CC5 ~ 15!

15

Joe started toward the sound, which vanished as soon as he opened his eyes. “Huh… seems like there’s just too much sensory overload. Can’t focus on it.”

Eyes tightly closed, he tried to pinpoint the sound, then opened his eyes and followed the direction it had come from as he picked his way through the garbage. He repeated this process until the sound of ‘something Rare’ was coming from directly below him, then waited for the gunk beneath his feet to be atomized by his Neutrality Aura. Once the film of filth had been removed, he reached down and let his mana pulse out.

Item: Bag of Trash

Reduction value: 86 Trash aspects.

Reduction cost: .2 mana per second.

“Oh. Neat. So, each rarity level down also drops the cost by a fifth?” The bag vanished in a flash, as did all the garbage it contained. That was a stroke of good fortune; he had been worried that only the bag would be absorbed. Food scraps, cans, broken glass; he went through all of them. Listening for the sound again, Joe found that it was closer than ever before, but still a good distance down. This process continued for several layers, and he kept needing to restart whenever the pile became unstable and collapsed in around him.

Eventually, he needed to allow himself to get buried. As Joe continued to struggle downward at an incline, he trusted his shields to keep him safe from any sharp objects, as well as getting crushed. Surrounded by the refuse, he was able to keep his eyes constantly closed as well; following his auditory skills soon led him to what had been calling out to him.

Item: Failed Shield of Hatred (Rare)

Reduction value: 76 Rare aspects, 90 Uncommon aspects, 388 Common aspects, 453 Damaged aspects, 645 Trash aspects.

Reduction cost: 125 mana per second.

Joe didn’t hesitate, allowing his mana to swallow the shield whole. Six seconds passed, and in an instant, nothing was left behind. He checked the gained aspects and grumbled. “Lost about ten percent of all the good ones.”

Quest gained: Failed Shield of Hatred. After trying and failing to make a lowly Unique Shield, Grandmaster Blacksmith Iron McPoundy found that what he had created was too durable to easily destroy. Hating his failure, he threw it in the garbage. He has been terrified that someone would discover this catastrophic experiment and leverage it against his reputation. Let him know that it is gone forever. Reward: Reputation, variable. Failure: None.

“That’s… unexpected.” Joe opened his eyes and contemplated the surrounding filth with a new perspective. “If I can complete quests like this, simply by turning them in… this place really is a goldmine for me.”

However, Joe was now faced with a new fact. He was upside down, and probably at least a dozen feet below the surface. “Didn’t think that one through… gonna be a lot harder to go up than down.”

If only there was a way to get rid of all the trash without having to reduce all the garbage directly… Joe slapped at his head, only the garbage and shield stopping himself from braining himself. “I literally have a spell designed to destroy trash. Acid Spray!”

The liquid sloshed out from his palm and ate its way down, though a fair amount rebounded and splashed off his shell. He was buried, after all. Trying to use the spell as carefully as possible, Joe soon became the cause of a huge garbage sinkhole. Use after use, fifteen minutes of near-continuous casting, and his hand finally met open air. He wiggled forward and pulled himself onto the edge of the ravine he had created. “Boom. Success.”

*Hiss*

Joe paused and turned to look at the sound. “Please just be a rat or something.”

It was something; he’d had that part right. Joe’s eyes were locked on an utterly massive two-headed raccoon, and it was clearly displeased that it had been disturbed. With foam draining from its mouths, the beast launched itself at him and used his shelled body to form a crater in the soft garbage pile. “Dark Lightning Strike!”

The soft sound of his spell striking was offset by the massive explosion that followed in the next instant. Joe was driven deeper into the garbage with the bloated corpse of the raccoon shielding him from a fireball that had sprung into existence.

Damage dealt: 110 (90 Dark element damage resisted by Rotting Rabid Raccoon)

Damage dealt: 3,000 (Environmental)

Damage taken. 50 (50% Dark element resistance)

Damage taken. 1,200 (Environmental, crushing)

Experience gained: 28

“Ugh… how hard did that hit me?” He pushed at the raccoon, but it wasn’t budging. He started washing it with acid and was surprised when a message appeared.

Exquisite Shell: 1,096/2,346

“Been a while since I’ve seen you, shield damage indicator… or maybe I’ve just been avoiding you? Certainly not a fan of hand-to-hand fighting.” Joe scanned the combat logs and realized why there had been an explosion. His use of Acid Spray had caused a buildup of hydrogen gases. Combining that with the methane natural to the area and lightning… well. Big boom. “I’m surprised it wasn’t worse, actually. Why didn’t this whole place go up like a bottle rocket?”

There was no new information forthcoming, so Joe resolved to do his own research later. He was certain that it had to be a magically induced reason; maybe there were containment fields or something? As he pushed through the raccoon, he noted that the garbage wasn’t even on fire. Definitely some magical trickery going on. Joe emerged from the raccoon like a parasite tearing through the lining of a stomach, a fairly decent analogy for this area.

He was going to leave right away to avoid fighting anything else that might have been alerted to his presence by the explosion, but something within the monster called to him. His eyes drifted up to the space right where the two heads connected, and he lightly sprayed it down. As the flesh melted away, a shining Core was revealed. No, twin Cores! He grabbed them eagerly but almost dropped them in disgust.

Trash-grade monster Cores found! Would you like to convert this into experience points? Current worth: 89 experience points.

“Of course they’re Trash grade.” Joe had to swallow back his emotions as the indignation of being here washed over him again. “At least it’s something. Bind core for crafting?”

Trash-grade monster Core bound. 89 energy points available for usage while crafting!

“A one-to-one conversion?” Joe had to pause and remember that he only needed to use Cores in the creation of Rare or above… things. Crafts? That would work. “Everyone needs to use Cores when they are making stuff. This is normal.”

Joe sat on his furry new rug and frowned at the literal mountain of trash, with flecks of treasure hidden within. “It’s going to take forever to sort through all this stuff. I have to stay here a week, and… what am I doing?”

He half-stood, then realized this spot was actually as good as any other for thinking. “I’m a Ritualist. I don’t need to swim through trash or keep spamming spells over and over mindlessly! I can, and need to, automate this!”

Joe even had a perfect spell to use. With a flick of his wrist for showmanship, he pulled out a ritual paper and started converting Acid Spray into a ritual diagram. An hour of intense concentration, two, and he had a model that he was pretty certain would work as intended. It was slapped together and poorly done, which reduced the potency of the ritual back to Novice rank, even though his spell was in the Apprentice rank, but even that was within his plans. He took a few moments to draw out the ritual using aspects on the paper, and soon, it glowed a wispy dark grey.

“Totally a waste to use this for such a weak ritual,” Joe sighed as he prepared to activate it. He paused, stood, and got into position like he was about to throw a frisbee. As soon as he had poured mana and the second Trash Core’s power into the diagram, he whipped the paper away. It didn’t go terribly far, but it was far enough that he was only caught in the outer edge of the spray it created.

Ritual of Sprinkling Acid (Novice) created! This ritual creates a fine mist of Weak Acid that will eat away at its surroundings for up to four hours! Can only remove Common or below ranked items. Make a stronger version to get rid of more stuff in one go! Range: 15-foot radius. Time remaining: 3:59:46.

The ritual did its job perfectly; after only a few minutes, Joe could neither see the ritual nor the acid from his re-seated position. He had planned on following after it rather quickly, but a dense cloud of smoke had started to rise out of the pit the acid was creating. As a test, he threw some fruit peels into it. There was a deep hiss, and the smoke started melting the rotting foodstuff. “Acidic smoke, got it. No reason to breathe that in.”

An hour after he’d started the ritual, the ground began to shift. Joe judged that the garbage had been reduced at about a foot per minute, and what was around the pit of empty space had finally destabilized. The varying sections of the landfill came into stark relief as garbage the next section over remained in place. He should have been expecting that the area was magically sectioned off; the area that had shifted was one hundred feet exactly. That must have been why the explosion he’d caused hadn’t gone too far; there were internal safeguards in place.

Once the garbage had fallen by ten feet, the sections opened and allowed the nearby waste to slump down and fill the unused space. Once everything had settled, Joe closed his eyes and slid down into the deep crater that remained. No resonance at all; nothing hidden or magical. That meant that only Common or below rarity items remained, as far as his magical senses could detect. That was okay with him; he was only on the edge of the city limits. It was time to move deeper.

“Can’t just stay here ‘cause it's safe and the most comfortable area. I need to get out there and get the absolute most out of this trip. After all…” Joe turned his eyes to the center of the landfill, and a plan began to form. If he wanted the best trash, he needed to get under the most valuable shops and creation centers. If he wanted to leave as close to the end of the week as possible, he needed to start moving while muttering to himself.

“Staying in your comfort zone means that you lack dedication to improve. A lack of dedication is an insult to those who believe in you.”