My eyes snapped open.
Except I didn't have eyes. I was a trash can. Trash cans don't have eyes. And that thought pounded through my mind and body and soul like a resounding echo, and it hung there.
I was a trash can.
Why was I a trash can?
Was I still a trash can?
I stared hard at the wood cabin ceiling above me, expecting somehow that the sight of it would give me my answer, but it said nothing.
I shook awake, and a heavy blanket peeled off me. I was in a bed. Someone put a trash can in a bed and even had the decency to tuck me in.
I sat up.
The bed was soft and comfy, and when I looked around at myself, I saw that I was still just a trash can--nothing had changed--but when I remembered that I was stabbed in that last fight with whoever-the-fuck, I double and triple-checked my body for wounds.
There were none. It was as though none of that had ever happened, and the entirety of the past week or so was just a dream, and that maybe even my life as a paladin hero was a dream, and that maybe I was just always a trash can.
I shook the thought away with a rattle. My thin, metallic octopus arms shot out, and I eased to the floor, looking around at this bedroom to see where I was.
Was I in danger? Was this a prison? Was I rescued? What about Jenna?
"Cassandra!" I said. "Where am I?"
No answer.
"Cassandra?" I waited.
Again, silence.
It seemed my little AI helper was either dead or missing. If that could've been a thing. Maybe that last fight killed her. It was no matter; I could just make a new one if needed.
I sensed my storage space to check to see what I had left, and when the display appeared in my mind's eye, I groaned.
Fire Element: 0
Earth Element: 0
Water Element: 0
Air Element: 0
Blood Element: 0
Just what the hell happened after I passed out? After all that time I had spent stockpiling shit for my grand quest of revenge, it was all gone now. That was bullshit.
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With a deep breath, I looked around.
The bedroom seemed to be the basic cabin style, with wood walls and wood ceiling and wood floors and absolutely no windows and no door for some dumbass reason.
How the hell can I get out of here?
It didn't matter. What mattered was stuffing my manly trash can face with more stuff so I could feel a little less vulnerable in this strange hotel prison.
First, the bedsheets. My thin, wispy arms stirred them around like spaghetti and chunked them into my mouth.
+2.2kg Bed Sheets
Fuck it. Pillows, too.
+0.2kg Pillows
Why stop there? The entire bedroom was stocked with delicious, empowering furniture and home decor, so I went wild, ripping legs off the bedframe, tossing in shelves, books, rugs, anything I could get my little metal hands on that could also fit in my mouth.
+3.1kg Fabrics
+12.5kg Wood
+0.7kg Scrap Metal
I froze when I saw the lamp. Not because it was a rare thing to see--with electricity being an expensive luxury, and machines that used or created electricity also just as rare--but because it was... beautiful.
The base was well-sculpted with a bulging-dare I say-curvaceous bottom that pulled into a beckoning hourglass shape, nearly pole-like, that ran up and up and up so terribly high, so remarkably tall, nearly reaching the ceiling, where the head of her flared out, blossomed into a marvelous glass head where the bulb of her was stored.
And I stared in awe.
The blood of me pumped madly, and my trash can heart pounded at the sight of her.
As I stared, harder, deeper, easing closer to behold this vixen of a lamp, I saw it--by the gods--she winked at me. She wanted this! She wanted me! My face reformed into that of a confident alpha man, a confident alpha trash can man, and while, of course, I had no face--because I was a trash can--I knew my faceless stare was something she could see, something she could sense, something that she herself wanted oh-so-terribly bad, and as I wanted her and as she wanted me, I found myself reaching out--
--and sliding my thin metal arms to wrap around the pole of her waist, caressing her most delicate places, and I could swear that I heard her dainty little lamp-like moans, and she tilted against me in an embrace.
And I took her.
Those bastards trapped a beautiful maiden into an equally beautiful maiden lamp. She needed someone to rescue her. She needed someone to take her. I would do so. I would take her.
I'm gonna fuck her. I'm gonna fuck this lamp!
Lust had become me, and as she stared down into my trash can eyes with those half-lidded bedroom eyes of passion, as she whispered sweet things into my metal ears, as my clinkity octopus hands reached into her darkest, her most erotic of places, she said, "Good morning, Imsi."
It was Cassandra's voice. "Imsi, what are you doing?" It didn't come from the lamp. It came from within me, where Cassandra normally spoke.
And with that realization, something within me clicked off. I found myself trying to make out with a lamp. A regular, inanimate lamp. Had I been that starved for another's touch that--
"Imsi," said Cassandra. "I apologize for interrupting your intercourse with that lamp, but I sense vibrations coming from the other room."
Soon, I heard it. Footsteps. The sexy lamp would have to wait. I needed to hurry and recycle all the shit in my mouth so I could make something to defend myself with.
Hummmmm.
+5086 Earth Element
+1122 Water Element
+748 Air Element
+524 Fire Element
+37,400 XP
It sucked that the Fire Element was so rare while being so damned useful, but I would just have to make do without firearms.
The footsteps pounded closer.
Hmmmm-click-kerchunk.
+1 Longsword (Uncommon)
Something creaked on the far wall, and a section of it eased open--a false wall!
I took my fighting stance.
The door exploded out into shards and splinters, tapping around and sliding across the floor, and a mustached old man in a labcoat stared down at me from across the room.
"Oh!" the man said. "You've finally awakened. Excellent," A wide grin stretched across his face.