The Roach

It was, well, not necessarily morning when I finished my 'crack in the wall' renovations, but it certainly felt like I had pulled an all-nighter, my poor chitinous limbs were aching from all that abuse and my mood was just as tender.

I had been planning to stalk the smaller of the local rats after I finished my fishy meal but due to my level up, priorities had to be changed.

After all, being without a shelter, no a stronghold, in these hostile sewers looked like a fast way to the gullet of some enterprising beast, something I would rather avoid, my vitality being very susceptible to gnashing teeth and stomach acids.

So it was only prudent that I hastily reformed my abode and pull the equivalent of an 'all-nighter'.

Still, I am quite sore, and to my past dismay, I have found only three things restore my vitality, or HP as it would probably be termed by most.

That being, sleeping, eating and leveling up.

Sleeping is self-explanatory, I go to sleep, and a given percentage of my health recovers depending on both how long I sleep and the quality of said sleep.

Obviously, interrupted and fitful napping nets a poorer recovery than an uninterrupted sleep (I discovered this when I tried micro napping to cheat the formulae, it didn't work).

I am unsure of how far I can push sleeping, perhaps if I get enough sleep I can even grow back limbs and vital organs, or perhaps there is a limit.

I have yet to find said limit, and I'd rather not find out the easy way (the painful and possibly deadly way), especially since I have only used this method on little more than a nasty scratch from an overzealous small rat. (I chased the silly rat off, by the way, cheeky blighter.)

Eating is a bit more complicated than sleep, it doesn't use the same principle and honestly, I can't track down the variables that make it so hard to decipher. I can only assume when food is more nutritious for my hardened shell of a body, it grants a stronger regenerative effect.

Healing by way of eating, also seems to increase my hunger as if the nutrients went straight to repairing the wound, rather than satisfying the sleeping beast.

Both sleeping and eating have an accumulative effect that hastens recovery when utilized cohesively, but neither of those things can compare to leveling up, a process so ridiculous and uncomfortable that breaches every notion of common sense.

Leveling up always restores my health to full but it becomes even more unpleasant when that happens, itching like absolute buggery, being a sensation alike to listening to nails on a chalkboard, except that chalkboard is you, and the nail is your rapidly swelling limbs and carapace grinding together.

Yes, leveling up is unpleasant, painful even and I have fortunately only been forced into feeling the unnatural recovery of leveling once (something I will gladly avoid if possible).

On that occasion, I was forced to level (or rather I stumbled upon levelings side effect), it had once again been a rat that injured me, but that time it wasn't a young pesky rat.

No... it was a black spiky monstrosity with clouded eyes that looked like it belonged behind a tigers zoo exhibit, rather than the sewers of some backstreet metropolis.

The evil-looking thing had spotted me, or maybe heard me? almost immediately it set upon me before I could retreat.

It was a (not small but) huge miracle that I hadn't died there and then. as I was being partially chewed by my 'would-be killer' silently begging for something to save me.

Perhaps God heard me because a miracle happened, the miracle that saved my sorry behind came in the form of another rat.

At the time, this hadn't made me feel any better, two rats didn't seem any better than one, but I was wrong.

With an angry screech of fury, the newcomer rat, a brown rat with red eyes, attacked my captor forcing it to drop me mid-chew.

The rats tore into each other with wild abandon, affirming to me that the wildlife here was suicidal, as I limped away haphazardly on my three remaining legs.

It was another small miracle that I wasn't attacked on the way home to my den, and another that I even managed to climb into my den.

At the time I was afraid that my legs wouldn't heal, that I was doomed to slowly inch along until something devoured me like a snack.

I had been so distraught that I had barely registered the vast amount of exp I acquired from surviving. {survived Ursai rat attack and duel 120 exp}

But I registered the blaring horns representing a {level up} and by golly the level up was intense.

My disheveled torn up hide cracked and fell away as the meat under my punctured shell knitted back together before hardening again to form hard chitin. every nerve in my body burst into a frenzy of frantic firing, causing every one of my remaining limbs to contract and...

Snap! Three new legs popped out of the previously empty sockets.

It was an overall, very enlightening experience, what I learned from it was this, leveling up while hurt, really sucked, oh and it heals all wounds, that too.

And that is how I discovered the very uncomfortable utility of the level up.

A harrowing story for the all of sapient roach kind, that being currently, just me.

Although as I sit resting my claws, I know that none of that will help my poor feet just now, leveling up is out of the question, as I did that just last night? day?

Regardless it is impossible and painful, so that's out, leaving only eating and sleep.

I have no food right now and venturing out with my tender claws too get more presently, is ill-advised by my very well-honed survival instinct.

That leaves sleeping, my only logical choice and it sounds more and more inviting by the second in fact I just leveled up... so... I... should.... ugh.... tired...

The Narrator

The roach collapsed, being enamored with his own thoughts and brilliance again, Mr roach forgot how bone-tired he was, having pulled, in his own words as he described it, an "all-nighter."

With a soft clack, his body fell to the floor senseless, it would be laughable if he was human but his insect body failed to be comedic, instead he merely looked like a deceased bug on the cave floor.

As Mr roach drifted deeper into his dreams, the all-seeing Narrator sighed. the roach wasn't doing too many interesting things down here, and the Narrator didn't want his audience getting bored. with a few prods here and there the Narrator set things in motion. with a little luck, things would heat up.

They had better, the Narrator had worked hard on finding this rare opportunity...