I reconstituted in a tiny, ten by ten closet with no doors or windows. There was a blank screen on one wall. The vending machine next to it gave off just enough light to touch the corners of the room.
Another System message greeted me.
[Welcome to your Lair.]
“Holy shit!” I exclaimed, looking around the dimly lit room. “We can just leave the Tutorial?!” Not that this itty-bitty room was much better than the church.
Dickhead strung together an increasingly colorful combination of obscenities. I might’ve been impressed, if he hadn’t confirmed my suspicion about the profanity filter. It seemed like the only word it filtered was my favorite word. It wasn’t fair.
“Gods dammit, Frank!” he finally concluded.
Dickhead was pissed.
“Do you have any idea what you’ve just done?” he demanded in a tone that I didn’t like.
“No, Dick,” I said with practiced calm. “I don’t. Why don’t you lower your voice and explain it to me…” I didn’t let anyone talk to me like that.
We both cooled off in our own way: he took a breath while I took another bite of GodFather. I glanced down at the skull; it had teleported with me, but the rest of the body hadn’t. Weird. Just to be safe, I saved him for later.
Dickhead seemed to have calmed down a little and said, “Welcome to your Lair.”
“Cool,” I replied dismissively. “What does it do?”
“Well, since everything’s all topsy-turvy this time round, this is your player housing.”
“Player Housing?” My brow creased. “Like Stardew Crossing? The game where you collect shit, decorate your house, and try to bang every frankface you run into?”
Dickhead was hesitant to agree. “Sort of…”
“Screw that. Show me the Universe-first loot instead.”
He sighed. “Go to the screen on the wall; it’s your Lair terminal. You’ll find the Lair menu, but you can only access it from that terminal. There’s a QoL that lets you access it remotely—”
I cut him off. “Something, something, microtransactions I can’t afford. Got it. Next…”
He walked me through navigating the menu. This one was fairly simple. There weren’t that many categories: Build Mode, Daily Expenses, Freelancers, Rewards, Overview, and Upgrades.
I tapped on Build Mode while he was still explaining the interface but wasn’t prepared for the literal out-of-body experience that followed.
My consciousness drifted up and away from my body. It was franking surreal.
“Oh shit, oh shit,” I kept repeating as I floated away.
I hadn’t noticed the UI overlay until everything stopped zooming out.
I watched as my damn body idled at the Lair terminal. It barely moved but followed some kind of loop when it did.
“I see you still haven’t learned your lesson about touching things,” Dickhead said, sounding much more disappointed than smug.
I let it slide.
Another System message appeared.
[New questline started: Homesteading.]
“Uh… I just got—”
“I see it,” Dickhead said, cutting me off. “You’ve started the player housing quest. Looks like it’s piggybacking off the old code. Give it a sec. It’ll tell us what you’ve got to do.”
[Homesteading - New objective: Move an object.]
“That’s an easy one. You can mentally select anything in your Lair with the Hand icon and reposition it while in Build Mode.”
I chose the Lair terminal. It remained highlighted while I had it selected. This was a little experiment to see if it would kick me out of Build Mode if I moved it while using it.
The terminal moved to the opposite wall, but my isometric view of the Lair didn’t change.
[Homesteading - Objective: Move an object, complete.]
[You’ve gained: 1 Common chest.]
[New objective: Collect rewards.]
There was a little hammer icon in the toolbar at the bottom. I selected it out of curiosity. Now the walls highlighted as I looked at them. I got the impression I could expand the tiny closet into something more. There was a counter at the top of the screen. It read 4/50 tiles. It didn’t take a genius to guess the room I stood in took up those four tiles.
Dickhead was trying to be helpful again and said, “See that little X in the top right—”
I exited Build Mode and returned to my body before he could finish his sentence.
I had to turn around and walk across the room to access the Lair terminal again.
This tale has been pilfered from Royal Road. If found on Amazon, kindly file a report.
“Now bring up—”
I was already ahead of him. There were a few items waiting for me under the Rewards submenu.
Pending Rewards:
1 Common chest (Homesteading quest reward)
1 Rare chest (First Blood achievement reward)
1 Rare chest (Bad Blood achievement reward)
1 Rare chest (Fool Me Once achievement reward)
1 Celestial chest (Baddest Blood achievement reward)
Dickhead nearly exploded. “Gods, a celestial chest! In the Tutorial? I can’t believe it. This never happens. I wouldn’t be surprised if opening it got you another Universe-first.”
“How rare is Celestial?”
“There are seven ranks of treasure chests, and celestial is the highest. They are exceptionally rare.”
I was the type to save the best for last, so I tapped on the Common chest first.
But nothing happened.
Puzzled, I stepped back and tripped over a knee-high treasure chest that had appeared behind me. After landing on my ass, I quickly got to my feet and dusted myself off. Surprisingly, nothing hurt.
I could get used to not feeling pain.
I bent at the waist and inspected the chest. It appeared identical to the one I saw in the church, only this one seemed less jumpy.
Using my free hand, I tried to lift the lid. It didn’t budge. There weren’t any obvious locks that I could see. The chest just sat there, unwilling to cough up any answers.
“How do I open it?” I finally asked.
“Kick it.”
I shrugged and threw my leg back.
“Not too hard!” Dickhead warned. “You want it opened, not obliterated.”
I stood there balancing on one leg awkwardly. It was easy to forget how strong I was. I eased my foot forward, giving the chest a reasonable tap. The lid flew open, and a notification flashed up in the corner of my screen, just like with the Intellect upgrades. I guess looting notifications went there too.
[You’ve gained: 8 wood planks, 2 iron ingots, 1 cured resin, 1 cotton bolt, 1 wool bolt, and 1 common blueprint.]
The Lair terminal’s screen lit up and defaulted to the Overview Menu, showing me the resources I now had access to.
[Homesteading - Objective: Collect rewards, complete.]
[New objective: Build and place a bed.]
“Huh,” my manager said.
“What?”
“Odd. They usually give you gold in your first chest.”
“Is gold worth anything?”
“It’s the primary currency. You can use it at the town vendors, the player marketplace, and in upgrading your Lair.”
“Can I use it for microtransactions?”
“Ah, no. QoL only accepts galactic credits.”
I frowned. Of course not.
I quickly brought up my Menu, remembering that I’d seen credits before. There. I found them in the expansion rules submenu. It was the last item listed for the World-first reward.
“Is a thousand credits a lot?”
“Depends. For a native player like you? Absolutely. For an alien player? No, not really.”
“What’s the blueprint for?”
“Building stuff. You’ll see.”
I went back to the Lair terminal and tapped on the first Rare chest.
A melodic voice accompanied the chest’s appearance. “First Blood! Talk about not wasting time. You, my bloodthirsty friend, have earned a reward for being the first player to kill anything in the World Dungeon. Enjoy your new title: Killer!”
I stared at my latest knee-high chest. This one had steel hinges instead of iron, like the Common one. Or maybe it was silver? I didn’t know. The damn thing was shiny. It could have been the grain or the polish, but even the wood looked… fancier? And there was a blue-hued glow surrounding it.
“Do the higher-ranked chests always talk?”
“No, only when you earn a World or Universe-first achievement.”
I shrugged and tapped the chest with the tip of my boot, like before.
Nothing happened.
“The higher the rank, the harder the kick. Try again,” Dickhead said.
I shrugged and gave it a good punt. That did the trick as I got another loot notification.
[You’ve gained: 1,000 credits. Total credits: 1,000.]
“That’s… it?” I had expected more.
“Seeing as you’d normally earn one Credit for every NPC killed, I’d say it’s a decent reward.”
“Where are you getting those numbers?”
“In your Menu, under Achievements,” Dickhead said as I followed along.
“You earn a credit for every milestone you hit. For NPC kills, it starts off as one credit per kill.”
I pulled up my Achievement submenu.
PvE Combat
NPCs killed: Null
Bosses killed: Null
Raid bosses killed: Null
Guardians killed: Null
NPC Lair raids defended: Sealed
NPC Town raids defended: Null
PvP Combat
Players killed: Sealed—ERROR: 7
PvP Lair raids defended: Sealed
PvP Town raids defended: Sealed
PvP Lair raids completed: Sealed
Exploration
Player towns discovered: Null
Instances completed: Null
Resource nodes unlocked: Null
Player Lairs visited: 1
Economic
Total gold earned: 0
Max gold held: 0
Total credits earned: 1,000
Max credits held: 1,000
Lair
Lair size: 4 tiles
Freelancers hired: Null
Quests
Quests & objectives completed: 2
Hidden quests & objectives completed: Null
World-first Achievements
First Blood - You scored the first kill in the World Dungeon, Killer.
Bad Blood - You scored the first player kill in the World Dungeon, Betrayer.
Fool Me Once - You were the first player to cheat in the World Dungeon, Cheater.
Universe-first Achievements
Baddest Blood - You scored the first player kill in any Tutorial, Murderhobo.
“I don’t see any milestones,” I said after I finished scanning the list.
“Sorry, that’s back-end info. I’m allowed to tell you if you ask.”
I wasn’t about to ask a hundred questions about milestones. Not when there were more treasure chests to open.
I closed the Menu and got another loot notification.
[You’ve gained: 93 Credits from new achievement milestones. Total Credits: 1,093.]
That was a nice touch when it cashed out my earned Credits just by checking the submenu.
I tapped on the next Rare chest in the submenu, and the voice spoke up again.
“Bad Blood! It’s so nice to see that you’ve got strong instincts and weak morals. I can tell you’re going to accomplish great things, my little backstabber. You have earned a reward for being the first player to kill another player in the World Dungeon. Enjoy your new title: Betrayer!”
I didn’t know how I felt about that one. A mixed bag for sure. But I wouldn’t lose sleep over it.
My musings brought up another question.
“Dick, do I need to sleep?”
“Eventually. You don’t have any traits or feats that say otherwise.”
Feats? I’d ask about them later.
I wound up and punted the little glowing blue bastard.
Another loot notification popped up.
[You’ve gained: 1,000 credits. Total credits: 2,093.]
Finally, I tapped on the last Rare chest in the menu.
This was the first time it had addressed me by my name.
“Fool Me Once! You’ve been a very naughty boy, Frank. Breaking my rules isn’t very nice. Don’t do it again. You have earned a reward for being the first player to break my rules in the World Dungeon. Enjoy your new title: Cheater!”
“Frank…” My manager tried to warn me. “Don’t kick that—”
But I was already mid-punt. I kicked it open, and the son of a bitch exploded. My undead ass flew across the room, smashing into the wall right behind me. The loot notification popped up as I dropped to the floor.
[You’ve gained: Nothing. Cheaters don’t get rewarded.]
The blast had hurt my pride more than my hide. I saw a sleeve of my leather jacket across the room. Weird. It had five fingers and was just lying there.
I glanced down at my shoulder and, sure as shit, I was down an arm.
“Frank me…”
here on my Patreon. Don't worry, it's not behind any paywall!
