C9 Trash Lake Of Lava

“Sir, you have to be more careful of your surroundings,” Frank instructed with a hint of passive aggressiveness.

“Sorry, Frank, thanks for getting me out of there. Oh, fiddlesticks- I forgot that uncommon wire,” Eddie whined, it would have been the only uncommon thing he had ever owned.

“I suggest not going back there, Sir. The small green men can group up easily.”

“God no, I’m not going back there even if you paid me… Where are we?”

“I’m not sure, Sir, I used the edges of the trash pit as a guide.”

Eddie scratched his head as he brought out the map.

“Oh, we really went far,” Eddie remarked as he took in his surroundings.

(https://imgur.com/gallery/B9nfK5u)

They were next to large steep mountains of compacted trash that soared far up into the fog. It mimicked real life snow tipped mountains that penetrated the clouds. Something else he noticed: there were no monsters in sight. Eddie wasn’t sure if that was a good thing or a bad thing- probably bad.

Once he was sure himself and Frank were safe, he started to add to the map.

“What would be a good name for that area?” Eddie thought out-loud.

“You are the creative one here, Sir.”

“Goblin’s Gush? Goblins Gobble- Gobble Gobble Goblins Puddle,” Eddie mused to himself. “Oh! Goblins Gulch!!!”

“Sir, although I admire your use of alliteration. A gulch is a narrow and steep-sided ravine marking the course of a fast stream. To call it a gulch would be to call the grand canyon a waterpark. Not mentioning it sounds rather dirty.”

“I don’t care,” Eddie professed, nose pointed up. “I think it sounds cool.”

Frank looked down in defeat at the floor. “Yes, Sir.”

“Ok, Goblins Gulch,” Eddie said to himself as he wrote it down. He summoned the quest from his menu.

Quest: Dungeon Exploring

Map out 25% of the dungeon: 17/25%

Kill mobs inside the dungeon: 3/10

“Hmmm,” Eddie said, deep in thought. He had almost completed the first objective, the second one didn’t seem much of an issue either- well, Frank could deal with them. He breathed out a calming breath.

“Alright, Frank, we need to kill seven more monsters and 8% more of the dungeon. We’re almost there.”

“Great, Sir. Where shall we head next?”

Eddie looked up at the mountains and motioned towards them. “They head towards the centre, then we can loop back home.”

“Good plan, Sir. Just to let you know, you have levelled up.”

“Oh.”

User: EDDI3456

Level 3 (4 Points to Allocate)

Progression to next level: 502(+356)/1800 EXP

Titles: Mage, Homeowner, Landowner.

Stats:

Constitution

3

Wisdom

13

Health

30

0.3 HP/S

Strength

3

Intelligence

13

Stamina

30

2 SP/S

Dexterity

2

Luck

5

Mana

130

1.3 MP/S

Endurance

3

Charisma

(-1)x-7=7

Status Effects:

Smelly III: -6 Charisma

Dirty II: -3(-2) Charisma

Classes

Professions

#1

Trashmancer

#1

None

#2

None

#2

None

#3

None

Passive Skills

Skills

Spells

T1 Trashman’s Eyes Rank I

None

T1 Trash Chute Rank I

T1 Metalworking Rank II

T1 Engineering Rank I

T1 Golemancy Rank I

T1 Weaponsmithing Rank I

T1 Cartography Rank I

T1 Armorsmithing Rank I

Perks (Class)

Perks (Profession)

Trashmancer’s Deodorant

None

Golem Menu

(Frank) Trash Golem, Level 8

Stats:

Strength: 16

Dexterity: 10

Armour: Medium

Overall Condition of Golem: 94%

Current Operating Power: 91%

Core Durability: 11/36

Mana 104/104 (3.2M/s)

Skills:

T1 Spear Mastery Rank I

“Corrr,” Eddie said. He had four whole points to allocate. If he put them all into wisdom right now, he would be at 170 mana, and he needed 200 for the golemancer class. His charisma was shooting up, he was tempted to have a spa day in a field of rotting food. But he didn’t have time for that- he was gaming.

“After me, Sir,” Frank insisted.

And so, the unusual duo headed off towards the trash top mountains(pretty good name), adventure calling their names. As they approached, they noticed it was unusually barren. The trash was heavily compacted- more so than his trash cave. It was blackened and lost to time. They discovered a winding pass that wrapped around the mountains and towards the centre.

“That’s handy,” Eddie noted, even though it was unrealistic.

They weaved between mountains, only occasionally going off course if Eddie spotted something useful; there wasn’t much really. A few more mountains went past them- it started to get hot- very hot; and no, it wasn’t because of the sexual tension between the two.

“Eugh, it’s hot,” Eddie pointed out.

“I cannot feel it, Sir.”

“Oh, right,” Eddie said, wiping his sweaty brow.

As Eddie took a few steps forwards, he was suddenly blasted by a heat wave. He almost fell over if it wasn’t for Frank with a sturdy hand on his back. He covered his face as the heat stung it. Through the cracks of his fingers, he saw a huge lake of flowing trash lava. It was huge/ It sprung from a giant machine up above that poured it out endlessly through magic. It transformed into a river as it trickled down some mountains.

There were monsters down below; far above what he had seen before.

Trash Lava Sentinel, Level 21💀

Trash Lava Sentinel, Level 21💀

FISTS OF FURY

They were eight feet tall and thicker than a bowl of oatmeal. They were built of random trash with lava that pooled out of every nook and cranny. Their fists were cladd, twice the size of the wrists. Their face was unusual- no ears, nose, mouth- only sunken in black spots for eyes.

“How do they stand?” was the first thing that popped into Eddie’s head- typical. He thought realism was the major selling point, but none of it made sense.

“Magic, Sir,” Frank replied calmly.

“And what’s a sentinel?” Eddie asked as he squatted down to peer at them further. They were awkwardly shambling around- no groaning despite their movement.

“Perhaps the lava withholds mana, they might be protecting it, Sir.”

“Right,” Eddie said, fairly calmly. They were very far away so it wasn’t like they would agro to him.

“Get down, Sir!” Frank shouted. He grabbed his master's head and threw him to the ground with himself on top. A giant wing swooped over them, scraping against Frank's metal body. It was only a scrape but the sheer power of it tore through some of his metal armor.

Trash Wyvern, Level 29 ☠

Eddie regrettably looked at it, fear overcame him. He scrambled out from underneath Frank and watched as it swooped down below- aiming for the lava sentinels.

It was bigger than a house, it wasn’t made of trash but its skin was akin to an elephants; it was grey and rough on the underbelly. The scales on its back were slightly darker, and its teeth were made out of a reflective metal.

The lava sentinels saw the approaching wyvern and they started preparing skills. Monsters with skills- now Eddie was scared. The wyvern expanded its wings out to balance itself and extended both talons. It grabbed a lava sentinel from below and made its escape. Some of the lava sentinels held their cladded fists up towards it and lava was ejected at a high velocity. Others jumped towards it like a superhero would; it looked far past unnatural as they pushed themselves 30ft into the air. They crashed down again when they realised the wyvern had already made its escape.

It flew off into the distance majestically, taunting them down below.

Eddie was… Scared, entertained, and a little bit more scared. “What in the fudge just happened?”

“I believe the trash wyvern was a little peckish, Sir.”

“Peckish? It’s gonna eat it?” Eddie questioned.

“Yes, otherwise why would it bother them?”

“But it’s- made out of lava..? Oh, magic. So we now have goblins, lava monsters and now trash dragons? This place is crazy!”

“Wyverns, Sir,” Frank corrected. Wyverns only have two feet and clawed wings.”

“Oh,” Eddie pondered, he didn’t realise they were different. “Where do we go now?”

“Well, Sir, we can try to find the end of this pathway. There is no hope of us getting down. I believe we only need to go a bit further in order to complete this quest- minus the killing monsters part.”

“Ugh, you’re right,” Eddie admitted. He wanted to go back but that would take hours and he only had enough time to get back to the trash cave before he had to log out- they had to move forward, down the river of molten trash and past the thick golems.

In truth, Eddie felt out of his depth now. The young, ugly, small, dirty, heartbroken mechanic had found the later side of gaming. Where a monster seems so stupidly overpowered there’s no point in even trying. The monsters were twenty five levels higher than him. Level 10s didn’t scare as they once did. It made him feel small but at the same time it lit a fire he didn’t know he had. He wanted to get to the stage where he could finally meet those monsters in battle. For now, he was stuck with struggling to kill a snotty trash goblin.

The two continued on the path a lot more cautiously then before, often pausing when Eddie found something useful. His inventory would soon be full if and when he added Frank to it. It began to get even hotter now, which to Eddie, seemed impossible. His face was already melting and he had burned through more calories in an hour than a year's worth of exercise.

They rounded a sharp bend and saw what was causing the ‘heat’ problem.

“Holy fu-”

A huge swirling pool of trash and lava. It was like a whirlpool but instead of water it was lava. It’s diameter was an entire mile.

“Well, Sir. It appears we have found the source.”

Eddie covered his eyes. “And how do you want to stop it?”

“Stop it?” Frank questioned.

“Yeah, it’s hot.”

“No, Sir, I don’t mean to offend you when I say you don’t understand. Although the trash dump may seem overfull, this waste management is very important for the ecosystem of the trash dump, Sir.”

“What, how?”

“Do you see those giant mechanical arms, Sir? They are feeding the trash into it.”

Eddie’s eyes scoured the outside of the lava whirlpool; they landed on what Frank was describing. They seemed to be automated machines that pushed built up trash into the pool. It was cool, but there was something else that he saw inside of one of them. It was a small crystal ball. It was glowing. It looked exactly like Frank’s core.

“No, Sir,” Frank shut down, immediately knowing what his master was thinking of doing.

“What?” Eddie questioned, acting innocent.

“You’re not thinking of grabbing that golem core are you, Sir?”

“What? Me? Ha- ahahahaha, no, of course not.”

Frank didn’t respond.

“But urm,” Eddie continued, “If I were to… I don’t know, let’s say: take the golem core? Purely hypothetical. What would happen?”

“Even disabling one of those arms would cause a lopsided effect on the whirlpool; therefore suffocating the entire melting process. It could have unforeseen and devastating consequences to the city above and most importantly down here, Sir.”

Eddie was staring off into space, thinking about the next golem he was going to be able to build. His mouth was watering and the mechanical bones in his body were tingling.

“Sir?”

“Sorry, what did you say?”

“About the consequences, Sir.”

“Frank, can I take a look at your core for a second?” Eddie asked.

“Yes, Sir, what is wrong?” Frank questioned as he faced Eddie.

Eddie brought out a small wrench and the key to open Frank’s chest.

“When I die, will anything get damaged in my inventory?” Eddie asked.

“No, Sir. Why do you ask-” Frank’s voice drowned out as Eddie plucked out his golem core.

“I’m sorry Frank,” Eddie said to the golem’s corpse. “It’s too dangerous for you now.”

And it very much so was, Eddie was going for the golem cores. He hadn’t seen any others since. He expected to find more but encountering Frank during his first few minutes inside the dungeon was extremely rare. Though he was afraid of fighting monsters without Frank, the fear of losing him was greater.

He stood on a mountain as he overlooked his current situation.

Regretting it already?

“... No,” Eddie professed, hands on hips.

Frank is right about causing damage to the ecosystem of the trash dump.

“Wouldn’t that be like agreeing with yourself?” Eddie questioned.

… No.

“I’m going to do it anyway,” he declared. He wasn’t going to back out of this. He was going to wear his head high and storm down the trash mountain just like in LOTR. There was a problem though; firstly, he didn’t have a horse. Secondly, there was no army of snarling orcs waiting at the bottom for him. Plus, it was kinda steep. There was nowhere else he could get down.

“I’ll just take my time,” Eddie reassured himself as he peered below at the death drop.

He curled his toes at the end of his comfy trash boots; they felt firm. He didn’t take a leap of faith, instead, crawled onto his belly and danged his feet off the edge. As soon as his foot hit the incline, it squashed the compacted trash down into a perfect foot hold.

“Success!” Eddie exclaimed.

Another foot came down, then the other. He was stepping so casually down a huge trash mountain. He started running in excitement; feeling on top of the world. Even though he was in a trash dump, under a fantasy city, in a game, he was enjoying himself.

He started running faster and faster, like a child would on a bike by themselves. They would go faster and faster until that large stone in the road would decide to make its grand entrance into the universe. Eddie overextended his leg, causing his fall a greater rotation. The bright smile vanished as his face took the place of his shoes.

-2 HP

-1 HP

-3 HP

He was cartwheeling down the trash mountain like a gymnast. He didn’t have any control, physics was doing that for him. It looked spectacular if there were any spectators; whereas Eddie’s vision switched from random pieces of trash and the rock ceiling above him. He couldn't say anything either, only-

“AHHHHHHH!”

His face broke the rotations as the steep incline smoothed out into a hill. Eddie skidded, face down, ass up; very roughly gliding across the trash. He didn’t say anything for a solid minute.

A groan came out. He only had lost half his HP, but that didn’t take into account the pain he received.

“Ugh,” Eddie groaned, placing his dirty hand on the trash to push himself up. He clutched his temples as the headache proceeded. “Note to self, don’t run down a mountain.”

I took the pleasure of recording it myself. Here you go, it will be in your {highlights} tab.

The video started playing.

“I didn’t give you permission to record that!!!” Eddie exclaimed, raising his voice, in turn, furthering his headache.

You can’t have privacy in the game, you signed the contract in the beginning.

“Stupid fudging system. This game is fudging ship!”

The system didn’t respond; Eddie continued to glare at a random bit of air in front of him.

The heat from the lava whirlpool blasted away the angry thoughts; it was now only a few hundred metres away. He stood and glanced at the large machines funneling in trash from the surrounding mountains. It was all moving slowly, like a slot machine; the arms took away a building up of trash and poured it into the lava pool which then left more space for more trash.

Eddie took his ruined leather chestpiece off, it was getting steamy. The starter gear shirt also came off, exposing his ripped physique. His non-existent pecs made his belly stick out even further. He flexed his bicep. “Looking good, Eddie.”

He tied his starter shirt around his head and waited for his HP to reach full before he waded through the trash.

This area looked far more like a trash dump as it was all constantly moving and had no way of compacting. Still, it was easy for him to walk over. Now, the machine was close, only a 100 metres away.

He stepped over a broken dining set and leapt onto a flat portion of metal. He was about to carry on when the metal plate moved. No, the metal arms dragging trash hadn’t caused it.

“Hmmm,” Eddie mused, tapping it with his foot a few times.

It moved again.

“Oh no,” Eddie said, upon the realization.

Metal and wood crushed against each other as the metal plate was lifted up. Eddie didn’t think it could go any higher but it did. It went higher, and higher, and higher.

Eddie’s legs started to shake as the ground moved away from him at a frightening pace.

“Uhhh- uhhhh.”

Eddie looked down to his feet and was fortunate enough to be given a notification. Oh, how kind the system was.

Gigantic Trash Golem, Level 31 ☠

UNBRIDLED STRENGTH

UNBRIDLED RESISTANCE

PROTECTOR OF HELL'S HOLE

MAN CRUSHER III

Usually, if a notification of a monster takes you more than a second to read- RUN!

Eddie coughed lightly, he hadn’t just bitten more than he could chew, he had eaten the whole damn bakery.

It was a 40ft monstrosity, it’s legs were thicker than a truck, it’s hands were made of giant crane grips. It was so abnormally tall and powerful it put the Omega Boss to shame. It’s face was made of hundreds of sensor crystals giving it a strange insectoid look. It’s head was partially merged into its body where a large glowing core was powering everything.

Eddie started hyperventilating. This, this was what Eddie meant when he was scared of monsters.

It’s head moved around to examine its surroundings, something had woken it up. It slammed its foot down on the moving trash pile; it was communicating.

Soon, dozens more of the giant trash golems started sprouting up.

Eddie could only look around in horror as a small army of them were before him. They were all scanning the area, trying to find the thing that caused their disturbance. He carefully laid down on top of the golem and pressed his face so hard into the metal it took a few points of his health.

He peered up with one eye to see a golem stretching a crane grip directly towards him in the distance. It’s sensor crystals all staring at him menacingly.

“Oh, for fudge sake,” Eddie whimpered.

All the trash golems let off a deafening shout, alerting all the others.

Eddie ran and leapt off the golem, hoping the fall would kill him instantly.

No, it didn’t.

Eddie felt his knuckled buckle in as he landed, in turn, smashing them into his face. So much fear was pulsing through him the pain was non-existent. He started running towards the machine at the edge of the whirlpool of lava. If he was going to die, he was going to at least take the core with him.

A metal carriage flew over his head as he ran for it. The golem he was currently on had started to chase him. It wasn’t as fast as he initially thought but it was gaining on him. All the other golems had also started running for him. The ones further away were hurling anything towards him.

He felt like he was in a movie. Everything was exploding around him and all he had to do was reach the button to stop the nuclear attack. That wasn’t the case, and he didn’t look charismatic like the main character. The muscles in his face were all contorted into hundreds of different emotions, displaying a grim and mortified expression.

Eddie reached the arm eventually, clambering up on its frame and crawling across it to the core. The golem had caught up to him and its giant hand leaned over. Eddie crawled, well faster. His knees bashed against the hard metal as he moved with more purpose than an introvert at a supermarket.

The entire arm shook as the golem tried to pry him off but its reach was too little. It took a step back and opened its crane-like hand out. It shot out fast and Eddie had to spring out the way just in time. It reeled it back like an anchor and prepared to fire again.

“I’m so close!” Eddie shouted as his knees banged loudly on the metal frame.

The golem fired again, catching Eddie’s leg and taking 75% of HP away in an instant. As it reeled back, it grabbed his boots. He managed to hook a loose piece of wire over the hand so it couldn’t pull him all the way back.

Under the extreme pressure, the mechanical arm Eddie was crawling on, creeked and jolted downwards. The crane-like had immediately halted, it seemed it didn’t want to hurt it. Eddie dived into the mechanical frame and the glowing core illuminated his dirty face. His eyes lit up, causing him to pause amidst the chaos ensuing.

{Golem Core}

Grade: Common

Durability: 24/38

Mana: 178/178 (3.9 M/s)

Skills (Max 2): 1

Description: Used to power golems. Has the ability to withhold mana/skills.

“COMMON! YOU’RE ONLY COMMON!” Eddie bellowed at the top of his lungs. “Screw it,” Eddie mumbled as he started ripping off the wires attached to it. He needed wanted the core regardless. He was just expecting it to be at least uncommon.

He brought the glowing crystal ball out as the pulsing stopped.

Suddenly, the entire metal arm was lifted up into the air, it was pulled up by three of the golems; with at least 30 others all standing around. He was pulled up high and the only thing Eddie could see was hundreds of glowing red crystals examining him.

He hurriedly escaped out of the metal frame and without even hesitating, jumped. He cradled the core like a golem before placing it in his inventory.

A crane-like hand was ejected from a golem, it caught Eddie completely in its grasp.

“No!” Eddie screamed.

As he was being pulled back up, he thought of ways to escape.

“Uhhh-uhhh-AHHH!”

A light bulb shone so brightly atop his head it even blinded the golems. Eddie started taking all the scrap metal out of his inventory in hopes of weighing down the crane. Iron bars, scrap metal, rotten food- it all flew out of his inventory.

He could hear the retraction system of the golem creek which only made him pour more out.

The golem used all of its strength but it was too much, and the difference started making it slip. The trash slipped underneath its feet and it fell off.

“I did it!” Eddie screamed in victory.

He was falling into a whirlpool of lava, but he had managed to acquire the golem core. He hurriedly tried to put everything else back as he and the golem and free-fell into the hole.