Hurtling down into the pit, Jicker managed to grab on what seemed be a broken off mast of a ship, sticking out of the garbage, saving himself from crashing into the ground and having to go to respawn already. If he was going to be able to pull this off again, he needed to start as strong as he could manage.

Clinging to what was left of the rigging, he took a moment to catch his breath and take stock. Starting locations varied, he knew, but he hadn’t expected anything this rough. Still, he was alive, and could begin working on getting out of here to have any chance of meeting the developer’s demands.

Ding!

Quest: Escape the Pit.

You have been sent to the Pit, and are unable to leave until you beat someone from outside, or gain the warden’s approval. Leaving without achieving this will cause you to be teleported to the centre of the Pit after thirty seconds.

Success: Gain your freedom

Reward: 1000xp

Failure: N/A

“Really, I need to escape? I never would have guessed” He complained to himself. Opening up his inventory to see what starting equipment he’d been given, he was disappointed to see it was a single item “dirty rags”, no properties or stats, just something to prevent gremlin nudity, for which he was thankful. Going over the rest of his menus, he began to adjust his settings and preferences, turning down damage notifiers, adjusting colour schemes and setting things up the same as his old character. He saw one notification that he hadn’t been expecting, and upon opening it up, he spent a moment reading through it before logging out.

~~~~~~

Sarah’s voice greeted him as soon as reality began to fade back in. “That wasn’t very long. Changing your mind about the gremlin? I was tracking you, so you can see what I meant about them right?”

Removing the mask, Matt blinked as his eyes adjusted and shook his head. “No. I mean, yeah, I wasn’t expecting a start quite that...extreme, but I can handle it. No, the problem is I have achievements.”

She raised an eyebrow. “What do you mean? You were playing for less than five minutes.”

“I mean- look, let me pull up my character sheet.” He said. Reaching over to her terminal he logged into his account and brought up his characters information. A lot of people kept this sort of thing private, since even the tiniest bit of information could become an advantage to the right sort of person.

Name:

Jicker

Level:

1

Race:

Gremlin

Class:

Dark Chemist

Hp:

50

Mp:

100

Stamina:

50

Statistics

Equipped weapons

Damage:

Equipped Armour

Defence:

Dirty rags

Statistics

Core Statistics

Other Statistics

Strength:

5

None

Dexterity:

10

Constitution:

5

Intelligence:

12

Wisdom:

10

Resistances:

Poison:

50%

Disease:

50%

Skills

Mother of Invention - Level 1

Achievements

Grand Genocide

Kill over 20 million sentients within 1 hour

Unique-Effect:

30% damage and ability effectiveness against sentients

Force of Change

Destroy and create over 1000 dungeons

Unique-Effect:

Creating or altering areas or creatures will be 100% more effective

World Shaper

Permanently alter the geography of the world on a grand scale

Level-Max-Effect:

Effect: Permanent effects will be 100% more effective

King Killer

Kill 50 leaders of states, royal or other.

Level-Max-Effect:

Boss and Leader resistances reduced by 60%

“Well aren’t you lucky? Not many people, if any, can boast achievements like those.” She said after reading for a few moments.

“Are you kidding? I shouldn’t have any achievements! That’s all stuff from... before. Not things I've done today.” He said annoyed at her reaction.

“Relax. It’s uncommon, but not unheard of, for the AI to let a person keep certain achievements when making a new character. Usually they’re ones relating to personal achievement, rather than skill or level, things that can’t really be repeated. Yours though... I’d say the AI is sending you a message.”

“Wait, what?”

“The systems a lot smarter than most people give it credit for, and I’d say this is a pretty clear way, along with your race, that it knows who you are, and it’s not exactly happy with you. Since they’re pretty damn good ones, I wouldn’t say its angry exactly, but it’s definitely going to be watching you, so I’d recommend not going against it again.”

“But anyone who looks at my information will see these! There’s only one person who they could belong to!” Matt panicked, running his fingers through his hair.

“Well,” Sarah began, as if speaking to a small child, “You can go into your options, find this button called privacy settings-“

“I get it!” He interrupted. “I just... look; it’s been a long day, ok?”

She looked at him closely for a moment. “Hmmm, yeah I suppose your right. You can head home if you want, I’ve got all the information I need to pass on to the board. Give me a ring if anything else comes up.” She said, handing him a card with her number on it. “And if you call me after hours, it’d better be important or you’ll regret it. A girl needs her beauty sleep, got it?”

“Got it. If that’s all we have to do, I'm out. I suppose ill hear from someone later this week about my ‘task’.” He said getting up to leave.

Sarah gave him a sad smile. “You’ve been given a rough deal Matt, but the thing is, you made your own bed on this one.”

He sighed. “I know. Now I just need to make sure I don’t get buried in it.”

The company was nice enough to pay for a cab to take him home, since a company car might attract attention even at this late hour. Stumbling through his front door, he made it five minutes before he broke down. Swearing, screaming and putting dents in the walls, he cursed anything and everything involved in this mess. Collapsing onto the couch, with his eyes red and his voice hoarse, he knew that in truth he was the real reason for his predicament. He was the one who spent all his time planning his attack, figuring out the loopholes to pull it off, to the point where most of his friends had drifted away. In the end it was on him. The developers were definitely taking advantage of the situation, but he was the one who made it.

Pulling himself together, he got up and cooked himself some eggs, his stomaching making it clear it hadn’t eaten since lunch. The one good thing, he thought as he ate, was that once again Genesis was a game. New waves of players were coming in; quests and territory disputes were apparently popping up all over the continent. The AI was apparently also taking advantage of his work; guilds were once again racing to be the first to conquer new dungeons and bosses that had sprung up.

Maybe, just maybe, things had actually worked out for the best. And with that in mind, he went and picked up his own headset, settled in for the night, and sunk himself into the game.

~~~~~~

As soon as he entered, he almost fell to his death before he remembered to grab onto the mast rigging. Fortunately the system had a form of time dilation, so while it was late at night in the real world, he was able to check out his surroundings during the day. Not that there was much sun anyway, with only a few rays managing to come through the various cracks in the roof of the cavern. It seemed gremlins had pretty good night vision, as he could make out details pretty well even in this dim light.

As he began to climb down from his perch, he began to make a list of what he needed to do, an old habit from his time as a tinker.

Get a hold some kind of weapon or means to defend himself, armour as well if he could. Find a safe place where he could hide and store what possessions he had and acquired. Figure out how his abilities worked. Plan on how to get out of the Pit.

It seemed simple enough once you broke it down, so now he had to get to work. Anything could be used as weapon, but obviously properly produced items were a lot more powerful. He’d spent years as a tinker, a class based almost entirely on putting things together, so he had a fair idea of how to put together some junk into something passable. The only problem was that he was used to working with actual tools and supplies, and right now he was lacking both.

The simplest option would be a club of some sort, but with his dismal strength it would be next to useless, leading him to his next choice, a shiv. It was simple to find a sharp edge; the place was littered with things that could hurt you if you weren’t careful. He managed to track down what seemed to be a copper ladle that had cracked along its handle, leaving a long, tapering edge where the grip used to be. Bending the bowl end around on itself with a rock, he made a rough handle with what he hopped was just a dirty, and not soiled, rag. The result was a crude and ugly knife with an attempt at a hand guard, but it was something.

Junk sabre

Item type: Weapon

Grade: Common

2-5 damage

This blade is so foul you are likely to catch a disease just by wielding it

“And so it begins again.” He muttered to himself. He looked around to see if he could fashion some clothes, but sadly his own filthy rags were in better condition than anything else he could see. Tying his knife to his waist with a piece of half rotted rope, he set out to see about step 2 of the plan, finding somewhere to live.

Despite the fact you were technically sleeping while you were playing, your character had no such luck and needed to rest, or large penalties would quickly build up. Normally you’d do it in town, where there were restrictions about attacking players in their sleep. But here, he had no such luck. Travelling around the Pit, he sought out somewhere he could bunker down, while trying his best to avoid the other Pit dwellers. A few places, piles of crates or what looked like shattered buildings, looked like they’d do, but when he began to approach for a better look, it quickly became obvious that they were already taken. Jicker was fully aware that his odds of winning a fight were slim to none at the moment, so the last thing he wanted to do was start challenging people. Returning to the mast where he’d started from he went to go and climb up again, to try and see if there were any other good looking spots. But as he approached he noticed something. The ground, though covered in mud and filth, was creaking as he walked on it; more so the closer he got to the mast.

“I wonder...” He muttered to himself, scratching at his chin. He’d assumed it was just a broken off mast that had been thrown in, but if they threw in entire chunks of buildings, maybe it was more than that. Pacing around, he tried to find where the sounds were loudest, appreciating his oversized ears for the first time. Finding a spot that seemed right, he began digging down into the muck and sure enough, after only about a foot of filth, he found what seemed to be the deck of a ship.

He hadn’t been much of a sailor when he had played before, but if you wanted to travel the world, there were times when a ship was your only option. Wracking his brain, he tried to remember where the hatches were to the ships hold. After a lot of trial and error, he found one, an old rusted hatch, still sealed shut since it had been thrown in the Pit. Chipping away at the rust with his sword, he pried it open, making sure no one was around to see him. The last thing he wanted was to give away his location straight away. Dropping down into the dark of the ship, he was overjoyed with what he saw. The hull was, for the most part, still intact, barring a few holes where dirt and rock had poured through, sealing the gaps. Broken chairs and table, rusted lanterns and cracked barrels, littered the floor, but despite this, it was clean.

“This will do nicely.” He declared happily, and got to work. The first step was to go back to the surface and fill in the various holes he’d made to hide it as best he could. After that he began to pile up all of the broken objects to one side, giving himself space to move around. The rear of the ship appeared to have been broken and crushed, but that still left him with a good twenty by forty feet, more than enough space to work in.

Piling up some old sacks, he sat down; stretching out the kinks in is muscles. For a digital game, he thought as he got comfortable, it sure was lifelike. It always amazed him just how real everything seemed to be, even when he knew it wasn’t.

“Okay, time to focus.” He said slapping himself on the cheeks. He opened up his character sheet, to get a proper look at his abilities. It was split up into three trees, each focusing on a different aspect of his class.

Medicinal Abilities:

Anaesthetic-Create a dose of healing salve, restoring health and applying a damage resistance buff.

Effect: +10hp + 1 per level, 15% physical damage resisted for 1 minute. Recipe: 1 unit of water, 10 mana. 10 minute cooldown.

Adrenaline-Create a dose that when injected increases attack speed and stamina regeneration.

Effect: 30% attack speed and stamina regeneration for 1 minute. Recipe: 1 unit of water, 1 unit of blood, 10 mana. 10 minute cooldown.

Poison Abilities:

Chemist shot- create a dose of poison; can only be used by creator

Effect: 20 damage + 1 per level over twenty seconds. Special: 50% bonus damage if injected. Recipe: 1 unit of water, 10 mana. 10 minute cooldown.

Tranquiliser- Create a dose of numbing agent, slowing target and have a chance to put them to sleep.

Effect: 20% reduction in movement and attack speed, 5% chance of sleep, based on difference between creators and targets level. Recipe: 1 unit of water, 1 unit of ash, 10 mana. 30 minute cooldown.

Life Shaping Abilities:

Adaptation-Modify a willing, restrained or unconscious living creatures form temporarily.

Effect: Extents of modification limited by levels of subject and caster. Duration: 4 hours, has a 2% chance of becoming permanent, based on level and changes.100 mana cost, Minimum 10 minute casting time.

“Great, just...great.” He muttered bitterly. The class was apparently heavily based on crafting, with almost all of his abilities needing to be made and prepared well in advance, with the exception of adaptation, which he didn’t know what to make of. But in his trip around the Pit, he hadn’t seen a water source, let alone the equipment he’d need to brew potions. As it was, he had spent most of the day digging and clearing out his new home, so for the time being he decided to turn in for the night. Making sure the hatch was shut; he buried himself in the sacks and went to sleep.