Everybody Loves Large Chests

Large chests are said to encompass all manner of hopes and dreams. One intrepid adventurer — a strapping young lad named Himmel — sets out armed with his grandfather's longsword and the dream of being the strongest. His goal: reach Level 5 in the "newbie zone" dungeon and earn the right to become a full-fledged adventurer. Those plans get hopelessly derailed when his adolescent mind beholds an exposed chest for the very first time — a fateful meeting that leads his life in a direction he never dreamed of.

Things are not well within the Lodrak Empire. An entire city has gone up in smoke, and a province is being consumed by an ever-expanding cloud of death. Humans rally to contain the fallout, but are quicker still to pin blame on their elven neighbors to the north — and with centuries of strife between the two nations, all-out war feels inevitable. Powerful figures are already on the move: some seek to unravel the mystery and bring perpetrators to justice, others want to use the disaster as a pretext to advance the Empire's agenda. The elves undermine and sabotage, the international community watches, and the gods themselves stand ready to intervene. All of them want the same thing — to find the mastermind. The same mastermind who is far too busy figuring out how wagons work to notice the world is stirring.

Stuck in the monster-infested wilderness, lacking the usual backup, hunted by the Empire's top brass, and saddled with an incredibly vague Quest — Boxxy faces a world of uncertainty and adversity. This is nothing new. Pain, suffering, and loss have been commonplace since day one, and Boxxy is entirely undaunted. Now paired with a cowardly tinkerer not of its choosing, the crafty killer has every intention of showing that lich who's boss — assuming it can find it, of course, with both shiny and tasty things on the line.

War with the Empire looms over Azurvale, and its citizens do their best to maintain normalcy while bracing for the inevitable. What they don't yet know is that their city is already under threat — not from any warmongering nation, but from a certain individual seeking asylum, knowledge, profit, and power by any means necessary. As this newcomer burrows into the city's underbelly like a voracious tick, it cares nothing for the people it hurts along the way. Ancient beings, skilled assassins, godlike archers, fresh-faced recruits — none shall be spared from the whims of chaos.

The war is in full swing. Following the unprecedented outcome at Fort Yimin, both the Republic and the Empire must drastically reevaluate their strategies as winter threatens to deadlock the region. Neither government is shying away from underhanded means. The Gilded Hand advances its schemes, the Empire fields its most powerful enforcers, and the Republic's intelligence bureau scrambles to keep pace. Meanwhile, Boxxy T. Morningwood is steadily draining government resources — charging exorbitant fees to resolve problems it largely creates — and has every intention of continuing as long as it can lie, cheat, and murder its way through life. Which, barring divine intervention, looks set to be a very long time indeed.

History will remember it as Armageddon Day — the date two Overlords clashed in the war-torn streets of New Whitehall. The duel's explosive conclusion wrecked both armies, rendering the Republic and the Empire unable to continue fighting. Yet it was no stalemate: with one Hero defeated and another revealed, the balance of power shifts decisively toward the elves. Boxxy, meanwhile, is in a coma at the worst possible time. Its public persona has been exposed as a Hero of Chaos, and it will be forced to rapidly adapt. Too much attention, as its primal instincts know well, leads to a surprise meeting with Death itself.

The dwarves and gnomes of the Horkensaft Kingdom are two peoples worlds apart — traditionalists versus forward-thinkers — and yet they serve as each other's counterbalance, drawing on the wisdom of the past to face new challenges. That balance is about to be tested, as they are set to receive a visit from the Hero of Chaos. Boxxy doesn't actually care what ripples it causes. Its goal is to track down an errant treasure that escaped while it was out of commission — and to solve the most dire challenge it has yet faced, one that can't be solved by force or violence: figuring out how to leave the house.

While Boxxy is off chasing shinies abroad, Azurvale's shadows churn with trouble. Secret organizations advance nefarious plots, government agencies lie in wait, and powerful adventurers gear up for an uncertain next challenge. Into this powder keg arrives a humble scholar from a distant land, wholly ignorant of what awaits him. All that's needed is a spark — and who better than a fiery redhead making her triumphant return? The nasty surprises that await Boxxy are nothing more than the consequences of its own actions. It fancies itself an expert at deflecting blame, but it has yet to learn one of life's key lessons: bad karma is like a stubborn stain — it never truly goes away.

Without an immediate threat looming over it, Boxxy T. Morningwood has finally achieved something it never knew it wanted: the slow life. High-risk endeavors seem far less appealing, and sleeping in every day of the week has become an extremely attractive proposition. Old habits die hard, though. Acquiring shiny and tasty things remains an enticing goal, and the steady accumulation of power never loses its appeal. Boxxy will still take calculated risks for immense personal gain — and when developments inevitably shatter its carefully laid plans, it will deal with them as it always has: with cunning ingenuity, brutal efficiency, and old-fashioned dumb luck. The time for being thrown about by fate is over. Now it's Boxxy's turn to make the world bend to its will, starting with the savage orcs of the far south.

After two years of relative slacking, the Hero of Chaos faces an ever-growing workload once more. Boxxy makes haste to depart Velos so it can continue private preparations for the upcoming Dragon Festival — only to find it must first babysit three spoiled brats. Normally it would just refuse. Unfortunately, this job comes with a significant complication: the Holy Inquisition of the Goddess of Truth and Justice, headed by Teresa's latest chosen Hero, Sigmund Law — a natural enemy of any deceitful shapeshifter. Between suffering through this inane task or watching its nation-spanning web of lies unravel, the choice is obvious. Boxxy gets busy fitting babysitting into its schedule — only to return home and find the place in ruins.

Boxxy skipped all the sappy stuff and jumped straight to the "selfish asshole" part, as befitting a true-blooded monster. Every good deed it has ever done was either coincidental or driven by ulterior motives. Its latest scheme is no different: dump those troublesome triplets on someone else, and find a cure for its demonic affliction. The first half just needs time. The second will prove far more challenging — tainted souls don't fall within Boxxy's area of expertise. Fortunately, some other prodigy will have surely figured it out already. All the shapeshifter has to do is find that person, capture them, and torture the information out of them. A bold and logical plan, except for one minor issue: the man in question has been dead for about four hundred years.