Progress - Level 1 (6/100)
Race - Mundane Human
Class - Pitiful rogue
Gold value <1
Deepest level - 4
Strongest monster defeated - Sand Slime
Killed by - Ironclad Beetle bite
Run time - 2.3 hours
Rank - 1,093,447,312
Curtis reeled. Billions? Trapped like me? His rank was a speck among countless others. Curtis started pondering the implications. This was huge! So many! Was everyone here?!? in the same situation he found himself in? Was all of humanity here? Maybe he had been killed and this was actually Hell? As he looked again, he saw his Rank # was already much larger, by nearly 2000 in just a few minutes. The System didn't wait, obviously. And then something else caught his attention "Continue?" it was a prompt, just sitting there waiting for him.
Finally agreeing to continue (there didn't seem to be any other option besides just floating here), he was met with the prompt:
Continue as "Curtis" or change name?
Seeing no reason to change his name, he moved on.
Choose race: Mundane Human, Sand Slime, Green Slime,
No way he was going to try to live as a slime, so Mundane Human it was.
Choose Class: Pitiful rogue, None
Much as he hated being "pitiful", was it worth having no class at all? What did a class do for him? In the end, he didn't want to risk it. No class might mean no starting equipment. Confirming himself yet again as a Pitiful rogue, he materialized, standing in front of his gravestone. Off to the side of his gravestone, the wall was now covered in ever-shifting names - his own highlighted in the center. He found that he could "pause the updates" if he wanted to actually read the names on the list around his own. A nearby name caught his eye - "Jessa".
That was an unusual name - could it really be HIS Jessa? The cheating ex that had used him to scam free meals and vacations for a year, before moving on to another guy? Whoever she was, she had just passed him up in rankings, and he found that didn't sit well. It might just be ego, but he wanted to do better than her at whatever this was.
As he focused more closely on the name, details appeared:
Jessa - Mundane Human, Pitiful Rogue, Level 1 (deepest), Alive
He felt there was more, but that was all that was shown to him currently. He tried it with a half dozen other names of the list, with similar results. One name had "Rust Rat" listed as "race", and two had "None" listed as Class. About half the names were now people playing with the renaming system, from the looks of it - certainly "Boneman" and "Crunchy" were unlikely to be player's real names.
Scrolling to the top leaders, there was a Level 21 "Brock" killed by Fireball scroll on Level 15, in the lead spot, but all the top ranks seemed to be dead. Sadly, some read "killed by
After wasting a half hour or so familiarizing himself with common ways people were dying, he felt ready to push on. The mirror was the same as before, and he was at (0/100), confirming that all progress was lost. At least his dagger was no longer slightly rusty.
Scanning the new" mirror room, he sees nothing familiar. Still sandstone, but that's where the similarity ends. An open corridor leads off in one direction, making a sharp 90-degree turn after about 15', so he can't see what lies beyond. Two sturdy wooden doors adorn the other walls - they look solid, but are certain to make noise if opened - assuming they will open for him. Next to one of the doors is an unlit torch mounted to the wall.
Curtis takes the torch and puts it in his inventory (which now, once again, holds a food ration and 3 vials of water). He has no way to light it, but might find a way in the future, and it's a least a solid stick to poke things with, if all else fails. For now, dagger at ready, he stalks down the corridor and peaks around the corner. After the turn, he sees it goes another 20 feet to where a door once stood - now just a few bits of rotted wood remain. Creeping forward, he finds a room of shelves and bookcases, reminding him of a storeroom or library.
As he looks over the room from the ruined doorway, he spots an endearing but possibly deadly sight - a family of granite-colored rats curled up in a nest of scrap paper on a bottom shelf. "Rust Rat 6/6" for the parents, and "Rust Rat juvenile 1/1" for the babies.
Knowing he can't "die" now, and eager for real progress, Curtis comes up with a plan to take out the rat family. Creeping behind the bookcase they are nested in, he plans to topple it on them, trapping the family and possibly squishing the rats. About halfway, disaster strikes - an adult rat's nose starts twitching furiously. It awakens and spots him as he dives behind their bookcase. Alarmed squeaks come from the family as he (more slowly than he had guessed) pushes over the bookcase. As he regains his dagger, he is already under attack, but he had gotten lucky and pinned the second adult by the tail.
Curtis fights back and forth with the alert parent, as the other struggles to free itself. He finishes it off (taking 5 damage in the process) just as the other parent gets free - avoiding the feared 2-on-one, he thought. But just then yet another rat leaps on him from the top of the next set of shelves, and he faces both it (young adult 5/5) and the wounded parent (4/6) at the same time.
Unable to use the dagger on the rat climbing/scratching/biting on him, he pins it against his side and body-slams himself to the ground, hoping to crush it, and aiming to also crush the wounded parent. By this point, he has taken 4 more damage and is down to just 6 himself. Curtis crashes, rolls, and starts a frenzy of dagger strikes. Both are injured and dazed, but still alive, the blind dagger strikes futile.
Sitting up, Curtis manages to finish off the young adult, taking only one more damage, but the second parent latches on, doing 2 more points and causing bleeding as it clamped down as he finished it off. With only 3 points left and certain to lose one more from bleeding, Curtis staggers away, holding his wounds closed and hoping to stop the bleeding long enough for healing to kick in.
Carefully hobbling back to the mirror room, while holding in his remaining blood and not scream in pain TOO loudly, Curtis makes it back around the corner of the corridor and sits against the wall. Moaning and holding pressure on the worst wounds, he waits to see if health goes up or down. After a while, it ticked down to 2, but he kept still, kept pressure on, and was rewarded with "Bleeding stopped" and could finally relax.
Checking the mirror, he saw:
Mundane Human - Curtis
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Class - Pitiful Rogue
Level 1 (17/100)
Health 2/15
So he had gotten full credit for the kills - that made the pain almost worth it. Still far too much risk for the reward, though. Nothing to do now but wait, as the pain slowly subsided. He was starting to feel dehydrated (probably blood loss) and got out a water vial from inventory and drank it - it was excellent water, and somehow felt like more than the cupful the vial size would indicate. He had no idea how that could be, but he wasn't complaining.