I noticed a new icon in my peripheral vision—Talents. Naturally, it was grayed out. Lock-outs are a classic dev move; no treats until you do your chores.
"I need that Talent Point," I muttered, rubbing the sore spot on the back of my head. I pulled up the quest log again. "Find Jinx. It's a newbie quest, so it shouldn't be too bad, right?"
Then reality hit me like a Malphite ultimate.
"Actually, this is a nightmare."
Jinx isn't just a "champion"—she's a walking OSHA violation. She's mentally unstable, impulsively violent, and has a rap sheet longer than the Piltover bridge. In the game, she was my main—I'd grinded her to Mastery Level 7. I knew her kit by heart. But in reality? Jinx doesn't care about your "Mastery." If you're standing too close to her latest "art project," you're just part of the collateral damage.
Tracking her down was going to be like finding a needle in a haystack—if the needle was also a high-explosive landmine.
"Gugu..."
My stomach roared, reminding me that even "Zaunite Legends" need to eat. Survival in the undercity isn't about glory; it's about not starving while breathing in alchemical fumes that are definitely shortening your lifespan.
I stepped out of the alley and into the heart of the Sump. The scale of this place was staggering—a vertical labyrinth of rusted steel and neon rot. It was a sensory overload of "gamer" nostalgia. I saw a caged Scuttle Crab by the roadside—it was surprisingly cute in person, though I resisted the urge to check if it gave me a speed shrine.
"Whoa, look at those Honeyfruits! And—okay, definitely staying away from those Blast Cones." One wrong step and I'd be launched into a vat of industrial acid.
I checked my pockets. Empty. No gold, no shards, not even a health pot.
"Typical. Starting a new save with zero starting gold."
I spent the next few hours knocking on doors, trying to find a gig. I got laughed out of a dozen shops. In Zaun, orphans are a dime a dozen. If you can't carry a heavy crate or augment your limbs with Chem-tech, you're just a mouth to feed.
Finally, I found a place called Clockwork Sundries. The shop was a chaotic mess of gears, springs, and ticking rhythms. The owner was a wiry old man with a mechanical eyepiece that clicked as he focused on a busted wristwatch. He looked like he'd been fighting that watch for an hour and was losing.
"Hey, I'm a mechanical apprentice. Need a hand?" I asked, putting on my best 'I'm-not-a-thief' face.
The old man jumped, his tweezers slipping. A tiny gear pinged off the table. "No! Get out! You just ruined the tension!"
I leaned over the counter, squinting at the guts of the watch. It was primitive stuff compared to what I'd studied in my engineering courses back home.
"Boss, you're trying to force a linear spring into a circular torque. You just need a helical gear and a compression spring to bridge the transmission. I can fix that in five minutes."
The old man paused, his gear-eye clicking as it zoomed in on me. He handed over the tools with a scowl. "Touch it. Break it? You're paying me back in organs."
I didn't break it. Five minutes later, the watch was ticking with a crisp, rhythmic heartbeat.
I had a job. The pay was garbage, and the "lodging" was a cot in the back of a shop that smelled like machine oil, but it was a start.
The Trash Chute Special
Living the "shop-keep life" wasn't the plan. I didn't get reincarnated into Runeterra to fix watches for the rest of my life. I wanted to see the world—to see the tech trees of Hextech and Chem-tech up close.
I figured if I could introduce some Earth-style engineering—maybe a basic internal combustion engine—I could get an audience with Heimerdinger in Piltover and retire on a pile of gold.
To build anything, I needed parts. That meant scavenging.
Every afternoon, I headed to the junkyards at the base of the Piltover trash chutes. One man's "advanced scientific waste" is a Zaunite's "High-end Build Path."
I was digging through a pile of discarded brass piping when a massive thump echoed from the adjacent chute. I ducked behind a rusted boiler, thinking a fresh load of scrap was coming down.
It wasn't scrap. It was people.
First, a scrawny guy with eyebrows that looked like caterpillars hit the pile. Then, a heavier kid wearing adventurer's goggles and a yellow bandana landed right on top of him. They rolled down the trash heap in a tangle of limbs and muffled curses.
I bit my lip to keep from laughing. But then, a third person slid down the chute.
She landed with much more grace—a small girl with bright, manic energy and long blue hair tied into twin braids that trailed behind her like fuse cords.
My heart skipped a beat. My "Attributes" were screaming danger, but my gamer brain was doing backflips.
"Jinx..." I whispered.
The beginner quest just delivered itself right to my front door.