u/YeOldencall

Look at that subtle environmental message. The tasteful non-heteronormative romance. Oh god, it even has theme of cultural diaspora.

Hey there, I'm hoping to get some feedback, critique, impressions of the first 2 chapters of my first serious long-term project. As this is quite long, I have added a google drive link which also have comments enabled. I would appreciate any honest feedback, really, whether is it about the construction of prose, the plot's pacing. English is not my first language, and my personal war with Past Perfect will never be won.

Anyway, thank you for your time, and I hope you have fun.

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1RwzcgRobpIcr84MHcPYQdSOoJAj0DRSuMrOXMQwZ130/edit?usp=sharing

Once again inspiration forced me to write a short story for the awkward genre of web-fiction-tropes-real-world-but-rpg-mechanic. I really don't know how to categorize this, and I would appreciate any advice. I have tried to limit the lingo, and I think it's possible to rework the concept of this story to remove all the RPG elements and fit into a traditional medieval fantasy

It's a short story about an adventurer-killer concept, which I feel a bit underrepresented in any fantasy story that has dungeon exploration. I'd like to hear your thoughts and feedback about it. As always, thanks for reading!

THE EXTRACT CAMPER

Sometimes, when we are being loaded into a dungeon, another bored and curious Hunter would approach me and ask what my [Class] is. I never lie, always answer them with a smile: I'm a [Tank]. They would ask some follow up questions. Here are some of them ranked from the least to the most annoying:

• A [Tank]? Cool! Are you on the Defmaxxing or the HPmaxxing faction?
• A [Tank] huh? Wow, we don't see many of you guys nowadays. Why don't you class change? 
• A [Tank]? And you are going into the dungeon solo? Why don't you have a party with you? Hey, want to join us?

Honestly the first two are fine. I don't get much human interaction outside of the dungeon these days, so I have come to enjoy giving them a little lecture on how HPmaxxing is mathematically superior, or how hybrid classes such as [Dark Knight] or whatever are crutches for the newgens. Usually they would laugh, either with me or at me, and we would part ways without much trouble. But the last question, I always find it awkward. Like c'mon, it's already 2045. People DO run dungeons solo. Granted, they are usually damage-dealing classes with high life drain abilities. But it's not too strange, is it? I have to make up some inane excuses to politely turn their invitation down. 

After the dungeon is loaded in, I find my chance to slip out of sight. I return to the blank space known as the [Loading Room], and approach the top right corner opposite the exit. I take out a rope, tie a weight into it, and throw it at the blank white wall. Whatever shitty 3D software that the aliens had used to make these dungeons (probably Autodesk), well, they missed a spot. The rope catches a snag. I pull myself up, and disappear through an invisible gap. 

The space between the dungeons is a pitch black and formless void, but somehow I always instinctively know where to go. I don't even have to think about it, just put one foot in front of the other and zone out. Before I'd known it, I would have reached the other side. 

The [Exit Portal] room. The room right behind the [Boss Room]

I always hate the waiting part. The preparing part is easy: turn off the Dungeon ID transceiver with the black market tool that I have brought, find a comfy hiding spot, have all my potions laid down and pre-opened, change my clothing, then settle down. I can do anything but sleep for the next 1.5 - 3 hours. Obviously there's no reception, and dungeons tend to brick consumer electronic devices at random, so I couldn't bring my phone. Usually I'd have a book or two, maybe a small snack, or I'd bring a single-player board game. Lately I have also been trying journaling. I heard that it helps with your mental and emotional health. I don't really see it though.

Eventually, the entrance to the [Exit Portal] room would open. I put down whatever I was doing, grab my weapon and start chugging the potions one by one. Always, and I could not stress this enough, ALWAYS drink the Anti-blind potion first. Sometimes an [Assassin] would have too much stamina to spare and feel like flashbanging the room for funsies. Sometimes there are veteran parties who'd actually try to clear this room methodically. Either way, it's pretty much over if you are blinded, so grab that first. Then the anti-stun, anti-knockdown, anti-poison, and finally the buffs. I'm a fast chugger so it only takes a few seconds.  

When the Hunter party finally enters the room, I like to mix things up a little. Sometimes, I wait for them to drop their guard and approach the portal first. Sometimes, I like to [Charge] right into their midst, especially if I see that they have a few injured members. There was this one time, when the triumphant party came in they were completely absorbed in an argument about who should get what loot. I snuck up behind them, acted natural, even interjected a few: I agree, yes, absolutely. When they finally thought: "Wait, who is this guy?", it was when I finally struck. 

Always, always kill the healer first. [Priest], [Druid], [Saintess], [Potion-brewer] or whatever. Always always always kill them first. Make sure they are dead. Dead dead. Heck, I tank some damage to get close to them and double-tap their body. Usually they cannot survive a good strike of my halberd, but I always give their eyes a poke with the pointy end just to make sure. I cannot survive a battle of attrition. Only after killing the healer do I have a chance of winning. 

At that point, their main damage dealer would try to flank me while the more durable class would try to hold me down. The important part here is not to get immobilized and surrounded. My favorite position is in front of the entrance doorway, blocking their exit back into the [Boss Room] while having my flank covered. There's something in our psychology that deceives us, tricks us to subconsciously think that the way we came from is the exit. In reality the safest and easiest exit would be to switch on the [Exit portal] and wait for it to charge. Anyway, I just have to wait for either the damage dealer or the tank to make a mistake, then capitalize on it. A [Fighter] could get too close and get [Grappled] then [Disarmed], then they would get dis-armed for real. A [Knight] could [Charge] in and trade blows with me, but with all the buff I have it's a negative trade for them. Sometimes I see some goofy ass [Rogue] with throwing poison knives build, which to be fair is quite an effective bossing tool, but I have enough HP and resistance to tank that. I let them tire themselves out, and make them watch while I butcher the rest of their party. 

"But what about the [Mage]?", a keen-eyed reader may ask. They are tricky, and they are the real test of your decision-making ability under stress. There are many types. The "Oh my god what is happening right now" type, usually die during first contact together with the healer. If they didn't, I could [Grapple] one of their friends. They always hesitate in a hostage situation. Then there is the "Ego" type. They are competent, and will try to put some distance between me and them before charging up. Their weakness is they usually fall for the oldest trick in the book. By that I meant I intentionally take some damage, ouchie ouchie I'm about to die, then go behind a corner. 9 out of 10 times they would give chase out of bloodlust for me, having ruined their perfect dungeon run. They would round the corner and see me holding the halberd at half-length, and before they could yell I ram it through them. The last archetype is the "Pussy". They see an ambush and immediately charge up a [Teleport], trying to escape via the secondary [Exit portal]. Sometimes I hunt them down after I'm done, but they usually don't have much loot, as expected of cowards.  

Of course, things don't always go smoothly. There are parties where everyone immediately chooses to run away, and I'd have to run a marathon through the entire dungeon to chase them down one by one. There are parties that can manage an orderly retreat back to the dungeon, and try for the secondary exit. There are parties with veterans of the Arena, and they would instruct everyone on what to do, and it is me who have to run and hide. Occasionally, I would wait for hours and no one would come. I'd exit through the [Boss Room], try not to fight it if possible, and go through the dungeon looking for them. I'd find them beaten and exhausted, hunched up together in some dark corner of the dungeon. "Oh thanks God! A rescuer! We are saved". They could never put up much of a fight, but their loot is poor too.  

There was this one time. I had finished butchering this party, except for one girl. She had run back into the dungeon, but I easily followed her trail of blood. When I finally cornered her in a dead-end room, she started screaming for her mother. To this day I still don't know why; maybe it was the blood-curdling scream, or maybe it was because she had the same hairstyle as my sister. But I let her go. I still regret it.  

Once the fighting is done comes the looting. I prioritize the in-dungeon loot, they sell better on the black market. Then unused consumables, if any, just to save me a few shopping trips. Unless their gears are really nice I usually never take them. I always strip a set of undamaged clothing from them though, just for the next time. 

I then change my clothing and exit from the same way as I have entered, through the gap back to my original dungeon. It has been cleared out, and I take the secondary [Exit Portal] there. 

Back outside, I go to the black market district to sell my loot. I like the automated trading kiosk; their commission fee is outrageous, but they don't ask questions. With the cash in hand, I always get a ravenous appetite. I rent out a private room in a fancy restaurant, and gorge and gorge through their most expensive menu until the emptiness inside me feels full. Then I stumble toward the nearest ATM, to wire what's left of the cash to my uncle, who is still living in my hometown. He always says that my sister's treatment needs more money, but I had known the truth. My sister died two years ago. He is probably using the money to gamble or something. Whatever. At this point, I'm not even doing what I do for the loot. 

Blind drunk, I stagger into the madding cloud, humming the chorus from an old song that I had forgotten the title of: 

I was in the middle ground
Looking to find the
Fountain of infinite mirror
Tree falling, no one would hear
Shadow of nobody there
Murders of murderers living in fear of it

END.

Hey there, I was hoping to get some impression/critique for the beginning excerpt of a short story project that I'm working on. It's a bit of rough manuscript, and for sure I will need to work on the finer points of my grammar. But I want to hear your thoughts on its, particularly if it's too "meta", because some of my planned plot points are based on the genre conventions and tropes. And I promise there will be more character plot down the line.

1. The Manifesto of Kaaraviz the Mad, who on May 12th the year of 912 of the Fifth Era, bombed the Inner Royal Palace and the Eternal Imperial Academy.

Noon, May 12th, year 912 of the Fifth Era. Day of the Seeing Pact. A high-yield magical explosive device was detonated in the main ritual chamber of the Imperial Palace during the Renewal Ceremony, when the whole Imperial Family of Aciei was present. The resulting blast leveled the ceremonial wing of the Inner Palace and effectively ended the Aciei Imperial bloodline, which have reigned since the late 3rd Era. 

At the same time, a similar device detonated in the Dean’s Office at the Eternal Academy. His Honor Dean Leipzin Zhakov, who was level 193 at the time, survived the initial blast. A few minutes later, Kaaraviz the Mad himself appeared in the ruin of the Dean’s office and engaged with the Dean in single combat. Despite only being at around level 87, Kaaraviz managed to kill a wounded Leipzin in the duel, before succumbing to his own wounds afterward. 

The following document is believed to be Kaaraviz the Mad last written words.

----------------------------------------------
“God created Man, but the devil created the status window”

If you are reading this, then you already know who I am and what I did. I will not deny that there’s a chance that I will fail. Both the bomb planted in the Inner Palace and the one in the Academy has a secondary detonation mechanism that will kick in if the first one was found and defused. There’s also a second, smaller bomb that is set to detonate independently to trigger the payload of the first one. In the event that too would fail, I will go to the Academy and kill Leipzin myself. That monster has long attained a level of power that surpasses human comprehension, but by the Gods I will see to it that he is dead. The motto of my family is “We make Sure”.

I have lived a long life. I have traveled the Three Continents and crossed the Eight Seas. In my days, I have seen much of the cruelty and injustice that mankind is capable of. When I was 60, I thought that there’s nothing that could make me feel fear anymore. But that turned out to be false. The events of the last ten years have instilled in me a deep and chronic fear for the future of this Empire and where we are heading as a race. More than anything, it terrifies me that I am the minority in thinking this way. But even if I am alone, this is a fight that I must take to save us all.

I will say the truth that should have been said long ago: Never before in our collective history has mankind's ability to use [System] been so abused, so cruelly used to discriminate and oppress. We, as a society, are so enthralled by the mathematical representation of what we are, that we have forgotten to see each other as kin. The obsession with leveling and stats have ruined us morally, and we will doom our children to follow the same path if nothing is done. 

Consider the following statistics:

In the year 850, a peasant's lifetime average level was 30. 
In 910, a peasant’s lifetime average level was 15. 

In the year 800, 60% of the dungeons were open to the public and Non-guild affiliated adventurers.
By 900, 97% of known dungeons within the Empire were privately owned by the three biggest guilds or domains of noblemen. 

By eight years old, Net Stat Difference between an average commoner’s child and an average nobleman's child is 35 points. If you take out wealthy rural peasants and those who live in the Central region, the gap is nearly 50 points.

Per the 910 census, serf adventurers had a 31% annual death rate. This was less than 2% for noble adventurers

In the last 50 years, the serf-slave class in our society has expanded from less than 30% of our population to nearly 60%. 

Thus I am reminded of the age-old wisdom.

“To those who have, more will be given. To those who have not, everything will be taken away.”

And yes, I know what you are going to say. You will say that after the Demon King’s death in 867, the spawn rate of dungeons went down while lethality of the remnant monsters went up. And you will say that Census and survey data are unreliable, and you will say that the peasant and farmer class inherently don't need to be armed or have high levels or that they don't need INT beyond 25 points. You will also say that it is important for the defense of the empire to have strong nobles whose level exceed 120, and that necessitates the hoarding and concentration of xp to the upper classes. You will also point towards the great Hero Jon Mac the Martyr who had commoner origin, but became the Valedictorian of the Academy and went on to slay the Demon King.

And I will tell you this:
Last year I traveled through the Low City of Umidi. Outside the city, on the lamp posts leading toward the main gate, corpses of poachers and those who entered dungeons without permit are hung. In the swamp’s sweltering heat, flies swarmed around the swelled corpses, their faces bloated into something unrecognizable as human. Among the dead there were four children from a nearby village. From what their weeping parents told me, they weren't poachers but simply got lost and wandered into a dungeon. Scared and weak as they were, somehow those unarmed and untrained fifteen years old managed to save each other and escaped. But in the process they each have gained a level and a half from killing monsters, which totaled to a 8000xp loss to the Count of Umidi, and as per the Poacher’s Law the ruler can elect for execution. I suppose the Count wanted to get back as much exp as possible.

I had to bribe the guards for them to let down the children’s corpses. They cut the rotting ropes holstering up the bodies, and the parents took them back to their village for a proper funeral. At night when I close my eyes, I still see that harrowing scene, of those fathers and mothers, bare foot, carrying the pale corpses of their children on their back, slowly trodding along the muddy road toward the hills yonder. I see that as an omen of things to come. The Divine bestowed the [System] as a lifeline to save humanity from the Demon King, but we have fashioned it into a noose. 

The fact that the world changed after the Demon King died is true. There is no denying that there are less natural xp sources today than a hundred years ago. But the tyrannical Laws that we have wrought to suppress and dehumanize the lower classes are not natural. Examples of these laws include:   

• The above-mentioned Poacher’s law, passed in 905, which allowed capital punishment in case of XP loss from unpermitted dungeon exploration activities confirmed to be over 2000 pts. 
• The Guild Strengthening Act of 895, which amongst other things, allowed the Ruling Noble to levy infants with high innate stats from local serf families and put them in a guild’s Junior Apprentice House under the pretext of nurturing commoner talents. But the tuition fees of those “Apprentice House” are much higher than any peasant parents could ever hope to afford, therefore the only way to pay is through indentured servitude contract with the child. In practice, it means that any commoner born with any potential will be enslaved by the guild for life.
• The Prosperity Act of 896, which removed the maximum taxation cap and penalty cap that nobles could impose on serfs for leveling without permission.
• The Peacetime Ordinance of 880, which forbade the peasant class to train offensive stats as well as intelligence stats, and forbade organizing fights among the peasants for leveling and xp. 
• The Academy Reform Act of 900, which raised the stats requirement to apply to Academy so high that most commoner students could not apply. Not only that, it further exacerbated the stratification within the Academy by granting the noble-dominated S Class and A Class unprecedented level of privileges while simultaneously restricting the budget of B class and below. And worst of all, it established the Magnifica Brotherhood as an officially endorsed organization within the Academy.

 

All of the above laws have one thing in common. They were all either written by, and/or endorsed by, and/or enforced by one man. 
Leipzin Zhakov.  
Duke of Erinsil and Blackmores,
Former Chancellor of the Empire and Advisor to the Emperor, 
Dean of the Eternal Imperial Academy,
Grand Warmage of the Hero’s Party,
And once upon a time, my friend.