When he jerked awake from a nightmare of teeth and tentacles, Atlas found himself huddled beneath a sea shell larger than he was, warm orange light filtering through its broken opening, the sound of seabirds and splashing waves soft in his ears.

He rolled upright with a groan, his body aching in muscles he hadn’t previously had in places he hadn’t known he could have them. Checking his status, the red bar was under half, his blue bar barely a third. He shivered. He hadn’t even taken a direct hit from the abominable thing. Was that just from stepping on rocks? He hadn’t exactly been paying attention to his HP bar, but he didn’t remember it being that low when he’d been starting the code grid. Was he actually losing HP over time?

And why had his MP bar partially filled? Was he no longer recovering HP with MP now he was human? Considering how lethal this place was, taking days to recover from simple wounds sounded pretty bad. Atlas checked his feet, stained thick with his own blood and encrusted with sand which he scraped off with a long fingernail.

MATERIAL LOGGED

Okay, ew. Atlas carefully prodded at the myriad wounds from his frenzied flight across the water, long, jagged scratches and heavily bruised puncture wounds that were painful to the touch, it certainly didn’t look like half an HP bar’s worth of damage. To the contrary, the wounds looked, against all odds, clean, shallow, and to be recovering nicely.

Not what he’d expected. He was pretty sure some of the shells had been over an inch long, and he’d been far from careful where he was putting his feet, not to mention his slog through the dunes. Was he just lucky? Recent events suggested... no.

A shadow fell over the opening of the shell. Atlas twitched nervously, but it passed by just as quickly. Atlas peeked out to see a giant orange crab scuttling after a large weasel-like mammal - an otter? - snapping one oversized claw as the slender mammal yowled an indignant retreat.

Case in point. Atlas pulled his head back inside, huddling against the slick wall of the shell once more. The crab was far smaller than the blue from before, but its larger claw was still large enough to wrap around his waist and snip, while there was little he could do except give it a congratulatory pat on its heavily armoured back in return.

Hold on. Wasn’t he supposed to have that broken knife? It had disappeared when he’d “equipped” it, but the clothing, such as it was, had appeared straight on his body.

Poking at menus soon revealed a square containing the knife. Its icon was neither rusted nor broken. There was an empty space alongside which he assumed would be filled with other weapons. Or tools? He tapped the icon with his finger. Like the item menu and the form menu there were no icons or other options, just a description.

[Rusted Broken Blade]

DOUBLE EDGED DAGGER.

STOLEN FROM A CORPSE.

DIDN'T HELP ITS PREVIOUS OWNER MUCH EVEN WHEN IT WAS IN ONE PIECE.

Well that was about as helpful as he’d expected, and surprisingly snide at that. And why the heck was the title in lower case if the description was in all caps like everything else?

Atlas tapped his lips, taking brief satisfaction at having lips even despite everything. He’d needed to press the buttons on the other bracer, despite that being a terrible idea from a design perspective. He’d complained-

Atlas blinked. The thought was gone half formed. He frowned and pressed the scan button. The menu closed and his MP bar dropped by almost half its current value.

CODE GRID OPENED

COMMENCING REWRITE

Well that wasn’t quite what he was hoping for, but progress all the same, he guessed. The grid that appeared on screen wasn’t a single square this time, but four, though all but the first were greyed out, question marks as their contents, which the remaining square contained something far more interesting.

[Broken].

If swapping the “Rock”ness from a boulder for “Jelly”ness turned it into snot, could he rewrite the “brokenness” of this dagger using his bracers? That was… almost amazing enough to forgive them for the clunky UI, lack of documentation, mind-numbingly painful installation, the stupid descriptions and having to swap hands to perform basic functions for no good reason whatsoever.

But change it with what? According to his list he had two [Rock] and two [Water] “codes”, as well as the [Abyss] code he’d picked up from the Scylla. Atlas thought about that creeping darkness and shook his head with a shudder. Not this time. It was either a stone dagger or a wet one.

He ultimately decided on the water code on the grounds that he could just make a stone dagger without much difficulty, and a dagger made of water would be pretty neat. Hopefully it wouldn’t trickle away and leave him with nothing. Assuming he ever actually managed to get the thing anywhere outside of a menu screen.

Switch, save, and... done. The title and description changed.

[Rusted Dive Knife]

VERSATILE TOOL USED BY DIVERS.

FLAT TIP MAKES IT GOOD FOR PRYING OPEN SHELLFISH.

BEING LEFT IN SALT WATER TOO LONG HAS DULLED ITS EDGE.

Hm. He wasn’t sure what he’d expected, but that wasn’t bad compared to what he’d started with. So was there a code in those mystery boxes making it rusty? What would happen if he cleaned it by hand?

A long shadow flitted across the entrance of the shell, bringing Atlas back to the moment. If the scan button modified the weapon then the other button should-

Close the window and bring him back to the main status page, just in time to see his HP bar increase by a single pixel. Atlas banged his head softly against the shell.

Whatever. He repeated the process with the clothing, leaving his MP bar with a few pixels left.

[Frayed Miner’s Outfit]

THICK CLOTHES SUITABLE FOR STRIKING THE EARTH.

DIRTY AND TORN FROM BEING UNDERGROUND SO LONG. HOW AUTHENTIC.

Thick, warm fabric billowed to cover his body, growing to seamlessly fill many of the holes in the material, while leather, already scuffed and torn, affixed itself to his elbows and flowed into a thick pair of leather breeches to cover his legs.

Neat. He’d considered using his last water code, but the chance at ending up in a threadbare speedo, despite the sounds of the ocean nearby, had seemed inappropriate given the circumstances. Still no boots, but his expectations hadn’t been particularly high on that front.

Experiment over, Atlas closed the equipment menu with the button, and tapped it again to turn off the screen.

A knife appeared in his hand. The blue bar on his still open status screen ticked down a percent.

What.

Atlas started at it mutely. Six inch blade, flat tip, serrated with a little hook for cutting cord. It was a dive knife, alright. And a rusty one at that.

Atlas pressed the button again. It disappeared. Again, it reappeared. He caught it without thinking, indeed, without any particular intention to do so. Apparently he had found the “materialise” button. But only if it was on the main menu, only for "tools", and only for when something was equipped.

Whoever designed these things was an arseface.

Twirling the knife expertly between his fingers with no idea how, Atlas pushed up to a crouch. He hadn’t seen any movement outside the shell for a few minutes now and the light was starting to dim. Hopefully the crab had chased the otter away from the shell entirely and he could get away from the beach before nightfall. Crabs were nocturnal, last he remembered... Maybe scanning one would tell him?

Atlas poked his head out further, glancing either side. The crab was further down the beach, poking at the sand with its claws. There was no sign of the animal.

Atlas crawled out of the shell, keeping his body low and knife high as he scanned his surroundings. Roiling grey fog hung off the coast as far as the eye could see, thick and dark. The sun had started to set into the thick cloud, tinting everything with a burnt orange. Giant shells like the one he’d sheltered in dotted the beach here and there, casting long shadows.on the sand. Almost a dozen massive crustaceans wandered the beach, some blue, some orange, all huge. Atlas stared intently at them as they moved, watching for some route between them.

A woman's voice came from behind, cold and furious.

“What in the wilds are you doing here?”