armor only partially covers my body. The glob where my armor covered did nothing but the part that hit my skin started to burn and sizzle as I cried out in pain.
-12 HP + -3 HP FROM ACID PER MINUTE
I turned to look at the green and black spider monkey only to see it on the ground with one of Amy’s arrows sticking out of its left eye. But the two red and black spider monkeys didn’t miss a beat and jumped toward me. In pain, I raised my long sword in front of me and was able to pierce through the chest of one of the monkeys but the second was able to knock me to the ground making me lose my grip on my sword.
But the spider monkeys success was short lived as a dagger was stabbed into the back of its head by the girl making it fall on top of me dead. The spider monkey that had my sword sticking out of its chest screamed and tried in vain to remove the long sword from its chest. Luckily it didn’t have to struggle long because Amy finished it off with a shot to the forehead.
1-LVL 12 ★★ ACID SPITING SPIDER MONKEY KILLED
4-LVL 10 ★★ SPIDER MONKEYS KILLED
EXP EARNED: 1,560
CLASS XP EARNED:162
GOLD EARNED: 364
CLASS LVL UP! 77/150 EXP
NEW LVL: 2
LVL UP! 1,380/750 EXP
NEW LVL: 8
+ 3 STAT POINTS
LVL UP! 630/1000 EXP
NEW LVL: 9
+ 3 STAT POINTS
We all take a rest at the edge of the dungeon and I take in the group that we helped save. The girl is of average height with black hair at shoulder length. She has green eyes and is wearing a dark set of leather armor. She appears to be around 16 or 17 years old. The unconscious guy who is missing his right arm is well muscled in at least his remaining arm and has tan skin with bright red hair. And the remaining guy is a full lizard person with brown and black scales and bright blue eyes.I sat up and looked around to see if there were anymore of the little demons. But there was none to be found so I got up holding my side as it continues to burn and sizzle. I walk up to the spider monkey and remove my sword from its chest and resheathed it and walk over to my Sletha and say “I’m in pain, please help as I point to my acid covered side” she gasps and grabs a cloth from her inventory and wipes away the acid and puts her hands on the burnt skin and says a quick chant “OH, GREAT ITHAQUE, BLESS THIS WOUND!” she then took a breath and said "HEALING HANDS!" my side is shadowed in dark black light and immediately I start to feel better as the healing regrows my melted away skin.
+10 HP AND CURE CONDITION: ACID BURN
Amy starts talking to the girl and says “my name is Amy I’m obviously an archer, this is Green he is a spellsword and our healer is Sletha. We are in the Stiff Copper guild in Serpenridge. Who are you guys? And what guild are you from?” The girl replies “my name is Diana My class is an assassin and the unconscious guy is James he is our swords man and the quiet lizard man is Snapper he is our bard but he lost his Lute when that green and black spider monkey shot it with its spit while we were running. I failed to notice a ceiling blade trap and it came down right on James’s arm making him lose it and his sword. He screamed so loud that it alerted every single one of those spider monkeys. He then passed out from blood loss while we were running away and we had to carry him. If it was not for you guys then we probably would be spider food. We are also in the Stiff Copper guild. We sincerely thank you for your help.”
The lizard man shook his head in agreement and said in an almost inaudible voice “yes, thank you” Diana continued saying “we need to head back to Serpenridge to see if one of the churches can regrow James’s arm, thank you again for saving us. Come find us at the guild some time maybe we could do a quest together.” And with that, their group got up and left.
We proceeded to retrieve the spider monkey tails there were five here so we had six in total counting the one that tried to ambush us earlier. We rested a bit longer and then headed into the now emptied out dungeon. Amy started the map and when we came upon the spot where James lost his arm we made sure not to set off the trap and Amy made a mark on the map to show the trap.
Strangely James’s arm and sword were nowhere to be found. Amy noticed my look of confusion and said “the dungeon eat anything that is left behind inside it. We continued on and came into a den type room that had multiple nests made out of web material. This must be where the spider monkeys lived before we killed them. The den had another outlet on the other side so we headed toward it.
We entered into a new hallway and it lead us to another room. But before we entered Sletha stopped us and said in a hushed voice “do you guys hear that? It sounds like deep breathing.” I couldn’t hear it but Amy said “ok. We go into this room quietly” she crouched and we followed behind her as we entered the room.
in the middle of the room laying on its side facing away from us was a spider monkey but it was different in that it looked more like a gorilla than a monkey. Its monkey arms were like barrels its spider legs looked long and strong. It had no tail and Its coloration was purple and black and as soon as we entered it seemed to sense something was wrong. Because it stood up and started to turn toward us.
I broke my silence and unsheathed my long sword as I rushed the spider gorilla it looked at me with anger and in a low chest shaking roar it lunged to meet me. We clashed and my sword plunged into its stomach as it slammed me with its right arm making me let go of my sword and sending me flying back toward the girls. I landed on my back with the wind knocked out of me.
ARMOR BLOCKED 40 DAMAGE -60 HP
I forced myself to stand and saw Amy let loose an arrow that plunged into the beast's throat causing it to turn its attention toward her. In a split second decision I took my battle ax from my inventory and charged it again. I intercepted it halfway before it could reach Amy and with all my strength swung the ax into the shoulder of the spider gorilla. This had two effects one being that the spider gorilla lost its left arm and second it cause it to let loose a roar so loud that it made the whole room shake. Unfortunately, we are in a cave dungeon so the ceiling has many stalactites which proceeded to break off and start falling. The girls ran for the room entrance while I got stuck with the spider gorilla between me and the exit.
The gorilla gave me a febal swing from its right arm but at this point, it had lost to much blood to stay alive much longer. So with a final swing, I decapitated the spider head off the gorilla’s body.
1-LVL 15 ★★★ BOSS SPIDER GORILLA KILLED
EXP EARNED: 1,075
CLASS EXP EARNED: 515
GOLD EARNED: 230
CLASS LVL UP! 442/200 EXP
NEW LVL: 3
CLASS LVL UP! 242/250 EXP
NEW LVL: 4
LVL UP! 705/1250 EXP
NEW LVL: 10
+ 3 STAT POINTS
At this point, I was smiling and thanking the shopkeeper for making such sturdy armor when a stalactite fell and smashed me right in the helmet
ARMOR BLOCKED 20 DAMAGE -30 HP
EXTREME BLUNT FORCE TO HEAD
EFFECT: UNCONCIOUS