In a dark room, a spider nestled quietly into the comfort of its web. A small amount of light reflected from its eyes as it turned to observe the young man at the far end of the room who was speedily tapping away at his computer's keyboard.
The speed with which the young man typed was unfathomable. The spider watched in awe, observing the young man's dexterity. It seemed to give the spider inspiration, as it suddenly returned to the newest areas of its web and began weaving a more intricate pattern with renewed vigor.
The only light in the room came from the screen of the young man's computer, which illuminated the dark circles around his eyes. His face was pale and expressed little beyond his exhaustion.
Finally, a timer went off. The young man jumped in surprise even though the timer's beeping was fairly gentle. It seemed he had lost track of time again. The young man saved his files and powered off the computer. After a good yawn and stretch, he set the timer for five short hours and laid down on a sleeping pad rolled out on the floor. Finally giving in to his exhaustion, the young man lost consciousness and fell into a fantastically comfortable sleep despite the low quality of the sleeping mat his body was resting on.
From the corner of one of its eyes, the spider saw the young man retiring for the night and disinterestedly returned to spinning its web. It had witnessed this scene countless times and had unintentionally memorized the young man's schedule.
Wake up.
Eat.
Work.
Sleep.
That's all the young man ever did...
Well, at least the spider had an interesting life! It's next addition to the web would be completed by the time the young man woke up!
The spider spun with pride and fervor the whole night and lost track of time. Finally, it succeeded in finishing its work and the young man was still asleep! The spider felt proud for achieving its goal.
Turning to face the window, the spider noticed the sun was already up. It felt disappointed as it realized that the young man was late to start his daily routine. Perhaps it didn't complete its web as fast as it had thought. It looked back to the young man with eight curious eyes. The alarm was beeping and had been for a few hours, but the young man didn't get up from his sleeping pad.
In fact, he didn't move at all...
------------------------------------------------------------------------
{ Congratulations, you died! }
'... what the fu-'
The golden text didn't wait for the young man to complete his thought and rapidly shot out a string of new messages.
{ Karma protocol: Your latest life will affect your next life. }
{ Reviewing... }
{ Determined. }
{ System assisted world selected. }
{ Live well. }
Before he could fully grasp what was happening, a blinding light flashed and various streams of bright colors started to fill his vision, whipping past him at incredible speeds. Suddenly, all the lights disappeared.
He found himself in a dark room, but felt it wasn't the same one he fell asleep in. There was a glowing blue interface floating in the air in front of him.
----
[Name: -]
[Race: Haunted Machine]
[Class: -]
[Level: 0]
[XP: 0/10]
[HP: 4/20]
[MP: 10/10]
[STR: 6]
[AGI: 2]
[DEX: 3]
[INT: 9]
----
'...'
It took a moment for the young man to fully digest what had happened.
'Huh. I guess you really can work yourself to death... Oh well. Lets hope this life goes better.'
The young man's thoughts on his death were strangely nonchalant and uninterested. Instead, he quickly dismissed the subject and inspected his surroundings. He couldn't see much in the darkness, but he noticed he was leaned up against the remains of a dilapidated concrete wall. As he turned his head to look around, he heard a slight whirring sound and the creaking of rusted metal. His body felt strange and his eyesight was different too. Looking down at his body, he saw worn and dirt-smudged metal which was covered in scorch marks and gashes. He looked like an abandoned war relic.
'Looks like my new body is secondhand.'
His metallic chest protruded much more than when he was a human, curving smoothly and coming to a point in front of him. He took note that the large chest would likely present a blind spot and could be cumbersome when working on projects that were below eye-level. He noticed a large charred hole in the right side of it, which was probably what destroyed the machine in the first place.
Sparks began to fly from his arms and the sound of creaking metal disturbed the silence of the dark room. After exerting some effort, the seized metal gave way and he was finally able to move his arms so he could better observe them.
[DEX: 3 -> 4]
His joints screeched as he struggled to control his arms, but now he could at least see them clearly. The range of motion was essentially the same as he would expect from a human arm, just a bit more clunky due to the condition of the hardware. Every piece was angled, yet smooth- apart from the damage of course. His hands were a bit more minimalistic than he was used to. Instead of four fingers and a thumb, he had three identical appendages which all turned in towards the center. It looked like the claw from one of those carnival game machines where you would try to win a stuffed animal. The only real difference is that his claw had more joints, allowing greater mobility... in theory. For now, some of the joints were too rusted to move at all.
Looking further down, he saw his legs. The right leg was severed below what you could consider to be the knee so it wouldn't be of much help, but the lower portion of the left leg was still there. That part was reverse-jointed. There was also an unfamiliar part of his body which came out from each hip and would extend a short distance behind his leg, but was currently pressed to his thigh since he was lying on the ground.
Moving his limbs around a bit, he noticed he had a sense of touch. It was different though... more like he was passively reading information, only it was more natural and instantaneous. He could feel everything in contact with his body and he could discern the damaged parts, though it wasn't unpleasant enough that he would call it pain. It was more just that he could feel the damage and was clearly aware of it. He also discovered the existence of some appendage which filled the space behind his head. It felt like it protruded from the back of his torso, then extended to the sides and jutted upwards.
'Maybe its an antenna of some kind?'
At this point, he had moved to a crawling position and started dragging himself awkwardly forwards. He only had one leg, so he couldn't walk and he didn't have enough mobility or balance to hop around on just one. He almost looked like some mechanical zombie, crawling defiantly from the grave. He could only see a short distance in front of him, but gradually came to discover what kind of place he was in.
It seemed to be the ruins of an ancient, underground city.