Slowly, I came to.

I still felt disoriented, but I could tell I was lying on the ground. Where was I?

I blinked my eyes a few time, trying to fight off the daze, and restore my vision.

I was in some sort of a cave.

Shakingly, I rose to my feet.

My feet! I thought in alarm. These are not my feet! I looked down at my legs. They were short and slightly crooked, and had a green-brown tinge to them, with a bit of matted fur sticking out. I reached with a trembling hand to touch my left leg. Then I saw my hand. It was a gnarly greenish thing which ended with five slender, gaunt fingers.

I raised both my arms and stared at them with horror. With a sudden panic of realization, I patted my face with my palms, feeling the sharp bony features.

A goblin!

They turned me into a freaking goblin!

Reeling with the revelation I looked around me. It appeared as if I had recently died and respawned at this location. But I’ve never seen this place before.

What is going on?! I thought in alarm. I should have appeared in the Everance’s cemetery! When a player in NEO died, he was transported to the nearest friendly cemetery. I naturally assumed I would respawn back at the Everance’s cemetery, the city where I’d just been. But that’s not where I ended up.

I was still a bit dazed. I stumbled on the unfamiliar ground and took in my surroundings. Apparently, I have just respawned in a small cave.

Broken bones and long forgotten skeletons were strewn across the floor in all shapes and sizes, many of them looked like they came from goblins.

I shook my head, trying to force some sense back into my head. All right Oren, from the start. Go through the events that you do remember, I told myself. I closed my eyes and played through the recent events in my head. The bastards used a Race Change scroll on me, it turned into a goblin and then… everything that followed was a blur, I couldn’t recall. I dimly remembered hearing some distant shouts, screams, and laughter. Then... Nothing.

I shook myself out of my reverie. I was standing in the middle of an unknown cave. I had to figure out where I was.

I opened my game map and immediately felt a bit better. Well Vatras, seems like you didn’t actually take everything from me, I thought in satisfaction. It seemed that all the significant exploring I did as Arladen, along with all the maps I accumulated over the years, were not deleted by my race change operation. I still had vast areas explored, marked with dungeons, various points of interest and stashes of treasures I personally buried. I had a habit of burying some of my riches in various places in the game world, just for a rainy day. And right now, it seemed to be a very rainy day.

That’s a lucky break! I thought. So, my first step is to get to the closest cache, it should have at least 10,000 gold and some decent equipment I ought to be able to use. It was not a lot for a 200+ level character, but for a 1st level noob, it was a king's treasure. If I was going to keep my new goblin character, that treasure would give me a decisive advantage and allow me to speed-level.

Now All I had to do was to find my current location in the world and see my relative position to the nearest treasure cache marker. I zoomed out of the map and then frowned. I zoomed out again, and my heart fell with a heavy thud. Oh no…

I was right in the middle of an unexplored territory, one of the faraway monster-infested lands deep in the Deadlands.

When the game was released, it was filled with uncharted territories. Slowly, over time, players explored the new world. They tamed the wilderness, established settlements and caravan routes, charting and mapping most of the land around them. I was currently in the Deadlands, a faraway, untamed and unexplored part of the world. There were a few attempts to map the area. A few expeditions were sent to scout it in the past. But it was determined to be largely low on resources and high in monsters, and thus deemed unworthy for colonization efforts.

“Crap!” I cried out loud in frustration. My voice reverberated in the cave, and the echoes multiplied my shout into a crescendo.

How the hell, am I supposed to get there! I fumed. Could this shit get any worse!?”

As if to answer my question, a chattering noise came from the only visible tunnel that let out of the cave. I looked toward the entrance, where a small party of spear-wielding goblins suddenly appeared, looking agitated and aggressive.

“Figures,” I sighed.

Suddenly a system messaged popped before me, “What the hell?” I mumbled.

Through your ability to reach the absolute emotional bottom, and will into existence an even unlikelier bottom, Murphy's law now works slightly to your advantage!

Current level 1: Novice.

Effects: 1% higher chance of murphy’s law working in your favor, 1% higher chance of Murphy’s law working against your opposition.

Skill Mastery: Congratulations! As the first player to unlock this skill you gain 50% increased rate and can teach it to others>

My mouth was hanging open in astonishment. And for what felt like the hundredth time today, I murmured: “What the hell!?”

***

The reason for my astonishment was related to the way that NEO’s game mechanics worked. The setup was a bit different than the MMORPG games that preceded it. There were no predefined skills, abilities, or even classes. Instead, the game would award the player a skill whenever he performed an unconventional effort, trying to achieve something. For example: when the game first began, a lot of players were building homes for themselves - and homes require timber - so naturally, a lot of players took an axe and started chopping wood, after a few minute of attacking the tree trunks with little results, a sudden system message would pop up: “Congratulation! Thanks to your repeated effort you have gained the following skill: Lumberjacking 1.” Sounds simple right? Far from it.

Each player had only 3 simple attributes: Physical, Mental & Social. A player would gain 1 point for every level-up, which he could invest in one of those attributes. The attributes limited the maximum skill level the player could attain. Essentially, any skill could be raised to level 10 without any special requirements. After level 10 however, the skill was limited by its governing attribute. Meaning you had to have an attribute point for every skill level point above 10 in order to increase it.

Of course, there were a lot of easy skills to understand and gain: swordsmanship, blacksmithing, fishing, hunting, skinning, painting, etc. I even once knew a girl who had ‘flower picking 52,’ simply because she loved flowers so much and gathered them every chance she got.

And now, it seems, the game’s engine has awarded me with the weirdest sounding skill I’ve ever encountered.

Something else was strange, though. It seemed highly unlikely that I was the first player ever to have encountered a situation suitable for acquiring this ‘Murphy's Bitch’ skill. So how was it possible I received the Mastery title for it? Hmm… the monster-race descriptor must have something to do with it, I pondered. Maybe it meant only monster races can acquire this skill, like the goblin I’m currently playing. I sighed. That probably also meant that I couldn’t teach it to other players, so I won’t be able to capitalize on my mastery in it.

***

I brought my focus back to the current scenario. There was a small contingent of armed goblins standing in front of me, after all. They were led by a big goblin that stood at the front. I looked at the soldiers closely. They wore dirty leather armors, all badly patched and desperately in need of a good armorer to bring them to a usable state. Each held a short spear with a bone tip. Next, I carefully examined the big one. He definitely wore a better set of leather armor. He held a short metal sword in his left hand and had a small wooden shield strapped to his right. There was a wicked looking steel dagger tucked into the worn looking belt around his waist. He was at least a head taller than the other warrior goblins, and was more muscular, and agile, which was evident as he moved around with the easy, sure steps of a leader.

Suddenly a second’s system message appeared. What the hell?

Through careful observation and thorough study of others, you’ve learned to detect the fine details of the world. Initially, only basic information will be displayed, as the skill increases more details will become visible and even magical properties will be identified!

Current level 1: Novice.

Effects: you can see creature’s names, health, and level. A creature’s special details might be hidden from your sight. Range: 11 meters>

Another skill already? That was extremely fortunate. It seemed like Guy was determined to compensate me for becoming low-life vermin. At this rate, I’ll be the world’s most successful goblin. I chuckled to myself at the notion.

***

Guy was the game’s governing AI. His official designation was GAI, short for ‘Game Artificial Intelligence’, but everyone referred to him simply as Guy.

Guy’s existence embodied the elegant solution for the developer’s ambition to create a brand new gaming experience. Instead of writing a game engine with set rules, as was commonly acceptable, which would limit the player gaming experience, the developers went for a different approached. Guy was a sophisticated piece of intelligent software, created to govern the entire game.

They used a complex, adaptive, machine-learning based code, that learned by observing the players themselves. Thus enhancing its own understanding how to operate the game world. Guy was in charge of responding to player’s actions, controlling world events, resolve interactions between factions and every other major non-automated decision in-game. In effect, it was like having a super dungeon master. Omnipotent, all knowing, and it had the final say about everything in NEO.

In order to be able to do all that high-performance processing, Guy was housed in a quantum server. There were only 8 of those in existence. Out of those eight, seven were used for military and government purposes. New Era Online was the only civilian consumer of that tech. Those amazing pieces of human engineering allowed for infinite, instantaneous calculations, regardless of magnitude. Their cost reflected that, as it was more than most countries could afford. It was really the only way a single program could monitor and manage the absurdly high data processing demands of the game.

With Guy in charge, nothing was limited. That was the game’s main sales pitch, after all.

When the game was initially released, it was specifically designed to operate without any hard rules. No predefined quests, no cities, no advanced technology or magical spells, nothing except a lot of geographical lands, resources, monsters and some small NPC hamlets. The idea was to let Guy administer the players and to allow them to develop the world as they saw fit.

That enabled players to accomplish virtually anything they wanted in the game. For example, a player might start building a town. The game did offer some basic tools to support emerging settlements, such as recruiting NPC workers and other various town management menus. A player would then continue by recruiting allies, hunting for food, etc. All of these would make Guy realize that those things are important for players, and might result in a similar town being built by NPC offering services to the players such as lodging, food, trade, etc.

Another example could be that an excessive hunting of the local wolf population might raise the anger of a local druid who will cause the forest creatures to attack a settlement. In response, some local trader might offer a quest to players to handle the situation.

Guy also monitored other player’s actions, awarding them with skills when appropriate, or interacting with them through other means.

In short, Guy was omnipotent. Guy was all knowing. Guy was a cold uncaring piece of code, which now seemed to have rewarded me with this never before heard of Analyze skill.

***

And what a useful skill that was! Unlike the previous one; Murphey’s Bitch, Analyze appeared to be extremely useful. Usually, the player only saw the type of the enemies they fought and their health bar, something like [Skeleton, weak. ⬜⬜⬜⬜⬜⬜⬜⬜]. Only mages, using some advanced spells, could learn more information, and I just got a similar ability as a free-to-use skill? Awesome!

While I was distracted reading the system messages, the goblins closed the distance between us.

I sighed. Barely out of the womb, so to speak, freshly respawned and already I am facing a second death.

Come on you ugly bastards, bring it on! I thought fiercely as I stood up and drew a pathetic bone dagger from my belt, an action that might have looked slightly more intimidating if I were wearing anything more than a simple loincloth...

The goblins approached until their spear tips nearly touched my skin. Suddenly they froze as they spotted the dagger I was holding and started talking excitedly in their chittering language. I was shocked to realize I understood their goblin-speak!

“Look, look! This weird one is holding a ceremonial dagger! Do you think he’s a Totem?”

I looked down at the dagger I didn’t realize I was holding in my hand. It was just a crappy old bone dagger. Where the hell did I get it from? I thought with surprise.

Then, suddenly, it all came rushing back to me. I was given this dagger as a final insult.

***

After my character transformation into a goblin, all my items dropped from my inventory and were spread around on the floor. I was left standing there, wearing only the default loincloth, stunned and shocked from the experience.

My former guild members laughed at me for a good five minutes while I just stood there, incapacitated. Once they had their fill, they got bored and started throwing me around like a damn goblin puppet, while an amused low-level healer stood on the side and occasionally cast Minor Heal so I wouldn’t die outright. They eventually stopped (goblin basketball can only entertain one for so many minutes after all, as goblins were not very bouncy). Then Vatras - now my new sworn nemesis - dragged me by the throat through the guild's castle halls. On our way out, he’d taken off the wall a small crude ornamental bone dagger, which was acquired in some low-level raid. Then he threw me out to the street, where I landed on my ass - it hurt!

As a last insult, he threw me the dagger. “Here you go, a matching pig-sticker for your ugly new face,” he chuckled evilly. “Maybe it’ll help you survive for a few minutes longer, though I wouldn’t bet much on that. Better hurry up and delete your character, before someone will make dog food out of you.” He waved goodbye and turned back inside, finishing with a mocking; “Goodbye, and good riddance *master*”.

So, there I stood a small ugly goblin in the big shining human-built capital of Everance, frozen from the shock of the experience, and desperately holding onto the useless bone dagger. When suddenly, a noob spotted me from the end of the street. “A Goblin! In town! Free XP!!!” He ran wildly at me, swinging a simple bronze short sword - the kind I wouldn’t even bother bending down to pick up if a mob dropped it after a fight. With one swift stroke, I was decapitated and sent for a respawn.

***

I was still clutching the dagger when the goblins had found me, which was apparently the reason for their excited behavior.

The big Goblin pushed two of the warriors aside and approached me until he stood right in front of me. He was much taller than me, I had to look up to return his gaze. This was a new and weird experience, seeing as all the Goblins I encountered while playing as Arladen, barely reached my waist.

The leader looked down at me, his eyes scanning my body up and down. I got the feeling he had analyzed me! He frowned, and in a surprisingly fluid and intelligent voice asked “Who are you? You’re not part of my clan. I can’t access your information! What are you doing in my clan’s cave?”

I thought quickly, what kind of story could explain my situation and prevent them from attacking me...

“My clan was butchered by a group of travelers, I managed to kill one of them with this knife,” I raised up the bone dagger I was holding. “His blood washed all over me, and then I died. I woke up here a few moments ago. I humbly ask for sanctuary. I am willing to serve your clan if you’ll take me in”.

The Goblin leader looked at me surprised, and his ugly face? forehead? furrowed in thought. I could see he was considering my claim that I somehow gained the travelers power of resurrection after bathing in their blood.

While he was considering my response I quickly used my new Analyze skill on him and a system message appeared:

Hmm, strange I can't see all his stats... he's was probably too high a level for my current skill, I guessed that meant he was this lair’s boss.

Bogan seems to have reached a decision. “Very well, I will accept you to my clan, provided you prove yourself useful.”

Your reputation with the clan is now ‘neutral?’ (0)>

Bogan, the leader of the Drippers goblin clan wants you to prove your usefulness. Find a way to achieve that and earn his trust.

Quest Type: unique

Reward: gaining acceptance to the clan, increased reputation with the clan, 500xp>

I smiled. My first quest as a goblin. It was a refreshing change from the quests I’d been getting in the past few years as a guild leader. Recently, it was mostly stuff like, “Kill the demon boss that threatened to destroy some stupid city no one really cared about before he arrived”. That sort of things.

The Goblins started to clear the cave, disappearing into the exit tunnel. I was safe, for the moment.

Time for a break, I thought to myself, and mentally clicked the log out button.