Dimrat seethed. He hid inside the long dead confines of a Mimic monster that was disguised as a chest. It had died so long ago that the chest was half filled with dust. He peeked the edge through its fangs, knifing them with his eyes. It was a parody of his own funeral. About him Skullilies ransacked the den. Shellbert remained tucked up tight while two Skullilies fought over him like a bone.

He withdrew, and stewed to pass the time.

‘How are these curs so strong?! They’re only tier II! Why am I not tier I anyway?! System! I demand an explanation!’

[System tutorial]: you do not meet base prerequisites.

‘...are you really going to make me ask?’

[System tutorial]: [Cursed Levitating Skull] tier I transformation prerequisites:

Max lvl (15) current: (10)

[Cursed Eyes] lvl (10) current: (4)

Tutorial quests completed (10/10) current: (0/10)

‘I see. So then how did my cursed eye attack fail?’

[System tutorial]: none-physical abilities and spells consume MP

Dimrat:

lvl: 10 Tier: --

[Fallen]

[Bloody Cursed Levitating Skull](Rare)

HP: 11/13

MP: 3/18

Strength: 5

Toughness: 7

Agility: 3

Intelligence: 15

Willpower: 9

Magic Affinity: 10

Skills:

[Active: Cursed Eyes](lvl4)

[Passive: Cursed Saliva](lvl2)

[Passive: Cursed Claws](lvl2)

[Passive: Indomitable](Timer: 4 days)

[Passive: Cursed Existence]

'Why do I have cursed saliva and claws?! I'm just a skull, I have neither!'

'...no, wait'

He noticed it now.

'I have kept my passive from my trial transformation of cursed dreg!?'

He would have laughed if not for his predicament.

'That may come in handy one day. It is your oversight, not mine. I will not report bugs if you haven't noticed them'

‘But', he said, 'I have three of this MP? How much does it cost per cursed eye attack?’’

[Cursed Eyes]: unleash a charged blast of evil energy.

Lvl: 4

(Curse)

Dmg rating: SSSSS+++ (-99.99%) (hotfix)

MP cost: 6

‘That is outrageous! A whole six of this MP, for a mere SSSSS+++ spell?!’

He grumbled, then calmed down.

‘What is MP?’

[System tutorial (hotfix)]: MP is an artificial limiter to balance curse abundance. Cannot calculate true MP max. MP regeneration based on Magic Affinity.

[Regenerating (1) MP every 36 minutes]

‘It’s too slow! Is there no other way to replenish my MP?’

[System tutorial]: The Dungeon is lush with ingredients used in recipecraft

MP replenishables in [Warrens of Lost Edinnor]:

Ingredients: [Wraithbloom], [Witherwort], [Gromfly], [Arthritic Bone Meal]

Craftable: [Bone Tea], [Magical Tincture (Subterranean verient)]

‘Oh! So I can dable in potioncraft?’

<><><><><>

[Tutorial challenge]: craft [Bone Tea]

[Bone Tea] ingredients: [Arthritic Bone Meal], [Witherwort]

[System]: tutorial ingredients highlighted on minimap.

<><><><><>

‘...minimap?’

The head’s eyes jittered about in their sockets. The moment he uttered the word, a grand map appeared in his mind. It detailed his direct descent through the Warrens to his current location. Vellom had brought him deeper than he anticiaped. Along his path he detected traces of ingredients that the system highlighted for him.

[Tutorial challenge completed!]: Minimap (1/10)

Activate your minimap.

‘Just like that?! So if I procure the ingredients on this map I can somehow fashion MP tinctures? Wait, this is going too fast’ He would have pinched his nose. ‘What of these challenges?’

[Tutorial challenges completed 1/10]

[Zone challenges completed 0/?]

[Rewards unclaimed]

[New title earned]

‘Really now! You expect me to remember such a baffling and tedious system on the fly? Bah! Away with you! I am in the middle of crisis!’

[Through your curse, you’ve slain a lvl 5 Grieving Widow]

[Association experience awarded]

‘...?’

[WARNING]: Realm boundary reached [Subterranean Warrens of Lost Edinnor]

Faction owned: [Undead]

Connected territory: [no connected territory]

[Turn back]

‘System. Why does this Warren have no connected territories? Shouldn’t that be impossible?’

[No connected territory]: adjacent faction [Humankind] have no presence in bridge territory. [Undead] cannot advance into bridge territory until mainland is (either) fully conquered (or) adjacent faction [Humankind] stake’s claim to bridge territory.

‘...clever. Submission through passivism. We have been isolated. But it won’t work if the mainland is recaptured in full. I should ask her about that. So I cannot reconnect a zone to escape....’

‘Nor can I gather ingredients without MP. Quite the paradox.’

He thought a bit longer.

‘Is there not something in these tedious system messages?’

[Rewards unclaimed]

‘Alright’, he grumbled, ‘show me these rewards’

[Beta tester reward]: Thank you for beta testing [Cursed Dreg] (random chest x3)

[Beta tester reward]: Thank you for beta testing [Cursed Levitating Skull] (random chest x3)

[Administration apology]: There was a glitch in the system. (The administration) would hereby like to apologise for any inconvenience caused. Please enjoy a complimentary shop window courtesy of (the administration)

Dimrat sneered. ’At least you know your place’

He had no choice but to investigate further.

‘What is this shop window?’

[Shop window used]: please select a free item courtesy of (the administration)

‘Truly? Something from nothing?’

When his eyes were flooded with merchandise. From weapons and armour to food and supplies and everything in between. But they were things he had no use for, or couldn’t help him at that moment. When his eyes stopped scrolling.

‘Yes! This is it!’

[Shop window]:

Efluvian Tincture

Brightbell Charm

Draught of Uncurse

Wicken Mirror

MP Tincture

‘I am saved! MP tincture!’

The words jumped from his mouth with an invigorated spirit, when to his excitement it appeared before him, outside the chest, at height, where it fell to the ground and broke.

The Skullilies swooped on it as they would anything that moved.

[You’ve used your courtesy shop window]

For a moment his eyes were ablaze at the Skullilies, who lapped at his precious MP tincture. Dimrat flew into a rage.

‘I demand a refund! Of all the unfair, dubious, insulting shenanigans I’ve been subject to, this one!’ He said, while Skullilies enjoyed his MP tincture, ‘this one I will not put up with! How can this be?! My liege, I implore you! A buffoon under your employ has exposed his incompetence and cast my vital succour at these swine like pearls!’

But no system message came.

‘No! I am doomed!’

‘What’s left?!’

[Random Chest x6]

‘Random chest?’

[You’ve claimed a random chest]

The moment he whispered those words, the Skullilies all perked up. He felt a strange wobble in the ether - they all did - when the Skullily pack leader looked up not nearly in time to spot a large wooden chest. Dimrat’s eyes lit up. The chest materialized out of thin air, and under the gravity of unnatural forces it slammed down onto the floor to smash the Skullily pack leader underneath into pulp.

[You’ve slain a Skullily Hound]

[You’ve leveled up!]

Dimrat said nothing. The other Skullies lept away reactively and landed in a panic.

[Pack leader defeated: minions shaken]

‘...BA-HA-HA-HA-HA!!!’

They heard him. In no time they converged on the chest, probing with a hungry ferver, then pried it open to his surprise - only to leap back in fright themselves - the lid fell closed again, then he realised it.

‘Fear?! ...of course!’

They approached again, with caution; a nervous Skullily had just reached the mouth of the trunk, when the lid sprung open wide, and from it a voice bellowed, ‘begone, fools!’

The Mimic spoke. ‘Lest I devour you!’

As Dimrat shouted, he had wedged his head between the Mimic monster’s serrated wisdom teeth near the hinge to leverage and animate its mouth in an up and down motion. ‘Die now! And I will overlook these transgressions!’

The Skullilies retreated to a safer distance and observed from behind the mess of crates and a mining carts.

He knew he’d only stalled them, and time was not on his side. He needed another answer.

[Through your curse, a lvl 13 Mare has been slain]

[Association experience awarded]

[You leveled up!]

He scrunched his ghostly eyebrows. ‘A mare? Okay, what is this repeated interruption?’ Then he had an epiphany. ‘Wait! What is my lvl?’

[lvl 12]

Light globes rose from the spiritual haze around the random chest he’d summoned. It was the remains of the pack leader, and two Skullilies picked at it

[Random chest x5]

His forehead creased like valleys carved from evil, raised on high by a smile only a mother could love.

‘Random chest!’

Another chest poofed out of nowhere. It hit the ground like an unstoppable force, but his target darted out the way in the nick of time.

[Random chest x4]

‘Random chest!’

This time the chest collided with one he’d already placed, and like an unstoppable force that met an immovable object, it boomed in his ears and launched itself at Godly speeds down the tunnel depths to the deep clanging tones of shattered rock that echoed back at him.

[You’ve slain a tier I lvl 7 Bulbous Rotten Toad]

[You’ve slain a lvl 3 Wandering Weedmare]

[You leveled up!]

[Random chest x3]

The din had staggered the Skullilies, when he said it again.

‘Random chest!’

He pancaked another Skullily.

[You leveled up!]

[Lvl: 14]

[Random chest x2]

Two chests remained, and one timid Skullily Mutt.

He sprung from the chest with all the maniacal and thunderous retribution of an ego-bruised narcissist, and yelled ‘random chest!’

The chest struck the ground but not true; the Mutt scrambled away behind another chest he’d summoned, when he yelled it again, one last time, with the judgement of the Fallen!

‘Random chest!’

It missed.

The head bit deep into his bottom lip and scowled.

‘Why you miserable little welp! Don’t think I won’t bite you to death!’

He was about to hurl another empty threat, when the mutt got snatched out of sight from behind the edge of the den entrance. Dimrat balked and ducked for cover inside the mimic then closed the lid. Something approached. It snapped and twisted and ripped at the mutt, until it fell silent.

The silence was deafening. He couldn’t bear it. Not while he was so close to a transformation. He had to do it. He braved a peek, then wished he hadn’t.

It was a Lovecraftian horror. A writhing mass of tentacles and teeth so humongous it could only peer into the den with one great abyssal black eye. A black eye sporting a familiar random chest embedded into it, from which it gushed an inky mucus.

[Gruesome Welting Tentulip(IV)]: lvl 37

He ducked for cover and lamented not having hands to cover his mouth. This one would be his end. His dream of having legs was over. He lay in his own coffin and awaited death. When a threatening aura shook him to his core. He gasped. Had it noticed him? Should he attempt to flee? Perhaps an eternity over the realm edge was preferable to being bone meal inside this one’s belly.

The backdraft of something fierce lifted his coffin lid for just a moment, but it was long enough to catch a glimpse.

Twisting vines and roots cocooned the kraken and pulverized it like an ant under thumb.

[You’ve slain a tier IV lvl 37 Gruesome Welting Tentulip]

[Assisted kill: experience awarded]

[You’ve reached max lvl!]