The Chronicles of Dwynveia - a Slimeling LitRPG

I woke up with a terrible headache lying on something hard. A set of messages flashed before my eyes.

Network connection lost…

Reconnecting…

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The reconnection attempt failed.

Looking for alternative networks

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Network found.

Welcome to Dwynveia

The fuck? I thought through the haze of pain. Oh…. Right. Must be the interface thing.

This required further investigation, but, first, I had to figure out where I was. So, with an inner sigh, I braced myself and tried to crack my eyes open. The jolt of pain radiating deep into my brain told me it wasn’t the best of ideas. By reflex that was well-honed by regular migraines, I tried to roll on my side to hide myself from the light. What I didn’t count on was the surface I was lying on suddenly ending. I had barely enough time to think “oh, shit” before my fall was painfully broken by whatever was beneath.

‘Ow,’ I muttered, my entire body now hurting.

I tried to push myself to a sitting position. This only resulted in me slamming the back of my head into whatever I fell from, as I forgot it was there.

‘Fuck…’ I hissed.

I saw a paper doll of myself projected against the upper left corner of my eyelids. Its head flashed red and remained coloured slightly pink, while the rest of the silhouette remained white. After a second or two the marker disappeared.

I’ve decided to sit there until the pain subsided. I don’t know how long it took. Ten Minutes? Maybe twenty? Eventually, I felt brave enough to open my eyes again. I cracked one of my eyes open. I didn’t feel any discomfort, so I slowly opened both of them. I blinked away the blurriness and noticed I was in some sort of a dimly lit bricked chamber, though once my sight fully adjusted to the poor light I saw that the walls were built from large stone blocks that wouldn’t be out of place as a building material for mediaeval fortress walls. The floor was made from some kind of polished tiles. On closer inspection though, it seemed their smoothness came more from time and countless feet that walked on them rather than from any kind of a tool. Some of the tiles appeared to still have remnants of paint on them, but in the poor light it was hard to tell what colour it was, and there wasn’t enough of it to even guess what was once painted on them. And as far as I was concerned that particular mystery could be lost forever. I never cared all that much about the history of architecture.

While I was looking around I noticed that the backpack I got from Ereshkigal was near me. I must have missed it on my way down.

Speaking of which…

I didn’t feel like getting up from the sitting position yet, so I twisted and turned to get a good look at the object. Best I could tell, it was a large stone block. It lacked any ornaments and looked to be almost unnaturally smooth like it was carved with modern tools, which felt out of place in this ancient-looking chamber. I had no idea what its purpose was. Was it some sort of an altar? Sarcophagus? Catafalque?

Resigning myself to the fact I couldn't sit there forever, I grabbed the edge of the altar or whatever and pulled myself up. I was still feeling slightly woozy, so I held on to it until I was fully steady. Finally on my feet, I got my first good look at the chamber, though, as it turned out, there wasn’t much to look at. It was a fairly simple rectangular room lit by two torches in wall sconces. The chamber’s centrepoint was the whatever-the-stone-thing-I-woke-on-was. I noticed that there were some blue-white glowing characters etched into the wall beside me. In the opposite wall, there was a closed heavy wooden door with a brass ring knocker.

I’ve decided to get a closer look at the glowing letters on the wall as maybe they held some answers. Unfortunately, to my disappointment, it wouldn't be so simple. The inscription had three lines each written in a different character set which, and I was quite sure of that, didn't look like any modern script commonly used on Earth.

The first line was written in what looked to be some flourishy bastard child of Kanji and the Arabic alphabet. There were all sorts of hoops, lines and dots there, inscribed by someone who clearly had a lot of enthusiasm, but if you followed the main line, eventually the letter just abruptly ended and another complex drawing began.

The next one was weirder still, as it appeared to be written in cuneiform, or at least a script very similar to it. I’ve seen pictures of the old Mesopotamian tablets before, but it was years ago, so I couldn’t be hundred percent sure.

The last line was, at first glance, quite similar to the first one, but on closer inspection, I saw there were significant differences. The letters/sigils, though lacking flourish, were also very complicated, but the way they flowed felt… right. Despite it being the first time I saw the inscription, I knew that every loop was in the perfect place for it and had an ideal shape, each dot and line was the right size and correctly aligned with the rest of the character.

So, we definitely have three different languages here, I thought. Or maybe a single language with three different character sets.

I touched letters from the first line with a finger. It was slightly warm. I traced along it and while doing so, I noticed that somehow the flow made more sense when the movement was done right-to-left, though I wasn’t able to tell for sure. Oddly enough, even the first two lines lacked any imperfections, which was unusual for any hand-made work. I was curious what caused them to glow. Magic? Some fluorescent powder? But then, some remnants of it would be left on my finger. I rubbed it against my thumb to be sure. Nothing. Definitely magic then.

I saw a blinking red exclamation mark in the upper right corner of my vision. I focused on it and a box with notifications appeared:

The following attributes have progressed:

Intelligence: +5% (5% total progress to level 17)

The following skills have progressed:

Insight: +10% (10% total progress to level 18)

Linguistics: +5% (5% total progress to level 41)

Interesting. So I have skills and attributes now. How do I access them though?

My first idea was to think of the word “attributes”. A box appeared with a list.

Attributes

Physical

Progress

Mental

Progress

Strength

8

0%

Intelligence

16

5%

Dexterity

12

0%

Wisdom

12

0%

Agility

7

0%

Willpower

12

0%

Endurance

7

0%

Cunning

8

0%

Vitality

6

0%

Resilience

6

0%

Perception

9

0%

Faith

3

0%

Appearance

12

0%

Charisma

6

0%

Okay. That’s something.

Next, I thought “skills” and, likewise, I was rewarded with a list:

Lore - General

Name

Rank

Level

Progress

Insight

Novice

17

10%

Lore - Humanities

Name

Rank

Level

Progress

Linguistics

Journeyslime

40

5%

Earth Literature

Apprentice

25

0%

Earth History

Novice

10

0%

Lore - Sciences

Name

Rank

Level

Progress

Data Analysis

Apprentice

30

0%

Mathematics

Novice

10

0%

Computing

Novice

15

0%

Survival - General

Name

Rank

Level

Progress

First Aid

Novice

2

0%

Sense of Direction

Novice

10

0%

Crafting - Cooking

Name

Rank

Level

Progress

General

Novice

2

0%

A lot of my “real-life” skills seemed to have some degree of applicability here. Probably most of them would be useless in the long run, but hope springs eternal. I wondered whether there was a list of all the options I could view.

Options? I thought.

The following options are available. You can access them by thinking or saying their name:

Basic Details

Attributes

Skills

Abilities

Traits

Statuses

Map

Notifications

Quest Journal

Utilities

I started to go through the ones I hadn’t seen yet. The Basic Details were bog-standard character sheet stuff.

Basic Details

Name

Lilyth

Race

Tenebral Slimeling

Gender

Transwoman

Age

33

Level

0 (0/500 exp)

Class

Corpo

Rank

-

Perk Points

-

I remembered Ereshkigal mentioning I could check my race here. It took me a few tries, but, eventually, I managed to open up its description.

Race: Tenebral Slimeling

Type: Magical - Outer Being

Bonuses:

Immunity to non-magical diseases

Immunity to most non-magical poisons

Healing Rate replaced with Health Regeneration

Greatly reduced non-magical piercing damage

Reduced non-magical crushing and slashing damage

Immunity to bleeding

Immunity to internal damage

Shapeshifting

Minor Darksight

Ability to digest most organic matter

Increased Shadow Arcana damage

Maluses

Greatly increased received fire damage

Massively increased received light damage

Inability to use Flame Arcana-based spells and abilities

Inability to use Light Arcana-based spells and abilities

Pretty cool, I thought and returned to going over my character sheet. I didn’t have any abilities but I did have traits.

Traits

Name

Level

Progress

Neurodivergence

N/A

N/A

The Queen's Raivarian

N/A

N/A

Entomophobia

08/10

Special

I called up the description of the "Queen’s Raivarian" trait, as I had no idea what it could be.

Trait: The Queen’s Raivarian

Type: Magical

Effects: Allows you to use and understand, both in speech and writing, Raivarian - the common language on the continent of Andermon on Dwynveia.

Wait… I thought. Dwynveia? What was the world Ereshkigal wanted to put me on called again? Mevara? So I ended up on a completely different one. Did she intercept me? If so, was she the one to drop me into the slime? Or was it an “Oops, my bad” situation? Why lie to me though?

I can’t deny that I wasn’t particularly thrilled about the whole thing, but I shrugged. It was what it was. Unless I had a chance to confront Ereshkigal again, any speculation about her motivations was pointless. And ultimately I did like my new body.

Plus... Based on the messages she WAS trying to prevent me from ending up here. So…

Suddenly a new notification popped up:

New Quest Discovered: The Lying Goddess

Type: Faction

Difficulty: Hard

Description: Ereshkigal has lied to you about the circumstances of your arrival. Confront her about it.

Objectives:

Establish contact with Ereshkigal again

Discover the reasons behind her actions

(Optional) Break all ties with the Goddess

Rewards:

Unknown

Approval of ???

Do you accept this quest? Yes/No

I immediately declined it.

Yeah. No need to rehash that with her. She probably had good intentions. And if not… well… I don’t want to antagonise a goddess of death. ’

Another notification immediately popped up.

Secret Quest Completed: Forgiveness

Description: You found a capacity within yourself to forgive Ereshkigal for her actions (or at least to give her the benefit of the doubt for now).

Rewards:

1 Perk point

Penalties:

??? Disapproves

So am I just a pawn in some weird great game between cosmic entities? That fucking sucks.

Deciding to put that particular issue on the “later” pile, I’ve turned my attention to the perk point I got. I asked the interface what I could spend it on.

Use of Perk Points

Level up a skill/ability/trait by 1 level - 1 perk point

Learn a new Martial or Survival skill - 2 perk points

Learn a new Lore or Crafting skill - 3 perk points

Learn a new Arcana skill - 4 perk points

Level up an attribute - 4 perk points

Acquire a new trait - dependent

Learn a new ability - dependent

Learn a new spell (requires a rune) - dependent

That’s… neat. None of my skills are of any use in the current predicament, so I guess I’ll hold on to it.

At any rate, it was high time I stopped faffing around and tried to figure out what to do next. First things first, I checked my backpack. It was surprisingly spacious. Inside there were three spare sets of clothes, two hoodies- one bottle green and one lavender, a modern-looking navy blue double-breasted greatcoat, and my notebook and a set of pencils. I was genuinely shocked that all that stuff fit inside, especially the greatcoat. The backpack defininitely was larger on the inside. I looked at it quizzically and a text box appeared in front of my eyes.

Item: Backpack of Holding

Type: Magical - Bag

Rarity: Coven-made - Rare

Durability: 50/50

Traits:

Holding (Minor) - Doubles the capacity (60 litres) of the item (Total Capacity - 120 litres)

Soulbound - Cannot be stolen. If lost, can be resummoned by the owner at any time. If damaged, durability is restored at twice the owner’s natural healing rate.

Oh... Ooooooh.

My clothes, as Ereshkigal promised, were all soulbound, but didn't have any other properties. My notebook and pencils were just regular items, at least by Earth's standards. The Canteen I got though…

Item: Neverending Canteen

Class: Utility - Magical

Rarity: Very Rare

Quality: Good

Durability: 40/40

Charges: 60/60

Contents: 2000/2000 ml

Effects:

Can hold up to 2 litres of water

Refills 200 millilitres of water per hour (this consumes 1 charge)

Traits:

Rechargeable - You can channel mana through the object to restore its charge.

So now I just need to find a neverending snack machine and I’m golden, I chuckled to myself.

Food was going to be an issue though. I hoped I could somehow scrounge something up. In a pinch even mushrooms or moss would do, I guessed, but I wasn’t looking forward to testing that particular quality of my body.

I was packing my stuff back when an idea struck me then.

I should write those symbols down. They may be important.

So, I grabbed my notebook and tried to copy the three inscriptions. It took me a few tries to get it exactly right. The process also confirmed my theory that they were written right to left. As soon as I was done, two things happened. First, the writing on the paper glowed and slightly shifted, getting rid of any small mistakes I made. Then the notification icon started blinking again. I opened it as maybe it would explain what just happened.

New Skill Acquired:

Arcane Writing - Current Level: 1 (50% total progress to level 2)

The following attributes have progressed:

Intelligence: +10% (15% total progress to level 17)

Notice: You have created a very hard magical inscription despite lacking the necessary skills. You have received 1 perk point for this achievement (Current Number of Perk Points: 2)

New Quest Acquired: The Three Inscriptions

Type: Mystery (Epic)

Difficulty: Impossible

Description: You have found a set of three inscriptions on the walls of the chamber you were summoned in. Find a way to translate them.

Objectives:

Discover what language each inscription was written in

Decipher the inscriptions

Rewards:

Unknown

I like how optimistic the interface is about my chances. Then again, I have no idea where to start. The additional perk point is a good get though. If I find a weapon I’ll be able to learn how to use it.

I folded the scroll I had created and hid it in the notebook. Another thing occurred to me then.

Hang on... I have just created a magical scroll. What if one of the spells written on the wall was a "Fuck-you Fireball" or something? I could have blown myself up out of ignorance.

Desperately trying not to think about this anymore, I finished packing and headed to the door. When I touched the door knocker another message box popped up before my eyes, making me jump with a yelp.

New Quest Acquired: The Trial of the Champion

Type: Dungeon (Legendary)

Difficulty: Deadly

Description: Greetings, Aspirant! You have been chosen by our spell as a potential champion. While we cannot reveal the details of your quest yet, know that our world is in grave danger and we need all the best and the brightest to help save it. A set of trials awaits you to see if you are worthy and to prepare you for the upcoming task. Good luck!

Objectives:

Reach the exit of the dungeon

Rewards:

Access to the Champion Stash

2000 experience points

Next Quest

Well… fuck.