Chapter 1 Trash Landing
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Eddie was currently free-falling down an old well that doubled as a trash chute. It was all going in slow-mo for him; he was reaching out for anything to grab as he stared at the grinning faces above him. This was not how he imagined his new gaming venture to be. He was a mechanic, a good one- or considered himself to be. He had just been laid off due to a new pandemic, and in 2049 the only thing to do if you had plenty of free time was play virtual reality. Fantasy virtual reality to be exact.
He had logged in via his VR helmet, was greeted by a busty goddess and then spat out at a starter village a few miles out from one of the main cities. As he arrived in the city, however, a group of players acting as guild recruiters lured him to their supposed base and chucked him down an old well. It wasn’t an old well, but a trash chute.
He sighed momentarily, contemplating why he was picked on so much. He knew that he was gullible but they looked to be the real deal, even flashed him their guild badges on their golden armor. He guessed it was down to bad luck. He expected to hit the ground soon, even with 80% pain reduction it was still going to hurt splattering his insides out onto hard rock. Closing his eyes as he waited for the sweet embrace of virtual death, he pictured the busty goddess and her perky breasts. Oh, what a simple man Eddie was.
But, the splattering never came, nor the pain, nor the busty goddess. It was strange to him, he was still free-falling, the wind was still rustling his unkempt hair. He opened his eyes to see a ceiling made of rock moving rapidly away from him. He scratched his chin and regrettably, spun around.
“Holy sh-”
A huge cavern, sprawling as far as his squinted eyes could see. It was all made of-
“Trash!”
Eddie saw mountains of rotten food and wooden planks, steel swords and rusted bolts, and it was all coming towards him- fast. Throwing his arms out wildly to steady himself, he watched as other pieces were flying down with him- just like a piece of trash.
His quick adrenaline rush came to an end as his body squashed against compacted trash. A notification popped up just before though.
You have discovered Arindought’s Trash Pit!
+10 EXP
Respawn point set! You will now respawn here.
Unlucky! You Died! You really… Trash landed! Hehe, get it?
Eddie started cursing under his breath as he woke up among clouds and a beautiful calm blue sky. “Why me, every single time. Every. Single. Time. It’s always me. Fudging ship balls! Ah! Why can’t I swear! Fudge! Fudge it all!”
You will respawn in: 09:47s
He grudgingly got up and started kicking the puffy clouds beneath his feet in frustration, it would look quite funny to most from an outside perspective. Eddie was small; five feet and eight inches- not even a video game could fix that. He was moderately tanned from his time working on aeroplanes in the glory days of his military duty. His brown hair was medium length and curly, it was messy too and he often picked at it when he got nervous or anxious- which he was doing now.
He had better days; unfortunately, he was recently laid off from his mechanic job even with his great plethora of experience and good track records. Four years in the military, six years of aeronautical engineering; he was a textbook example of a great worker. But, the company was losing money rapidly, and all they could think to do was fire their apparent best worker. Of course, this left him fairly angry- and jobless. It wasn’t like he was poor, he had saved money since he joined the army at 18 years old.
The news and media told him that the best way to unwind was to play video games- there he goes, being gullible again. He paid $300 dollars for Chronicles Of Fantasy Online but he had yet to see a return on the ‘unwindyness’ part described.
He folded his arms as he continued to kick the puffy clouds, finding none were giving him the aggressive kick back a box or small cat would. realizing it was meant to be like that to calm people down, he followed suit. He shouldn’t get angry over stupid games, but Eddie couldn’t help it, he had stayed away from them to focus on his career, but now they were stupid- to him, and to him only. He waited impatiently as the timer ticked down to zero and he was sucked back into the game.
Immediately, the pungent smell of all things wrong blasted his nose. It smelt like a granny farting after eating Mexican food for an entire weekend, or a dead squashed cat in a hoarder's house- okay, that was dark.
Eddie clutched his mouth as he could feel it rising in his throat, he tried to not think about his gran’s Mexican food fart but it was too late. The acid in the bottom of his stomach bubbled viciously and shooted up into his throat and out his mouth.
“What sort of game-” he wiped his mouth with his starter gear shirt. “Would allow someone to throw up!” he bellowed out, finding none to hear his plea. “Stupid fudging game, why- ahh!”
Eddie got up, pinching his nose shut. “Talk about all five senses... Hey, that was pretty good,” he mused to himself proudly.
Debuff: Toxic Air
-Visibility reduced to 50%
-Senses reduced to 25%
-All stats reduced to 50%
-Unlucky
Debuff: Smelly I
-1 Charisma
“Great, smelly too now,” he whined, his mood dropping back down again.
Now with both hands over his mouth and face, he started looking around with squinted eyes for an exit. He pulled down his minimap and in turn brought up the notification he received before dying.
Respawn point set! You will now respawn here.
“Those- grr, ah!”
The thieves who had robbed him of his entire wealth- estimating at a staggering 33 coppers, had purposely thrown him down into a spot that would activate his respawn point. He sighed deeply as he brought up the admin helpline option.
“Sorry,” the AI said in its melodramatic yet monotone voice, “Due to a surge in traffic, we are unable to put you through to one of our teams. If you purchased the Silver Night Bundle Exclusive, you will be moved to the front of the queue. We have detected that you are not one of the owners of the Silver Knight Bundle, would you like to purchase it?”
“How long’s the wait time?” he asked, tapping his foot.
“17 hours, 34 minutes and 23 seconds.”
He could feel his blood boiling and the veins across his forehead popping. He cleared his throat and lowered his voice. “How much is the Silver Knight Bundle?”
“It was $2199 but it is now $2159 over the summer sale, what a great deal! Would you like to purchase it?”
“Who in their right mind would purchase that,” he remarked loudly.
“Sorry,” the AI said, “Did you say- yes?”
“No, no… No, I said no!”
“Okay, your queue position is 17,455, thank you for being so patient with us.”
If he was on the phone he would have thrown it on the ground and stomped on it. “Why!? Why!? Why!? Why!? Why!? Why!?”
“Sorry, did you say- yes?”
“No!” Eddie shouted, pushing down aggressively on the button to end the call. He breathed in deeply, attempting to calm himself down, finding only the pungent smell of the trash pit firing into his nose. He clutched at it as he thought of ways to get out: he couldn’t call for any help, he couldn’t make a new-
“Character, I can make a new character!” he exclaimed with a lightbulb above his head.
“Sorry, multiple characters are only for owners of the Silver Knight Bundle. Would you like to purchase it?”
“You’re still here?!”
“Sorry, did you say- yes?”
Eddie punched the ‘end call’ button and the AI’s annoying voice was finally gone.
“Fine,” Eddie said to himself, “Let’s just… Walk. Walking has never hurt anyone.” Rolling his minute shoulder, he started wading forward in the trash pit. In an instant, he stopped dead, trying to catch out the universe but it was to no avail. He noticed, however, that beneath him, all of it was compacted trash, it looked to be formed over countless centuries with metal far past rusted and broken swords that had only been splashed with the brown stuff.
Unauthorized duplication: this narrative has been taken without consent. Report sightings.
Squinting his eyes, he brought the map down once again. He really wanted to get out, anywhere else would be preferable. Even at the edges of his mini-map though, there was only compacted trash, possibly endless seas of it. He did notice that he was in a ditch of sorts, and walked zombie-like to where an inclination was.
Feeling a slight raise in the ground beneath him, he quickened his pace as he felt the groggy air become thinner. The red arrow of his minimap flashed red when he passed a circle surrounding a portion of the trash pit. “Ah, fresh ai-” It was not fresh air.
Debuff: Toxic Air removed.
“Yes!”
You have entered the dungeon: Arindought’s Trash Pit
Level recommendation: 5-50
Party size recommendation: 5
Difficulty: Hard
Uh, oh, spaghettio.
“No! This is a dungeon?” Eddie questioned, looking out. From his vast knowledge of gaming, he had heard that dungeons were great for experience but also dangerous; high-risk high reward. Eddie wanted neither, he just wanted to get the hell out.
He was standing on a knoll of trash, looking over the vast wasteland. It was an enormous sprawling cavern, all made from trash. He could see pools of bubbling acid, enormous peaking mountains, hundreds of broken machinery, armories, whole libraries of books. There was everything he could think down here- things people didn’t want- thrown out. There seemed to be different environments too.
There was a sense of beauty and adventure in it somewhere, Eddie just couldn’t see it. His eyes scanned his surroundings for any exits into the city above but even then he couldn’t see anything, only contiguous piles of trash- rolling hills of trash; monsters happily frolicking through rotten flowers and brown banana peels.
He was a bit concerned with monsters being here too, he was more than scared of them. He had never played any fighting games before, let alone virtual reality, where realism is the major selling point. Plus, the thieves had robbed him of everything but his decency, all his coins and weapons were gone. They were able to rob people of course, even though everything was in his inventory. Realism is the major selling point.
Noticing a very handy pathway going down, he decided to follow it. It was not for long however when he crossed a flat area with what appeared to be a monster on one of the clearings. He couldn’t see it as of yet, but his minimap was declaring that it was.
He stopped dead, afraid- a chicken, one would call him. He didn't have a weapon to fight, so to compromise, he picked up a rusty wrench on the ground beneath him. It hurt his hands just touching it, perhaps because his constitution was a mere three.
Holding the wrench above his head like a katana, he cautiously moved down, ready to strike the golem upon a moment's notice. As he got closer, he noticed a text box above its name, like the ones NPCs and players had. It was red with a health bar at the top, and its health was at 100%.
Trash Golem, Level 6
“Wow,” Eddie muttered to himself, impressed at the complexity and design of the monster. The golem itself was made from different components of trash metal, hence the name. If Eddie was to ever make a golem, that is what he would design them to look like- not the trash part but the different joint types and structure. It was barely moving though, its six-foot metal body was mostly rusted. The only thing that annoyed him was the power source, it shouldn’t be able to move by itself like that without a hefty battery. He then realized he was playing a fantasy game. “Magic, huh.”
As he got closer, he noticed that the golem’s eyes were glowing red and they instantly snapped onto him. His face dropped in fear as it started awkwardly sprinting at him. His fingers gripped around the rusty wrench and he prepared for a fight. You see, Eddie was not a fighter, he never was. Even in the military, he had avoided it like the plague. He wasn’t a frontline soldier, he was an engineer.
The golem got closer and closer, and closer. “Ah!” he screamed, throwing the wrench like an unathletic middle school girl. With a light tink, the rusted wrench bounced off the trash golem’s chest and it continued running full pelt at him.
He started running back up to where he came from, his stamina was terrible, and by the time he reached the top, he was out of breath. Realism is the major selling point. He started heaving as he crab-crawled backwards, the golem had slowed down as it too had a stamina bar. It stepped up the steep incline and looked directly at Eddie’s eyes. The beady dark red eyes struck fear into him- making him two pounds lighter in the process.
All Eddie could do was brace himself by putting his hands across his face and pray to the busty goddess to save him. But then, when everything was meant to go black, it didn’t. A piece of falling trash had struck the golem, killing it instantly. Eddie crept an eye open to see a trash bag full of rotting apple cores covering the now dead golem. He shot up with victory clenched in his fists.
You have been hit with a stroke of luck!
+1 Luck
You have slain Trash Panda, Level 6.
+2 EXP (-50% Cowardice Kill)
+ 3 Copper
+ Trash Golem Core
“Coward?!” Eddie exclaimed. “I am not a coward!” The golem’s corpse moved slightly and Eddie backed up in a hurry. He rolled his skinny shoulders to loosen off the universe's insult. The 3 copper and trash golem core dropped in his inventory and Eddie was happy. It was his first ever kill- kinda.
System Information: Cowardice Kill Definition- When you accidentally kill an enemy, use the environment to kill an enemy or steal another player's kill, a 50% EXP reduction will be applied. All loot will however go to you.
That cleared it up for Eddie, he wasn’t a coward, it was just out of his control. He brought his character sheet to see the huge increase from his mighty battle.
User: EDDI3456
Level 1
Progression to next level: 17(+12)/100 EXP
Titles:
Stats:
Constitution
3
Wisdom
3
Health
30
0.3 HP/S
Strength
3
Intelligence
3
Stamina
30
2 SP/S
Dexterity
2
Luck
3(+1)
Mana
30
0.3 MP/S
Endurance
3
Charisma
1(-1)
Status Effects:
Smelly I: -1 Charisma
It was rather pitiful to most, but to Eddie, those numbers were his pride and joy. He had skipped the initial training village since he wanted to explore Arindought first, he didn’t realize that this would hinder him the most. He was meant to get a weapon skill or a magical spell after the completion of the given quest but he just ignored it. Most people would give Eddie the {Paste Eating} skill.
The only EXP he had gotten was from buying something before he reached the city, everything you did in this game you could gain EXP from. Reading books to making waffles, all gave you experience.
He remembered being told that most people received their first class at level 10 and their second was an open offer but that all depended on multiple factors. Professions, on the other hand, someone had to gain from experience. Smelt enough iron and you would be offered the blacksmith profession. Eddie still didn’t know what he wanted to play as or what professions he wanted to do.
Crouching down next to the golem’s corpse, he pulled out the golem core and examined it.
{Golem Core}
Grade: Crude
Durability: 12/27
Mana: 102/102 (3.2 M/s)
Skills (Max 1): 0
Description: Used to power golems. Has the ability to withhold mana/skills.
It was an orange crystal ball the size of his palm, it glowed softly. “That’s pretty cool,” Eddie mused to himself, he then wondered if he could make a golem. Eddie was not the fighting type, so if he could sit back and let the golem kill things then that would be him sorted.
Starting to fiddle with the golem, he tried to pry a rusted piece of metal that covered the center of the armor. He shoved his grubby fingers under it and heaved with all his strength. A metal bolt pinged off, hitting him in the forehead.
-1 HP
He placed his palms against his forehead and scrunched up his nose. “... Ow!” Releasing his eyes open, he looked down at the golem with its front metal armor piece open. In the center was a small carved out hole with what looked to be copper wires that could connect to it. It made no sense to a programmer but he wasn’t one. It made no sense to an engineer either but they could at least ignore it. It appeared that the copper wires acted as veins for the golem. Pouting, he placed it inside and connected the copper wires to it.
Unfortunately, you do not meet the requirements to activate this golem.
“Then what do I need to do?” Eddie questioned the system.
System Information: See link to acquire classes- {NewWorldOnline.com/Forums/ClassRequirments/Golemancer}. Alternatively, see the profession- {NewWorldOnline.com/Forums/ProfessionRequirements/Golemancy}
“Oh,” Eddie pondered, “There’s a class and a profession?” He clicked on the top link, and the internet popped up right before him.
‘Class Requirements- Golemancer
-250 Mana Points.
-Golemancy Profession
-Golem Core (Any)’
Eddie looked at his pitiful mana pool of 30, wondering how in Chronicles of Fantasy Online he was meant to reach that. He didn’t even bother to look at the profession feeling discouraged, he placed the golem core in his inventory and then tried to do the same with the golem's corpse. Thankfully, it went in, but took up over half of his available space- it’s not like there was anything else in there.
Feeling a little chirpy since getting his first ever cowardice kill, he skipped down the trash knoll and towards the flat clearing that overlooked the rest of the dungeon. His map still wasn’t showing him much.
As he continued to wander along the path, he arrived in a large circular basin, it was just outside of the dungeon, but a few of the mountains of trash were still inside. Walking forwards, he noticed a large cave- you guessed it, made of compacted trash.
“Cool,” Eddie said, shrugging his shoulders.
Ding! Ding! Ding! You have received a quest!
Quest: Trash Panda Infestation
-You have managed to get your first ever kill! A terrible one, but you still did it. Clear out all the Trash Pandas in the area to make it safe for passage!
0/7 Trash Pandas killed.
Rewards:
Safe Zone
+21 Copper
+An item of your choosing
+100 EXP
+A Class
Time remaining: 00:59:49s
“Awesome!” Eddie exclaimed. “My first ever quest! And I can get a class!” Soon Eddie realized that he was going to have to kill monsters again, and he only had with him his trusty- “My wrench!? Where is it?! Oh… Fiddlesticks, I must have left it up there.”
It was a 15 minute walk away and his legs were already tired in the damn video game. He would waste half of his allotted time for the quest just going to retrieve it. He really needed to get the experience, that was a whole level up.
To the right of the cave entrance, he noticed piles of loose trash. Trying his luck, he started rummaging through. Broken crates, rotten apple cores, beer kegs- “Finally!” Eddie exclaimed, pulling out a broken sword.
{Iron Sword)
Grade: Common
Durability: 0/31 (Broken)
Damage: ??
Description: An iron sword… nothing special.
“Better than nothing,” Eddie stated, noticing it was a step above the Crude classifications on items. It was a bit slimy from all the apple cores dumped on it so he wiped it on his sleeve. Taking a deep breath, he took his first step into the cave.
“Nope, nope, not doing it,” Eddie said, turning around, the nerves getting to him.
System Notice
Failing a Quest will hinder your progress and make you less eligible for future quests.
“Fine,” Eddie grumbled, “Whatever.” Mustering a drop of courage, he ventured into the compacted trash cave.