I found myself on a rather uncomfortable stone slab in utter darkness. A quick thought activated darkvision, and the world resolved itself into greyscale. I was in the middle of a rough hewn chamber, roughly ten feet across. Walking over to one of the walls, it was criss crossed by sets of four parallel scratches. Holding up one of my hands, it was rather obvious this was the work of the claws of kobolds. I turned back to the table I awoke on, and it was merely a solid slab in the middle of the room. Beyond the table, I noticed something odd. There was a void in the middle of the wall. A simple oval of blackness, with absolutely no texture to it at all, as if there was just a hole in the world. Cautiously creeping closer, I was flummoxed after a few steps. The hole receded at the same speed as I did, revealing a hallway with the same carving marks as the chamber. Tilting my head in curiosity, I watched as flickers of color appeared and grew larger in the middle of the darkness. These flickers rapidly resolved into a massive kobold with a torch in one hand and a massive axe in the other. He was flanked by two all black priests with staves made from the spine of some creature.

“Hmph. Not completely useless. I guess you’ll have to do.” The lead creature spoke with a dismissive voice. “Ready?”

“Ready for what?”

“Old man didn’t explain? Figures. Ok, first things first you have three minutes to pick a skill get awoken. After that you will be transferred to our instanced dungeon, the Kobold Warrens, where you will have an hour to get used to the layout before it is eligible to be raided by the forces of light. You will stay there for a week, eight hours of raiding eligibility per day. The rest is your free time. Food and water will be provided, and you will get a starter spear. So, what skill do you want? Time starts now.”

Seriously? I’ve been in the game for less than ten minutes and I get this dropped in my lap? This sucks! OK, time to think. What skill would be useful? Weapons skills? No, I won’t get much of a boost, and I don’t even have a decent weapon. Besides, I have a feeling the only weapon I can choose is a spear right now, and I am terrible with those. Seriously, I would be more likely to hit myself than an enemy. Magic? No, at level one my mana is too low to depend on that for my primary weapon. Wait! “Mana excavation. I choose to have mana excavation activated.”

The hulk blinked at me several times, before beckoning one of the priests forward. His staff started to glow with strands of green and brown, and he reached forward and tapped me on the head with it. The glow flowed into my forehead as knowledge opened inside my mind. How mana would coat the edges of my claws, and break the bonds between the rock leaving nothing but dust behind.

“All good? Good. Here is your spear. Remember, one hour in the caves until the light can attack.”

“Wait, wait just a minute. What rules do we have to abide by? Will I earn experience? What level are my enemies?” I desperately asked questions, knowledge was vastly important.

“Fine, I’ll explain. Your earned experience will be deferred, and awarded at the end of your week, along with any titles you may have acquired. Your opponents will be up to level 5, and you will most likely die many times. Don’t worry, your gear will not degrade and you will respawn with no penalties. You are limited to the top floor of the dungeon, do not try and move below to the lower floors. You are also forbidden from entering the entrance chamber along with the first 50 feet of hallway. Try, and you will be punished. Continued attempts will result in dire consequences.”

“Ok, that is understandable. If I alter the dungeon in any way, will it remain or will it reset itself?”

“Alterations remain for the week. That is all you need to know. Priest, open the portal.” Turning, both priests extended their staves making an archway as a violet portal shimmered down. I walked through and into the Kobold Warrens.

More roughly hewn tunnels greeted me on the other side of the portal with torches alternating sides every five feet. They were placed in such a way that there was a small patch of darkness between the light thrown off. In addition, it seems my display was finally working. A small 1 was circled in the upper left corner of my vision letting me know my level. The bottom left portion of my screen had three colored lines. One red for health on the bottom, a blue mana bar above that, and a green stamina bar on top. All were semitransparent, and faded as I stopped paying attention to them. I looked down to the spear that the lead kobold had given me, and focused on it until a blue screen opened up.

Simple Spear

A simple wooden spear with an iron spearhead. It is roughly made, but serviceable.

Damage: 3-10

Durability: Unbreakable

As expected, it is generic starter gear. The only issue is how long it will take me to kill even a level one character. Every character starts with 50 each of health, stamina, and mana. Assuming I can get the maximum damage per strike with my spear, that’s still five attacks at a minimum before my opponent dies, at worst seventeen. You also get penalized for using the same strike more than three times in a row, and I only feel truly confident with a stab from the spear. If I attempted to use this spear, I would be dead 10 times out of 10, even against a level one opponent. A level five would absolutely destroy me. Luckily I had an hour to improvise. First I stored my spear in my inventory. Since I had no bags, and no chance of obtaining them for a week, I only had five inventory slots.

Walking up to a wall, I activated [Mana Excavation] and did a horizontal slash the width of my shoulders at neck height, losing about a tenth of my available mana. I spent the next half hour roughly chopping out my new weapon and waiting on my mana to regenerate. When I finished, I concentrated on it like my spear earlier to identify it.

Crude Stone Hammer

Roughly carved from the granite tunnels of the Kobold Warrens, this enormous hammer can barely be classified as a weapon.

Damage: 15-30

Durability:10/10

Special attributes:

Attack speed reduced by 80%

Actions cost 3x as much stamina as normal

Excellent! Now this is a weapon I can use! That damage was extraordinary for a level one. Now I had a fighting chance. The hammer was as wide as my shoulders and went from my neck to the bottom of my sternum. The attacking face of the hammer was about half as wide as my chest, this hammer was enormous. Now on to phase two, finding a way to use this to my advantage. I wandered around the twisting tunnels, rapidly getting lost. Soon I found exactly what I needed though. Just beyond a cross intersection was a campfire with two kobolds. I took one of the side tunnels and removed the first torch and stored it in my inventory. This gave me a lovely patch of darkness to hide in, but that wasn’t all I needed.

Five minutes until forces of Light can attack

Shit, that’s going to cut it close. I moved about three and a half feet into the darkness from the intersection, and started rapidly cutting out a cubbyhole within the rock so I was facing the campfire. Hopefully this would give me a hidden niche to launch a surprise attack from as the enemy was focused on the campfire. I burned through my mana, but managed to get a shallow hideaway for myself right as the next screen informed us of the invader.

One invader has entered the dungeon

The hardest part was waiting. I figured the intruder was methodically clearing the dungeon as they went, making sure they had a proper fallback position to retreat to in case they started to get overwhelmed. Ten minutes later, I heard steps crunch on the loose gravel in the tunnels. I took a few deep calming breaths, and wiped the sweat from my palms.

A robed figure with a basic wooden staff passed me, oblivious to the danger he was soon to be in. Above his head was a green health bar with the name Al’Kazaaam. Excellent, casters like him would have low defense and health. I tried to stealthily follow him from five steps back. He stopped two feet or so from the light of the campfire and started a cantrip to cast a spell.

“Frigid cold, freeze my enemies. [Frost bolt].” At the end of his spell, a bolt of bluish white flew and struck one of the kobolds by the fire, dropping his health bar by ¾! This wasn’t a level one, hopefully he ignored increasing his constitution when he leveled. Three things happened simultaneously. Both of the kobolds by the fire let out battle shrieks, and started charging the mage. I took a step forward and started winding up for a haymaker swing, and the mage started another cantrip, going for the spoken spell to get the boosted damage. “Burning flame, singe my foes. [Emb]”

Before he could finish casting the [Ember] spell, my massive hammer impacted the side of his head with a dull thunk, throwing him sideways. I spun almost ¾ of a full turn with the momentum, and my arms immediately gained the consistency of cooked spaghetti as I had exhausted all my stamina. The green bar was flashing at me angrily, and I could do nothing about it.

Critical hit! -42 HP

Flashed above the mage’s head as his green health bar dropped down into the red area.

Spell backlash! -25 HP, -25 MP

Also flashed above his head, dropping him to just a sliver of health. As he grabbed his head in agony from the spell backlash, the uninjured kobold struck the final blow and drained Al’Kazaaam’s health. His body dropped to the ground and exploded in triangular shards with a rainbow hue.

All intruders eliminated. One hour cooldown before dungeon can be attacked.

Smiling at the notification, I looked at my two comrades. “Well, that was fun. Are you both ok?”

“We’ll be fine. When no intruders are in the dungeon, all wounds and negative effects will be completely healed within the hour cooldown. Thanks for the assist, it really isn’t fun to respawn.” The kobold that had taken the frost bolt said. “So, you the new recruit?”

“Yeah. You said respawn isn’t fun, I thought that the natives of this world couldn’t respawn?”

“Normally that is true, but the gods have given us monsters a curse. We are forced to man these dungeons, and in order for us to not become extinct we are allowed to respawn while in the dungeon. Back in the villages death is final.”

Nodding my head, I was impressed with how the computers maintained monster levels. It also explained how the light side had a taboo about attacking the young found in monster villages around the world. Slaughter all the adults and none of the Gods would bat an eye, but attacking a child monster would trigger the aggro (aggression) of every single living member of the village. Once the monster village slew you, an incredibly nasty curse would be placed upon you, one that transcended any deaths you suffered. In addition, your relations with any factions that you had met dropped to Uneasy at the best.

“By the way, your hammer is shit.” I couldn’t help it, I guffawed at his bluntness.

“Yeah, it most certainly is. One swing of this beast took all my stamina. Thankfully you both were here to finish him off.”

The other kobold decided to give me a bit of advice, “Look, if you want to use a hammer that’s fine, but you made the head entirely too big, there’s way too much to swing. Your handle is too long as well. Make the entire thing about the length of your arm, that should fix most of your issues.”

“Thanks, I guess my excitement got the best of me this time. By the way, I’m Angus. What’re your names?”

The one who got hit with the frost bolt spoke, “I’m Shrik, this other one is Khaliss. Find us after the eight hour active period, we will show you the ropes.”

“Thanks, I appreciate it.”

“We appreciate you saving our lives, so call it even.”

Nodding to the pair in farewell, I walked away a bit before trying to modify my hammer. I made one cut with my claws to try and reduce the size of the head, and the entire hammer crumbled to bits. I guess stone implements can’t be altered after being used in battle. No matter, I’ll just carve a new one.

Back at my niche, I started cutting a much smaller hammer while taking Khaliss’ advice in mind. The handle ended up being around two and a half feet long. I decided the head should be sledgehammer style since that would be the easiest hammer to make. Starting with a square head a foot per side, I cut off the corners aiming for one third of the total length. This left me with an octagonal headed hammer that was much easier to swing around. I concentrated on it to determine how well I had done on it.

Rough Carved Stone Hammer

Though amateurish, care and thought went into the creation of this hammer. The balance is a little off, but it will provide a serviceable weapon for those down on their luck.

Damage: 12-24

Durability: 20/20

Special attributes:

Attack speed slowed by 50%

Oh yes, this was much better. I could swing it one handed, but it had terrible accuracy. Looks like I will still be using the two handed swing, I had better keep to my ambushing tactics. I also needed to do something about battle notifications. While it was nice to notice critical hits, I didn’t need them popping up and distracting me. I set it up so that all notifications would go into a queue at the bottom right of my screen under a plus sign symbol that would flash when new notifications were pending.

One invader has entered the dungeon

Well, I guess I will have to re-use this ambush spot, hope it isn’t the same guy as earlier. As I killed time waiting, I tried to imagine what I would need to do to survive the week. First I would need to make several potential ambush spots. Second is to perfect a stone hammer that I could use with one hand and make several back-ups of it. If the durability of each one was maxed at 20, one definitely wouldn’t last me the week. Last would be to make traps for the unsuspecting adventurers. Starter dungeons like this didn’t have many traps, and those that were present were painfully obvious. Before I could go farther in my list making, I heard the not so stealthy approach of an intruder. The darkness near the intersection receded, letting me know this person had a torch in one hand. After the light passed, I poked my head out and saw the enemy. This challenger was a dwarf warrior. Torch in off-hand, they had a small sword as their primary weapon. My weapon would have reach, but would suffer in speed. I had to make the most of whatever attack I landed. For armor, they had a leather cap with some steel reinforcing in a cross and what would normally be a half plate on a human. Intriguing, using something like that probably carried some sort of penalty, but I wouldn’t be attacking that. A line of steel plates protected the shins over some leather pants.

As soon as the dwarf stepped into the circle of light from the campfire, Shrik and Khaliss immediately moved forward to attack. The dwarf oddly stuck the torch out in front as if it were a parrying dagger and jabbed it in their direction a time or two. That was all he had time to do before my hammer smashed into the back of his head that was conveniently at my natural swing height. Even worse, I had moved slightly to the side of the dwarf so that my hammer hit between the arms of the metal reinforcements on his helmet.

“Gah, AAAAAH!” The first cry was from my hammer, the second wail of agony when Khaliss jabbed him in the face with his spear. Those two attacks took his health bar deep into the red, but what should have been a finishing blow from Shrik instead glanced off the chest plate as the dwarf staggered back. I took a step back so that I wasn’t within striking distance, as I figured the dwarf wouldn’t go down without a fight and I was glad I did.

“[Cyclone Slash]!” The dwarf cried out as he spun in a circle and unleashed a red wave of energy that bent both of my fellow warriors over in pain. As he was resetting his stance and trying to determine just how many enemies were around him, I stepped forward and delivered a two handed overhead strike that sparked as it grazed down the metal parts of the helmet until it crushed into the dwarf’s shoulder and relieving him of what was left of his life.

All intruders eliminated. One hour cooldown before dungeon can be attacked.

Whew, that was a bit closer than what I liked in a battle, especially for 3 on 1. Part of it was my weapon. It was a vast improvement on that first behemoth of a hammer, but it was still awkwardly top heavy in my hands. I needed something that I could swing easily with one hand. While I had plenty of time, I started on my third and hopefully last hammer design. I kept the same handle length, but this time the sides of each head were the size of my fists squared off. In an effort to lighten it just a bit more, I decided to first round off the square part of the hammer and give a curving slope as it headed back into the handle. Imagine if you had two cones, where the tips overlapped about a third of the way down. This was where my handle was. I even scored a light cross through the end of the handle to give a smaller impact area. Would that increase the force? I had no idea, but I’m fairly certain they did it in the Middle Ages, and they wouldn’t do that without a reason. The final head of the hammer was only a foot and a half wide, making it much lighter than the previous iterations. Giving it a few test swings, I was quite pleased with the end result. Let’s see what the final numbers are.

Double Headed Stone Warhammer

This stone weapon is a marked improvement upon previous designs. The wielder can use it comfortably with one hand, or easily add a second hand for extra powerful blows.

Damage: 10-20

Durability: 20/20

Oh I was beyond pleased with these results. A well balanced weapon that could be wielded one handed and did far more damage than that initial spear I was handed. It also looked like it didn’t have any penalties to attack speed or stamina usage, which was great since for the rest of the week I would be stuck at 50 stamina. I immediately set about making another one for dual wielding, even if I wasn’t sure I would be able to keep it up. If nothing else, a sneak attack with two weapons instead of one would be much more devastating.

Weapons in hand, I returned that initial torch I had taken from the wall so that I had room in my inventory. I knew I wouldn’t be getting any loot from the invaders, but it was just a good habit to keep the inventory as uncluttered as possible. Closing my eyes, I decided to try and test one of the gamer legends about dungeons. Supposedly, if you were calm enough and there were no enemies nearby, you would be able to detect a slight breeze heading towards the entrance. Unbelievably that turned out to be true! The breeze wasn’t enough to alter the flame of something large like the torches on the wall, but I could still barely feel it. Following it became easier the more I did it. Soon I was looking at what had to be the entrance hall, and I must say the designers did a wonderful job.

Twice as wide as normal corridors, there was plenty of lighting from torches up to about ¾ of the length of the hall, which was almost as long as a football field. Set every ten feet was an alcove with an amazingly detailed kobold warrior wielding a plethora of weapons. Spears, swords of all shapes and sizes, massive hammers, and some even had wicked looking crossbows. Each face had its own unique snarl, as if offended that a different race would dare to encroach upon their home.

Traditionally the initial part of a dungeon wouldn’t have any danger, at least at this easy of a level. Which is why I was determined to make this part an ambush opportunity. I started carving out an alcove identical to the ones already present. I left a rather large stone pillar in the middle for the statue. Looking at the others, I had zero chance of even coming close to the artistic detail so I went a different route. The top of the pillar was whittled down and off center, and I started a detailed spear tip out of it. A rough shaft with the beginning outline of a hand, trailing down to vague shoulders and head. The rest of the pillar I left, as if the sculptor was interrupted before he could finish his work. Trap set, I settled in behind the stature for a well-deserved break and checked the time. Unsurprisingly around five hours had elapsed. Just as I got comfortable, of course I was interrupted.

Two invaders have entered the dungeon

Ah, just in time. I only had about a third of my mana bar, but none of my attacks used mana so that wasn’t an issue. I kept still, listening in to their conversation.

“Jess, listen baby. I’ll do all the work, you won’t have to kill anything. I promise. Just stand here near the end of the entrance hall, there’s never any monsters here.”

“I don’t care Billy, I hate games like this and you know it! Besides, you always make me be your healer and it is sooooo boring!”

“But you do such a great job baby, who else could I trust with my scrawny ass?”

I peeked around the corner and saw two elvish characters, one dressed in black leathers with dual daggers and one dressed in a white robe with a staff. Over the rogue’s head was the name Shadow_Kitsune and the healer was Naughty_Nurse. Oh God, this was just atrocious. Someone obsessed with Japanese culture wanted to be a ninja and forced his girlfriend to play healer for him to make sure he doesn’t die. Terrible. I actually felt really bad for Jess, she obviously would do anything for her douche-canoe of a boyfriend. I saw him slink off as Jess just stared after him. Poor thing, I already knew his plan. He would go out and sneak attack and kill one monster, and run away before the second could kill him. He would then drag the monster back and let Jess heal him as he barely managed to kill the second monster. I hated people like that, sure their DPS (damage per second) would be absolutely insane, especially if they managed to launch a devastating skill from stealth. The characters were useless otherwise though, being glass cannons. At least he split up their party, which made my job much easier.

Sneaking up behind Jess, I had one of my new hammers in each hand. Luckily for me she was short for an elf. Spreading my arms wide, I slammed both of my hammers together like I was clapping my hands on the sides of her head. The results were both spectacular and gruesome. Her name immediately greyed out as her body dropped to the ground in death. Blood and other bits splattered everywhere. I then slunk toward the tunnel the ninja wannabe had taken, making sure my shadow didn’t cross into the tunnel where he could see it and waited. I even put one of my hammers into the inventory since I had used about 1/3 of my stamina on that one attack.

Soon enough I heard running feet as Billy cried out, “JESS! WHAT HAPPENED?! JESS!!”

Wait for it. . . Wait for it. . . NOW! Lunging forward and swinging my hammer, I managed to smash the head of my hammer into the knee of Billy right as he turned the corner. The impact knocked the hammer from my hands, but it also crushed Billy’s knee and sent him tumbling forward, face crashing into the unforgiving stone floor and stunning him for a second. Opting to capitalize on his stun since he had already lost half of his life, I crawled up Billy’s back and gripped him lightly around the throat. “Never leave your healer unprotected, Noob.” I hissed into his ear, figuring he could probably use the advice. As his eyes widened in disbelief, I activated Mana Excavation and ripped out his throat and let him die.

All intruders eliminated. Insufficient time remaining for dungeon reset, day finished.

Well, that was excellent news. As the bodies disappeared in explosions of rainbow shards, I felt a vindictive streak rising. Maybe I should memorialize this fight for future generations. I tried to leave an X on the floor with a note saying, “Here lies the remains of Shadow_Kitsune, slain because he didn’t protect Naughty_Nurse.” Unfortunately, that’s where I encountered my first bug of the day. It seems the floor wasn’t alterable, which didn’t bode well for my plans to riddle these warrens with traps. Before I could send an email to Emily, Shrik and Khaliss appeared.

“Come with us, time for resting.”

Shrugging my shoulders at the curt response, I fell into line behind them. We came to an unremarkable wall somewhere in the warrens, and one of them trilled at the wall. A door slid back, revealing a barracks style room filled with kobold warriors.

“Take a bunk, there will be no fighting. First come gets the bed. In the back is rations and water, keep your own canteen. The food will not leave the cave, but the water can. It will provide no bonuses, but will keep you sated.”

I made quick work of some of the world’s driest, blandest jerky and took several swigs of water per bite just to keep it down. Exhausted, I laid down in one of the beds. “Logout” I thought, and ended my first day in the game.