Several days of hunting had gone by but he was making progress on his latest plan. It had taken a lot of trial and error, enough that his failures had put him up to level 5. Using tranquilisers, he’d carefully collected a few dozen roaches and taken them alive, storing them in a pen he’d constructed in his home. He’d had to rebuild and reinforce their cage twice already; not from them trying to escape, but from Snuffles deciding it was easier than hunting. Jicker had finally gotten through to the rat that these weren’t food, though one still went missing on occasion.

But now that he had plenty to test with, he got to work. Taking one of them out of cage, he carefully sedated it and restrained as best he could with some cords had collected for this purpose.

Once it was fully immobilised he got to work, using his adaption ability to try and change the features of the roaches. It was slow going, since he wasn’t sure exactly how you went about changing the taste of an animal’s meat, but he adjusted a few settings and tweaked a few numbers until he had a cockroach that looked similar to the normal ones, but more muscular, and for some reason, blue.

Once the change was complete he picked up a sword and killed it quickly, seeing no point in causing the simple creature any more pain. But as soon as it died, its form began to flicker and melt, returning to become the body of a normal roach.

“Damn it!” Jicker swore. Apparently, if it wasn’t permanent, it wouldn’t stick beyond death, which means he couldn’t even test whether he was going in the right direction. Unless...

Waiting for the ability’s cool down to reset, he modified another roach, repeating his efforts as closely as he could. However this time, rather than try and kill it himself, he woke Snuffles from his nap. Throwing the experiment to the rat, he tried to judge the difference by Snuffles reaction as he ate it in a single bite out of the air. By the way he quickly spat out as much as he could and went to his water bowl, it seemed he’d gone in the wrong direction.

It took several attempts to find one that was considered good enough for Snuffles to actually eat, having to be bribed and cajoled into it after the first failure. The result was a large, light blue roach the size of a golden retriever. The first sign he had of his success was the rat’s nose twitching slightly before leaping on top of it and biting a chunk out of it.

Ding!

Adaptation has become permanent. Creature remains too similar to existing creatures become unique, adaptation can be repeated at a 10% chance of permanency

Type: Modified Pit Roach. Level: 5

Do you wish to name this creature?

Well, it wasn’t unique, but he’d managed to make another permanent change, though the rate Snuffles was going through it, it wouldn’t last long. Quickly carving off a large chunk, he spitted it and put it over his fire, leaving the rest for the rat to finish off. As it cooked, a delicious savoury scent filled the room, the first decent thing Mat had smelled since coming into the Pit. Eventually he decided he’d waited long enough and cut himself off a piece and tried it. Gone was the taste of rotting fruit, instead there was a delicate taste that reminded him of mushrooms , combined with a strong base of chicken, leaving him with a juicy cut of meat that was something he’d choose to eat.

He couldn’t remember what had come over him, but before he knew it he’d eaten a few pounds of it, the rest having vanished into the ever hungry rodent that was now happily lying on its back digesting its meal by the fire. He grinned at Snuffles.

“I definitely need to make more of those... shoot! I still need to name it!” he said, reopening the menu, relieved to see the prompt still waiting for him and racked his brain for a name. “The name will be...Azure Roach.”

Name accepted. Do you wish to be identified as the creator?

“No.” Maybe he’d want to attach his name to something one day, but until he was in a better position, these would remain anonymous. As it was, he now had real food, clean water and warm clothes. With all that giving him a warm feeling he lay down by the fire himself, and got some rest.

Creator will remain unknown. Now applying changes to creature.

The increased creation chance, combined with his achievement bonuses, meant that he had around a one in three chance of creating the new Azure Roaches. It only took two days before then pen he’d built had become packed with them. He wanted to make sure he had plenty of them, not wanting to go back to eating the regular kind now that he had an option to eat literally anything else. Snuffles apparently shared the sentiment, and had began dropping live roaches in the pen before dragging a larger one out, making Jicker wonder just how smart he’d become.

Slowly, his stock began to grow, to the point he considered trying to trade some of them away for other supplies. The problem was that while there would definitely be interest in them, he couldn’t think of a way to stop people just coming in and taking them if they knew he had some. Coming to a decision, he loosed his herd of roaches out through the rear tunnel, away from his home. Snuffles whined in complaint, not happy with his food walking away.

“Don’t worry,” he said, scratching the rat’s ears, “I’ll make some more later.” The plan was to let people see the roaches in the wild, so they would assume they came from him. That way he could still produce them in secret, but be able to trade them more openly. It was going fine to begin with, as the roaches began to spread out as they left the tunnel, their shells glistening in the sunlight, when the game grabbed his attention.

Enough Azure Roaches now exist in the wild that they are now a sustainable species.

Do you accept?

What did it mean by that? And what exactly was it asking him to decide? He tried to remember if any nature documentaries had talked about this, but nothing came to mind. Eventually he just gave up and decided to chance it.

“Yes.” He said, far more confidently than he felt.

Azure Roaches are now a full species of Genesis.

They will now breed and spawn naturally within this area, and slowly spread to other areas in the world that can sustain them.

Azure Roaches can no longer be created. You cannot create other species from Azure Roaches.

Evolution has increased by 1! Total: 2

“Heh, Snuffles is gonna be mad.” Jicker muttered to himself. Falling to the ground, he sat there for a while unsure of how to react. He’d been playing for only a few weeks now, and only just passed level 4, something that could be done in a few hours normally. At least, it would anywhere else other than this damn Pit. But even so, without really meaning to, he’d just released a brand new species across all of Genesis. He could predict and guess how a new boss monster would fit into the world, which was simple. It would make itself a lair, that people would find, hunt and slay it and that it would drop some items of varying value, end of story.

But introducing an entire new species? Even if, somehow, no one ever saw it, it would have an impact. It would eat and become food for other creatures, throwing of their own balances. They might spread out to look for food, or be drawn in by the new prey. And that was just the beginning, in the real world; there were hundreds of species that had gone extinct when a foreign one was introduced. There was no way of telling where the effects of this would end, and he hadn’t even known what he was doing.

Eventually, he dragged himself back inside before he got spotted. Throwing a few planks into the fire pit, he sat down and lay there, staring at the ceiling, lost in his thoughts. Snuffles came in after a while and dropped a normal roach down beside him, expecting him to change it for him.

“Sorry bud, no can do, but there are some outside so help yourself.” He said tiredly as the rat stared at him patiently. Giving a snort, Snuffles bumped him with his snout and headed outside. Getting up to throw the roach that’d been left into the now empty pen he stood aimlessly for a minute, unsure of what to do. Giving up, he moved over the pile of old sacks that had become his bed, and took a nap.

Crack!

Rubbing his eyes, Jicker slowly got up, wondering what had gotten him up before his alarm. Looking around he saw that Snuffles was still asleep in the middle of the room, legs in the air, wiggling as he pursued something in his dreams. Assuming it wasn’t a threat if it hadn’t disturbed the rat, he went out to see what the noise was. Poking his head out of the trap door, he looked for where it had come from. He didn’t have to look far, as buried deep in the mast of the ship was a long spear.

Wrapped around the shaft of the weapon was a band of cloth covering what looked like a box. He was going to leave, not wanting to fight whoever it belonged to when he noticed a piece of paper with his name sticking out.

It took a while to pull it out of the mast but eventually he managed it and brought it inside. Removing the paper, it turned out to be a letter from Morthoc.

Jicker,

First off, while I'm sure you feel your fairly well hidden from others in the Pit, you are much easier to spot coming and going from outside. You should endeavour to correct this immediately if you plan to ever make it out.

As I agreed, I have sought out a way for you to store what medicines and poisons you could produce. Like I had assumed, there are very few who practice the healing arts to any great degree, people mostly relying on smaller healing magic or simply ignoring the problem, as is the orcish way. Nevertheless, I swore, and so I have acquired the items in this box for you. The lore keepers said they could achieve what you asked for if used properly, though they look like they will take more work than you may have expected.

With this, my debt to you is paid in full, and unless you escape the Pit, you will not hear from me again.

Good luck,

Morthoc

After reading the letter, Jicker's first thought was that the orc had surprisingly nice handwriting for a savage warrior. Then he put such thoughts aside and began unwinding the package on the spear to see what it contained. Over 8 feet long, the spear was far too big for him to use as a weapon, but here, everything had to be valued, even the wrapping would be carefully stored away. Looking at the unwrapped objects, they appeared to be a book and some kind of tool box. He decided to examine the book first, figuring it would make more sense.

Master Kremels advanced guide to medicine

Item type: Skill book

Grade: Rare

Uses: 1

This Skill book can be used to instantly grant the apothecary skill.

Well, Jicker thought, skills were always useful, and a free one was hard to come by. He couldn’t remember off the top of his head what the apothecary skill gave you, but he assumed that it would be something to do with the box that had come with it.

Pill shaping kit

Item type: Crafting kit

Grade: Rare

This kit contains all necessary moulds and tools to produce pills and tablets.

“Not what I was expecting,” He said to himself, “But I guess it will work.” Picking up the book he triggered it and accepted it’s prompt.

You have unlocked the Apothecary skill!

Current level: 1

Allows for the creation, enhancement and understating of various medicinal recipes.

Recipe gained: Inert powder – 5 units of limestone, 5 units of salt & 7 units of water- produces 10 units of Inert powder.

Inert powder can be blended with any liquid or powders medicine or poison and processed to produce pills of weaker quality.

1 dose of selected medicine and 1 unit of inert powder produce 3 pills at %30 the strength of the initial medicine.

This would definitely be useful, he decided. Looking in the box, he saw that Morthoc had thoughtfully included a small jar of premade powder, which would useful since he doubted he’d be able to get many of the necessary ingredients down here, at least not easily. The book had more uses than just giving him the skill it seemed, as he opened it to have a look. Inside were carefully drawn diagrams and procedures of how to use the equipment, of how to extract substances from plants and animals and of how to identify various diseases. He wasn’t sure how much of it he would end up putting to use, but when he had the time, he promised himself he would study it and learn what he could.

Looking at the jar of powder, it didn’t look like he had enough for more than ten or so batches, but he had to start somewhere. Carefully measuring out the amount needed with a little cup that came in the kit, he poured it into a small beaker. Then, creating a dose of anaesthetic with his boiled water, he poured that in as well and began to stir the flask, the contents giving off a pale light as they changed. After a few moments the colour changed, becoming a pale yellow as a sign that this step was complete. Pouring the mix into a small press from the kit, he selected an appropriate mould from the box and pressed down hard.

Despite the press only having a single mould inside, and the contents seeming far too much to stay inside, by the games laws the recipe completed, leaving him with three small yellow pills as a result.

Anaesthetic Tablet

Item type: medicine

Grade: Common, created by Jicker (Level 5)

Effect: +4hp, 4% physical damage resisted for 1 minute

At the moment, he thought while studying his work, they weren’t great, being less effective than just having the effect directly. But as his mastery of the skill improved, he was sure that it would become a very effective tool. The problem now would be trying to get a hold of more of the inert powder to work with; otherwise it wouldn’t do him any good at all. An idea struck him, but he quickly drove it from his mind, trying to convince himself of what he was trying to do.

“Clearly,” he said loudly to himself, “the person who wrote this book didn’t know what they were doing. Their powder recipe is completely wrong.”

Snuffles woke up at the sudden outburst, looking at him oddly as he walked over to the fire.

“I have no idea why he uses such useless ingredients when all you really need is some ash and water and you can make up some powder as easy as that.” Jicker grabbed a handful of ash and dropped it in a beaker before sloshing in some water and began swirling it around, trying to act as confidently as he could. For a while nothing happened, but he refused to break and after a few minutes...

Mother of Invention! You have discovered an alternate recipe for inert powder! 2 units of ash & 2 units of water produce 1 unit of inert powder. This version will only work for you.

“Ha ha!” he laughed dancing around the room. He’d done it; he’d gotten the system to accept his idea despite the fact it had no reason to. An old memory suddenly sprung to mind, from back before he’d first started to play the game. He’d been a part of a huge dungeon clearing operation and saw someone playing as a monk doing things that seemed impossible even by the games rules and logic. When he questioned the about it they’d said it was something anyone could do if they tried. When Jicker had disagreed, saying he wouldn’t be able to do it in a million years, the monk grinned at him.

“There’s a reason why the word impossible starts with I. If you can’t make yourself believe you can do it, what chance do you have to convince the universe?” Those words had stuck with him for a long time, and were one of driving forces behind his upheaval.

That was the trick to it apparently. If you could make yourself believe it would work, then it seemed more likely that it would. It wouldn’t work every time, of that he was sure, but once in a while he could do it. Scooping up as much ash as he could from around the fire, which had built up over the past few weeks, Jicker began mass producing the powder, and began creating his healing pills and poisons as quickly as he could. He soon realised a problem however. While this was a good way of storing them, the small pellets wouldn’t be able to poison his blowgun darts. He either had to continue using it in its previous state, or come up with something else.

Looking through the case to see if there was anything else he could use, he found a larger, slightly oval shaped mould the size of his thumbnail. Measuring it against his blowgun, he made a batch of poison using it hoping it was what he thought it was.

Poison pellet

Recipe: 1 dose of selected poison and 1 unit of inert powder produce 2 pills at %40 the strength of the initial poison.

Item type: Ammunition

Grade: Common, created by Jicker (Level 5)

Effect: 10 damage over 20 seconds

Special: This ammunition is too fragile to do any physical damage, and will not apply its poison if it doesn’t make contact with skin or a vital area.

“Perfect.” Jicker said, grabbing a tin and loading the pellets in. It wouldn’t work on heavily armoured opponents, but here in the Pit where the best armour was a few planks tied to your chest? It would definitely be enough to get him through. Now he just needed to build up enough to use and he’d be one step closer to escaping the Pit. It was slow going, since he had to wait for his abilities to refresh every time, but eventually he made as many as he could, at least until he burned more wood to make more powder. Deciding to take a break while he thought about what to do next, he logged out.

~~~~~~

Cooking an omelette to eat, Matt turned on the news. It looked like the news teams had gotten around to tracking down and interviewing his old guild mates and friends. The way they all seemed happy enough to sell him out for their fifteen minutes of fame made him happy he’d never revealed any personal information.

“-used to play with him a few years ago. Seemed like a normal enough guy, you know? But I suppose they always do right? Anyway, yeah, so me and a few others used to run with Maser, just doing normal quests and stuff. Then after a while he started getting more depressing and quieter, so we left him, and a lot of us stopped playing not long after that. We would have checked up on him, but he’d been really strict about never telling us anything about himself. Oh man, do you think he’d planned this from the start? That’d be crazy, right?”

Plating up his meal, he sighed. He certainly hadn’t planned it out from the beginning, but he did have very good reasons for keeping his identity secret. Back when he’d first started playing; there had been a lot of cases where people had pretended to be someone else to steal information, or even to lure people to places in the real world. The police had come down hard on it, and it didn’t happen anymore, except in a few rare cases, but it was a habit he was now glad that had stuck with him.

He’d only just started eating when the phone rang, the caller ID showing it to be Sarah.

“Sarah, what’s up? “ He asked, wondering what was going on this time.

“Matt, what have you been up too? I've been waiting for you to come out for most of a day now?”

“I’ve just working on a few things, practicing some skills, that sort of stuff. Is everything ok? You sound... concerned.”

“Right, that’s good, that’s... Matt, the boss wants to talk to you, and Matt? He didn’t sound happy. I need to put him though now, so watch what you say ok?” She said, the worry plain in her voice.

“I’ll try to keep myself under control, thanks for the heads up.” He said as the call cut out and was replaced with hold music. He was left wondering what had happened for a few minutes, before the music dropped suddenly, leaving him with the CEO, his voice cold.

“I gave you a single job, Mr. Harper, something I believed you had the intelligence to do without screwing up.”

For the first time since he’d met the man, Matt could hear anger in August’s voice.

“I’m doing the job. I've spent damn near every moment in game for the past three weeks.” He replied.

“And what part of the job was it, pray tell, to cost me over three point two million dollars? Because I don’t recall that little sidenote in the contract, or did I simply miss that part?” he said, his voice dripping with venom.

“I... Really don’t understand what you mean, Sir.”

“No? Then let’s have a bit of story time then shall we? In the wonderful world of Genesis there are many different classes and skills, allowing you to become and do whatever you want. Some of these are things are painters, cartographers and all sorts of artists. But the amazing and vibrant colours they use have to come from somewhere. Purple and blue in particular are very hard to come by. Purple usually comes from mixing more common red dyes with the aforementioned blue. Do you know where the biggest source of blue was?”

“No.” Said Matt quietly, not liking where this was going.

“No? Well I’ll tell you. The largest and easiest to access source of blue dye was a large flower plantation that was set up by a small, privately owned company, which sold dye all across the continent. That is, until recently. You see, now there are these giant blue cockroaches that are popping up in sewers and dumps all over the place that have shells that can be ground up into a decent quality blue pigment. Now everyone can go and get blue dye easily, and not need to buy it, which means the price has dropped through the floor. Now, would you like to take a fucking guess who owned that company?!” He all but screamed.

Matt was silent for a moment, not sure how to respond as he felt the blood rush from his face. “I didn’t mean to, I didn’t even know-“

“Oh, I'm shocked, that the grocery store worker didn’t know the financial backers of various global organisations. Luckily, despite your actions, Miss Tolson informed me of your actions soon enough that I was able to shift the majority of my holdings in the company and avoid making a loss there in addition to the missing profits. Now then,” He paused for a moment before resuming his normal cheerful and calm tone of voice. “It is clear enough to me that you didn’t know that your actions would affect me in anyway. Indeed, I have doubts that you’ve thought much on the economical implications of much that you’ve done. Your Roaches, an impressive feat, a first in fact from what I've been told, have sent ripples throughout the world. Minor ones, it’s true, but ripples none the less.

People are now switching their choices of paintings and art. Cartographers, already a booming business of late thanks to your reshaping of the landscape, are now turning to the sea as the prices for the special nautical maps have dropped. What I'm getting at is this: Even the seemingly smallest change to the world at that level can have huge effects. Think butterflies and hurricanes, as the old saying goes. In that regard, you are now to inform me via Miss Tolson, of any and all plans of the introduction of new species. Am I clear, Mr. Harper?”

“Yes Mr. Fronz. Um, what about the one-offs, the unique monsters? Do you want me to pass on those as well, because I'm not sure I really can until they’re done...?”

“I very much doubt that a single creature will affect the world economy to a great degree, though if you feel that it’s possible, give word to Miss Tolson as soon as possible. Now I have one last thing to say, Matthew, are you listening?” He said his voice going quiet and emotionless.

“Yes.” Matt whispered, his throat going dry.

“If you ever cost me money again because of something you’ve done, I will not give your details to anyone. Instead, I will personally come to your house, and break every bone in your body. Good evening, Mr. Harper.”

With that the phone went dead, leaving Matt stunned. He’d realised adding a species would have wider effects than Snuffles had, but he hadn’t expected it to be that big a deal. In his daze, he almost dropped his phone when it suddenly rang again.

“Sarah? What, does he want to yell some more?” he said.

“No, this is just me. Sorry about the whole being left responsible thing. I mean, even he knows it’s not like you did anything intentionally and were just doing what you were told, but he likes being able to point fingers at people. We probably should take his advice on that one though, and keep more in the loop about what you make to avoid this happening again. I mean, I get that it wasn’t your plan, but why did you make those roaches anyway?”

“Well, there’s not much to eat in the Pit, and I was hungry, so...” he said awkwardly. Sarah went silent for a few moments.

“You cost him over three million dollars, because you wanted something else for lunch. I think it might be best if we keep that detail a secret and don’t tell him, ever.”

“Good idea.” He agreed whole heartedly, not wanting to know how August would react.

“Certainly a better one than yours was. Anyway, this is about that info you asked me to get. I've put together a list of everything I could find on the basics of creatures in Genesis, as well as a compilation of all the skills I could find that might be helpful. Stats were harder, and I ended up giving up there if I'm honest. I’ve never even heard of evolution, so I have no idea how it will interact with anything.”

“Me neither until now, but so far it’s been proving useful. I’ll track down a Dark Chemist trainer and see if they can give me any clues.”

“That could be more difficult than you think Matt.” She said slowly.

“Why? Are they only in one specific area or something? Or is there some weird initiation ritual involving running around town naked or something?” He asked jokingly, trying to lighten his mood after the last call.

“You wish. Actually from what I can tell, and believe me I've looked, there are no trainers for that class anywhere.” She said, trying to sound dramatic, but failing as she laughed at her own attempt.

Matt chuckled. “Ha-ha. Are you serious? I thought there are supposed to be trainers for every class.”

“There should be, and from what I’m seeing here, there were to begin with. But somehow they started disappearing a few years ago.”She said more seriously.

“Can that happen? I didn’t think that sort of NPC could be killed.”

“No, they can’t, so I've got no idea what’s going on with that. Either way though, you won’t get any help there. Speaking of which, I've sent you an item in game.”

“I thought there were rules about getting in game help from the company.” He said curiously.

“There are, but in every rule there are loopholes. How do you think Mr. Fronz owns things in a game he’s not allowed to play? Anyway, it’s an item that can summon a little avatar for me, so you can contact me while playing. They can be acquired by normal players, so it’s fair. They're usually just ways for workers here to be able to play, as NPC guides or messengers, or godlike avatars for those who investigate cheaters. It’s the only way we can really play since there are some pretty heavy laws about people who work here playing within three months of being on payroll. So next time you’re working on something, let me know.”

“You can do that? That’s pretty cool. Well, I'm going to spend some time going over the information and maybe take a break and clear my head. I guess I’ll talk to you later?”

“You know it Matt, take care.”

He spent the rest of the afternoon going over the information she’d sent over, though he wasn’t sure how much of it was sinking in. He knew August was a hard man, far harder than his media presence had let on, but those threats had come from such a dark place, he wondered if he had any real idea who he was involved with. They’d worked though, and there was no way he was crossing that guy if he could help it.

In the end, he admitted to himself that all of this information, while useful, wouldn’t do anything for him until he got to a town where he could actually try and grow. As it was, he was lucky to have two skills, and a stat that would definitely give him an edge in the end. Evolution would in the end, he realised, start to give him substantial rewards. At the moment it gave him a tiny fraction of a percent of the experience earned by creatures he made. But if those creatures numbered in the hundreds of thousands and were spread all across the continent... it would add up faster than you’d think.

Deciding that he needed to get out of the Pit as soon as possible to really get to work, he began to plan on getting out.

~~~~~~

Things were going slowly with his efforts to increase his level, but now that he could more reliably use his poison when he needed it, Jicker was now making progress. His strategy could be called cowardly, and Jicker would be amongst the first to agree with them, but here and now it was more important to win than fight honourably. The plan was simple: find an opponent and strike them with one of his pellets, or a dart if he could. Then he simply ran and hid while the poison went to work, and repeated until they died. It was slow, dirty and unfair but soon he began to be able to bring down several Pit dwellers in an afternoon without being seen. Then he’d collect whatever he could from them before heading home to restock. He’d finally reached a point where it wasn’t realistic to carry everything with him, even with a pack. Fortunately, he hadn’t worried about someone coming and robbing him in a long time, not while he had a rather large houseguest.

Snuffles began spending the day elsewhere, roaming around or hunting for food, his larger size needing to eat a lot more than he used to. For a while Jicker wondered whether the rat would just leave altogether, but he always came back as the sun went down, curling up by the fire and even bringing some bits of food back for Jicker in exchange for filling a bowl of clean water for him.

Food had become an interesting situation in the Pit. Others had quickly discovered the azure roaches, and just as quickly started killing and eating them. With a real food source to be found, outsiders had started trading small items for the bugs. Whether they wanted the meat or the shells, he wasn’t sure, but Jicker had started to collect and store all of the shells he and Snuffles picked up. It was this interest in the roaches, which gave Jicker the beginnings of his idea on how to get out. He’d stock up on as many potions and poisons as he could, make sure his equipment was in as good a condition as he could make it, and then, once he hit level ten, he’d go for it. Already having hit level eight from his hunting, he was filled with confidence, finally seeing an end to his time stuck down here.