Puritan Doctrine - Pamphlet

Unknown Author - Source verified as Puritan Printworks, Integrity Citadel

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A Puritan must remain pure. Unblemished by the corruption of this world. The only way to reclaim our glory and the glory of pure humanity is to fight this corruption, cleanse the filth and purify the lands that they have contaminated.

There are three core concepts to which all of humanity must strive.

1. Rebuff the “System”. The source of this manipulator is unknown. The System is a source of the corruption of our lands, our beasts, and our technology. The System and its quests are ways to accept this corruption into yourself.

2. Only humans untouched by the System are pure. Everything else that lives have been corrupted by the system. It is our duty to hunt and kill the corrupted ones. There is no saving them.

3. Only technology from before the Fall or that is created by our hands is clean.

We are here as the cleansing fire of the planet Earth. We are the white blood cells fighting to cleanse the body of disease. We have a great responsibility to make the world great again. Once pure humanity ruled this world, we will rule it again. With this responsibility comes great power. We have the mandate to return this world to humanity’s hands. We must bring the fight to the mutant filth, cleanse them from our cities and towns and return Earth to the Earthlings and not these System corrupted scum.

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Oh, shit. There was another one? This one sounded different, though, and I sure didn’t like that.

Dusk was less than an hour away now. Could I take on one more before I head home right? I wouldn’t call them easy experience, but I was also not ready to leave as the juicy hazardous area experience dripped in.

I had my mind made up for me, however. I sense the presence by the ticking of my watch. Oh, my fucking truck. It was big, bigger than the largest Dire Wolf I had fought thus far. It was also black. Sleek black fur and the hairless face was bone white. No, that was exposed bone. Sabertooth like canines, and it was staring at me. It howled and then hunched to leap, then it disappeared.

I rolled to the side and threw up one of the weight plates I had been using as a table. I felt it get ripped from my hands. Then I jumped back and heard the snarling. Then my vibration sense kicked in. *tick*tick*tick* the watch’s tiny little noise and the feelings coming through the ground revealed it. I couldn’t actually see the beast. It was fucking invisible. Thank God for small miracles and extra senses.

It was silent now, and its stealth skill was acting over time. Now, I couldn’t feel it walking on the ground. I could, however, sense it moving, and the sound of the watch bouncing off it clarified its form. I took out the sawn-off and picked up another plate from the ground. The bar was a ways back, next to my bicycle and backpack.

I waited for it to come at me. I think it might still think I can’t see it. It is circling behind me now. I cock the hammers and unsafe the sawn-off. When it leaps, I am ready. I fall back, and to the side. I swing the sawn-off up and pull the triggers. I hear the snapping jaws clack closed as it grunts and snarls. I drop the shotgun as the beast turns and snaps its teeth around where I just was. Fuuck, it’s super fast. I scramble back, and its teeth latch onto my boot.

The boot might as well be paper. Oh, fuck, oh my fucking dead gods of hell! It crushes my foot like paste, and I swing the 25lbs plate at it with all my strength and a Vibrating Strike. I catch it above the eye, and its skull bursts in a shower of disrupted blood and brains. It’s still going as it shakes me like a ragdoll. Half of its fucking head is missing!

It is stronger than me by a lot, and I can’t do anything but get shaken. After a moment, I phase and get tossed off to the side. I just lay there for a moment, keeping my phasing going. The monster is going berserk now. Blood and foam fly from its mouth as it charges me. I am still phased. Blood is pouring from my ruined leg. I just sit there and catch my breath. The monster snaps its jaws around where my head is supposed to be. Nothing, nothing happens. It passes through me like the ghost I am right now.

I struggle to my foot and hop over to the bike and bar. The wolf-monster continues to try and savage me. It’s spilling blood and goop everywhere and is growing ever more frustrated. I can see into its skull. I stifle a vomit as I see a pulsing vein and brain matter. I move over to the bar and think for a moment. My boot is ruined, and I have an idea. Painfully I unlace the boot but make sure to keep a hold of it. Pain is shooting up my leg and into my hip. Tears stream down my face as I hold the remains of the boot. My foot is a mangled, bloody mess.

I hop to the side and hold the boot out. The wolf snaps at it, and I let go of the boot. Crunch, splat, yowling wolf. The boot phases back into reality, partially inside the mouth of the beast. Teeth and jaw, and skin splatter around. A boot is not as effective as steel.

This tale has been unlawfully obtained from Royal Road. If you discover it on Amazon, kindly report it.

As it backs off, I drop the phasing and grab up the bar. One-legged, I’m off balance, and I swing and finish the kill. The heavy end of the bar slams into the wolf’s shoulder. Bones break, and it drops. I swing, again and again, crushing its skull until it stops twitching. I liked those boots.

*Ting*

[You have slain Mutant Wolf, Shadow

First kill bonus experience earned

Survivor Class bonus experience earned]

Wow, it was worth 6k experience. I think as I sit down. I pick shit out of the wounds on my foot and wait for it to heal. I take my spare shirt and wrap my foot up in it. Another hour and it will be fine. I take a few minutes to pick through the blasted jaws and pick out some teeth for proof of kill and to show the guards of a new monster.

I’m on my bike an hour later, pedaling slowly home in the dark. A few hours later, I’m home. Tukey and Lina are asleep, so I let myself in. I’m a pretty happy camper with a shower, a hot meal, and some clean, dry clothes.

The next morning I go and collect my earnings. Eight thousand credits for bear-wolfs, or Dire Wolfs or Mutant Wolf, Irradiated, or whatever you wanted to call them.

I went to the south side of town and hit up an acquaintance, Freddie the Fixer. Freddie was the only link to the elicit side of life I had. His shop was a large sprawling warehouse full of junk. He was where the scavengers came to cash in on whatever they scrounged out of the ruined city. I knew him because Tukey and him went way back. Freddie could and would find anything for a price.

Freddie himself was a strange mutant. He had a second smaller head growing from a shoulder. This head was smaller and looked malformed. It didn’t talk but looked at you with baleful eyes and sneered as Freddie spoke. Freddie called it Stu and swore it talked to him when no one was around. If you addressed Stu, it would spit on you.

I went into the semi-dark warehouse and looked around. Freddie sat there arguing with a scavenger over something. I poked through the stacks nearest to the door. That was the shiny stuff that Freddie thought would sell fastest. Every time I came in, the stacks were different. Nothing of note caught my eye, however. As the scavenger stormed out, obviously dissatisfied with the negotiation, Freddie noticed me.

“Izzy, what brings you in today? Tukey need something special again?” Freddie gargled at me in his watery voice.

“Hiya Freddie, I’m here for me, actually. I got a special request that I hope you can help me with.” I said to him.

He leaned forward in the old leather office chair, “A special request? What are you looking for?”

“You and I both know that you know the best salvage spots. I’m looking for skyship parts, nothing serious, scrap metal, really.”

“Useless junk that stuff. I got a bunch in the back from back in the day when we thought we could use it.” He sat up and headed to the back. His old pin-striped purple suit patched at the elbows was his trademark. Specially tailored for Stu and him. I followed him through a maze of shelves and junk. He led me to a back corner where a metal shelf had stacks of shiny, almost new-looking pieces of gears and scrap metal. He waved at the shelf, “If you see anything you like, just bring it up to the front.”

I thanked him, and he moved off back to his desk.

I picked through the piles of metal and scraps until I found something that would work. It was a rod of silvery metal about three feet long. There was a brass-looking gear bonded to the end. I swung it around for a sec and felt my Unconventional Weapons skill activate. I had a hunch that using higher-grade materials would mean less disruption. Rebar was junk steel at best. The weight bar had been high-grade chrome steel and had been disrupted at a far lower rate than the rebar. I still had the big bar in my room. Would this improvised mace get disrupted like the bar or not at all?

I paid a hundred credits for the bar, and Freddie laughed when I told him it was for smashing rats.

Then I went and smashed rats. Well, three rats and the results made me grin. The skylord gear was not more than speckled with a few pitted spots after Vibrating Strike killed a couple of rats. I wrapped the handle in grip tape, and I had me a new head basher. Not the elegant weapon of a samurai of old, but just as effective.

I went home and had lunch with Tukey before heading to my room. I had some thinking to do.

I pulled up my interface and did some math.

First was the quest screen.

1. Species Advancement [Locked]

2. Unlock Species Advancement

Advance any combination of Occupation levels to 25

Reward: Unlock Species Advancement Quest, Experience

Penalty: None

So I have had twenty total levels so far. To advance to level 11 in either class, I would need 20k experience. To get to level 15 in either of them, I would need 120,000 experience.

I clicked over to the occupation tab and reread the information there about gaining another occupation,

Additional Occupations can be purchased for 5000 experience x the Number of Current occupations squared. 2nd additional occupation = 20,000 experience

I had only one choice for an additional occupation: Engineer. I wasn’t seeking the class for anything but quest fulfillment of the 25 levels. Purchasing the occupation and then leveling it to 5 would only cost me 30,000 experience in total. I was currently at a little over 10k experience.

Did I want to split the path? Engineer might add an interesting skill, or it might allow me to take that Identify at level 5. So far, skill selection has been additive and not exclusionary. I sat and considered. I wanted to unlock the quest, which would be the quickest and easiest way to go. Would that 30k experience be wasted? It would be 50 attribute points for the cost of one and a half levels of Explorer or Survivor.