[ 5 ]
“I’VE JUST ACTIVATED YOUR INVENTORY,” MORDECAI SAID, WAVING A HAND.
“This season Borant is trying something a little different.”
“Different good or different bad?” I asked, pulling up the menu.
The only thing listed was a handful of loot boxes with Ready to Open next to them.
“Last season, it was a slot-based system. It allowed one to carry multiple items, but it was limited in capacity and had standard weight limits. This season, each crawler is given a dimensional inventory and AI cataloging
system.”
“What does that mean?”
“It’s a good thing. Basically, unlimited storage. And if you can physically lift it off the ground by yourself for about four seconds, you can put it in your space, no matter how big it is. The only rule is you can’t store living creatures. They will immediately die. Also, the storage is time-locked, so food doesn’t go bad. That’s a big one. We had an issue last season with crawlers starving to death. Watching thousands of lethargic, unmoving players as they waited the timer to run out… Yeah. It was no good, so Borant fixed it. Disease and starvation doesn’t make for compelling drama.”
He produced a single, glass bottle. It was small, like a third the size of a coke bottle. It was red with a cork in it.
“Pick it up and place it in your inventory. A gift from me to you.”
I picked it up and examined the item’s properties.
Standard Healing Potion.
Increases your health by at least 50%. Doesn’t cure poison or other health-seeping conditions such as succubus-inflicted gonorrhea. So
remember to wrap it up, bucko.
I pulled up my inventory menu, and an Add Item to Inventory button appeared. I clicked it, and the potion vanished. It appeared in my inventory list, which now had both a Potions and Healing submenu. I mentally clicked on it, and the potion reappeared in my hand.
“Good, good. If you add the potion to your hotlist, you’ll drink it without having to actually drink. Remember this, because some of these potions taste like shit. If you straight pull it from the normal inventory, you’ll have to pop the cork and swallow. Potions and other like items stack up to 999 a slot, so it’s best to stick them in your hotlist. And that’s pretty much it. There are a few other quirks regarding inventory, but you’ll figure them out along the way.”
I put the potion back and then added it to the hotlist next to my healing spell.
“Okay,” Mordecai said. “Let’s take a look at your current notifications… holy tits!”
“What? What?” I said, alarmed, looking around. Donut looked up from her spot by the fire and yawned.
“You have a Legendary Pet Box! Why didn’t you say so?”
I just looked at him. The urge to punch him in the face returned.
Mordecai shook his head. “Legendary right when he walks in,” he grumbled. “Okay. Yes, yes you do have a lot of boxes. Okay, now that inventory is active, you can pop up your missed notifications. Let’s take look.”
I had a line of the notifications. I clicked on the first one.
New achievement! You’ve inflicted damage on a mob.
Hopefully it won’t hit back!
Reward: It’s probably going to hit back.
New achievement! You’ve killed a mob!
You’re a murderer! He probably had a family!
Reward: You can now gain experience. Get enough of it, and you might even go up a level.
New achievement! You’ve killed an armed mob with your bare fucking hands!
Holy crap, dude. That’s kinda fucked up.
Reward: You’ve received a Bronze Weapon Box!
New achievement! You’ve killed a mob a higher level than yourself!
You’re getting the hang of this. Don’t let it get to your head.
Reward: You’ve received a Bronze Adventurer Box!
New achievement! You’ve entered a guildhall!
Congratulations. You know how to open doors.
Reward: That sense of fulfillment you feel? That’s reward enough.
New achievement! Podophilia!
You’ve used your bare feet to crush and kill an opponent! Hey!
That’s my fetish! Seriously. Keep doing it, and you’ll be rewarded. This will help.
Reward: You’ve received a Gold Shoe Box!
New achievement! Boom!
You’ve caused a wall-shaking explosion within the dungeon! The last time the walls shook like this was when your mom came over for a visit.
Reward: You’ve received a Silver Goblin Box!
New achievement! Level-Up, Baby!
You’ve received enough experience to gain a level.
Reward: Leveling up is your job. You don’t get rewards for doing your job.
Underneath those were a few additional notifications:
You’ve gained a skill level!
Pugilism Level 4.
The art of beating the shit out of your opponents with closed fists.
Each level of this skill increases your bare-knuckle damage by 25%.
Level Up! You are now level 2.
Three stat points gained.
Several other skill-based notifications flashed and disappeared before I could read them, likely thanks to my tinkering with the menu earlier. My inventory glowed, and I clicked on it. Several additional loot boxes now appeared on my list.
“You may only open boxes in safe areas,” Mordecai said. “All guildhalls are safe areas, but not all safe areas are guildhalls.”
“Will they be hard to find? The safe areas, I mean?”
“The safe rooms will always appear on your map, even if they’re within
the fog of war.”
“Fog of war?”
“If you haven’t visited an area, it won’t show the specifics of the hallways, even if it’s in the range of your minimap. The fog of war covers places you haven’t yet visited. The safe rooms will have restrooms, sleeping cubicles, and some will even have food and fountains with healing potions.
Getting to them might be hard, but you’ll always know where they are if you get close enough.”
“Is there a time limit for staying in one?”
“Nope. But don’t forget the level itself is going to collapse in on your head after a certain amount of time. The only way to survive is to keep moving deeper.”
“Okay,” I said, rubbing my hands together. “Hopefully there are some pants in one of these things. Let’s start cracking them open.”
“Okay,” Mordecai said. “You have 10 loot boxes. That’s a lot, but not a crazy amount. Usually people come into the tutorial with two or three. You can hoard them, but when you do decide to open them, you can’t pick and
choose which ones to open. It’s an all or nothing thing. There’s no real tactical reason to hold onto them since you can’t sell or transfer unopened boxes. Also it’s important to note that while it’s possible to receive unstable or damaged loot, you’ll never receive outright cursed loot in a box. But that doesn’t mean everything is safe to try on. Always read the descriptions before you activate or wear something. Always, always. No exceptions. Okay here we go. It’s going to open them by tier.”
The ten boxes all popped out of my inventory and appeared floating in front of me single file. The first few boxes were about half the size of a military footlocker. Each box had a label floating over it. The first to appear was bronze-colored and had a strange, hedgehog-like animal stenciled on the
top.
Bronze Pet Box. (1/10) The top popped open on its own. The box disappeared in a puff of smoke, and a single rolled-up piece of paper and a small pile of what looked like dry cat food appeared on the floor. Text appeared above each item.
Scroll of Heal Critter.
Pet Biscuit X 10.
The items disappeared and entered my inventory. Before I could open the inventory box to read the description of the scroll, the next box appeared.
Bronze Adventurer Box. (2/10)
Potion of Healing X 2.
Common Fingerless Gloves.
After that was
Bronze Weapon Box. (3/10) Toad Cudgel.
The “toad cudgel” was a stick. It looked like a 3/4's length baseball bat shaped by someone who only had a vague idea of what baseball was.
Bronze Weapon Box. (4/10) Poker.
This wasn’t much better. It was literally a fireplace poker. A wrought iron
stick with a screw-on point at the end.
Bronze Adventurer Box. (5/10)
Potion of Healing.
Potion of Mana.
These next two boxes were slightly larger and made of silver.
Silver Adventurer Box. (6/10)
Poison Antidote X 2
Crawler Biscuit X 100 Torch X 20 This next silver box looked distinctively different than the last. Like the goblin murder dozer, it appeared hobbled together with random hunks of silver-colored metal. A goblin skull was etched onto the lid.
Silver Goblin Box (7/10)
Dynamite X 5
Lighter Goblin Pass The Goblin Pass took the form of the same goblin-shaped skull from the top of the box. The symbol appeared floating in the air. Instead of adding itself to my inventory, it flew and smacked up against my left inner forearm. I was still wearing my leather jacket, but I could feel it burning against my skin, like I was being branded. The brand also appeared on the exterior of the jacket. The pain quickly abated, and my jacket was otherwise undamaged.
It was time for the good stuff. These next two boxes were bigger yet and
glowed with a golden light.
Gold Apparel Box (8/10) Enchanted Nightgaunt Cloak of Stoutness.
Enchanted Trollskin Shirt of Pummeling.
Beside me, Mordecai gasped the moment the two items appeared. I hoped
that was a good thing.
Gold Shoe Box (9/10) Enchanted Toe Ring of the Splatter Skunk.
A toe ring? A goddamned toe ring? I needed shoes, damnit! Not a toe ring!
I was so irritated by this prize, I almost missed the opening of the final box. The Legendary Pet Box had the same symbol etched on it as the Bronze Pet Box, but this thing was three times the size. It was made of alternating, intricately carved silver and gold patterns. Clockwork gears spun with a ratcheting click click click as the box opened. A musical fanfare sounded.
Legendary Pet Box (10/10)
Pet Biscuit X 500 Enhanced Pet Biscuit “That’s it?” I said as the final prizes poofed back into my inventory.
“What the hell is an enhanced pet biscuit?”
Mordecai was looking between me and Donut.
“Yeah, kid. You’ll want to give your cat that biscuit right now while you’re still in the guild.”
“What does it do?” I asked. I pulled it out of my inventory. It looked like a cat treat. It was small, smaller than my fingernail, brown, hard, and round with a crumbly texture. I doubted I’d be able to get Donut to eat it. While the cat was always shoving her face with food, Bea insisted on giving her the wet stuff even though it got all over her face. Donut turned her nose up at most
everything else.
I examined the treat’s attributes.
Enhanced Pet Biscuit.
So, it looks like a regular pet biscuit. It’s not.
Feed to your pet at your own risk. What’s the worst that can happen?
“Uh, what does it do?” I asked a second time.
“The effects vary,” he said. “Regular Biscuits feed pet-based classes for a full day. The pets find them delicious. They smell them, and they’ll just gobble them up. So make sure you only pull one out at a time. Enhanced treats have over 100 different possible effects. Half of them are good. The rest are… neutral… or decidedly bad. But if there’s a bad outcome, your pet won’t attack you if you feed them the treat while you’re in a safe zone. Your pet will be teleported outside to a random place within a square mile of here.
If you feed it to her while you’re out on crawl, and she transforms into a toothed fleshbutcher, you’re pretty much fucked. So you should definitely do it now. Either that or save it to sell later. It’s worth a couple thousand gold.”
Shit. I’d been avoiding thinking about this until now, but what could I do?
Donut was a damn cat. It wasn’t like she was a mastiff or anything, some sort of pet I could use as protection. Even if I could get her to follow me in the first place, she’d be more a liability than anything.
I felt an obligation to her. I was all she had left in the world. It wasn’t logical, I knew. But if I could sell this tiny little treat for a lot of money, I could buy some really useful items. Like shoes and pants.
I rolled the cat treat in my fingers. As awful as it was, it would be best to… “Ow!” I cried as Donut leaped up and ate the treat right from my hand.
Splat! The moment the cat hit the ground, she was transformed into a wet mess of flesh. She splattered like a hunk of hairy, jellied water.
“Donut!” I cried. “What the hell happened to my cat?”
Waiting… Waiting… appeared over the quivering, shaggy mass.
“Hmm,” Mordecai said, coming forward to poke at the blob with his foot.
It wiggled. “Transformation. Your creature is being changed somehow. It didn’t teleport away, so it’s not considered a negative result. Looks like we’ll have to wait. I’ve seen this before a few times. It won’t be long. Maybe five to ten minutes.”
