"GAH! HOLY SH*T, THAT HURTS! SH*T! SH*T!" Soren yelled out with a shocked expression, as his body stood upright and clutched the area where his body had hurt previously, before realizing that his waist wasn't hurt at all, despite experiencing the painful feeling of his waist exploding into bits of blood and ice, before everything went black for him.
"Deep breaths Soren! Take a breath, take a deep breath!" Nora ordered, as she grabbed Soren's attention, before giving him a bag to breath in and slowly calming down.
*sigh* "Holy... F*ck me, that hurt like hell..." Soren commented, as he took off the helmet and let his body lay on the chair-like bed, before asking. "Is this amount of pain normal at 40% or am I just being whiny?"
"Considering how a decent part of your waist was half-frozen, before being hit with a stone needle through the tree... I'm not exactly surprised with your current reaction." Dr.Vale stated, as she was currently watching a replay of Soren's last moments, as he was hiding behind the tree, before the robed doll cast created a stone needle, the same length as his sword, which flew towards him, easily piercing through the tree and leading to his fatal injury.
*whistle* "That certainly explains a bit more about my game over. By the way, is this robed doll capable of using all the basic magic spells?" Soren asked curiously, as he had managed to quickly recover and staring at the recording as well.
"Yup... Although I wasn't expecting it to chain all those spells either. Seriously, what kind of AI did they program for the enemies?" Nicolas stated, as he was also analyzing the recording, before saving it and moving it into a file.
'I believe those should have been my words...' Soren thought to himself, before asking. "So, what do we do now? I can't really log into the game for the next hour."
"We'll take an early break for now. Nicolas, before taking your break, make a copy of the recording and send it to my personal account as well. See you all in an hour." With that last statement from Dr.Vale, she was the first to leave, before being followed by Nora. As Nicolas was sending a copy of the recording, Soren still stared at the paused recording of his fight, even after Nicolas left as well. Seeing as no one around him paid attention to his actions, Soren decided to sit in front of the computer and opened the recording of his fight.
Although he had opened the recording, he hadn't expected that the recording was over three hours long, but he didn't need to go through the entire recording, as he only needed to go through the last few minutes of the recording, which contained his fight with the robed doll. Going through the fight with the doll, Soren mostly paid attention to the doll's actions, as well as the actions that led to his first death.
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After spending around fifteen to twenty minutes analyzing his fight, Soren closed the recording and slowly made his way towards the cafeteria, while going through the information he found out about the fight and making a plan for his rematch with the doll. Time slowly passed and as he was finalizing his plan to deal with the doll, it was already time for the continuation of his shift, so he made it back to his post and logged back into the game.
Welcome back. Your next death timer has been set to 01:00:00 hour(s).
"Um... This is new. Care anyone to explain about this?"
"That's your next death timer. It's influenced from your actions, but it never goes below an hour. As for what those actions pertain, it is usually crimes that one might commit in the real world, such as theft, rape, murder and some other slightly more obscure crimes. Depending on the severity of the crime, the timer increases, up until a maximum of a thousand hours, minus a second, which is the maximum it can currently go. Of course the penalties will go through on the next session, be it after logging off normally or being forcefully logged off through death." Nicolas stated calmly, as Soren spawned in front of the settlement, before he started rushing towards the robed doll.
Eventually, Soren arrived near the doll's territory, but rather than charging in like before, Soren decided put his plan in motion and first chose to hide behind the trees, until he was at a distance where the doll hadn't noticed him, while still being close enough to get the initiative on the doll. Unfortunately, his first part of plan was easier said than done, as the doll had sharp senses and when it woke up, it would always start with Gale and throwing a couple of Bubble Shots, while Soren would immediately flee, until the doll had calmed down and went back to sleep, as the doll was territorial and had the same behavior as the other dolls he had fought in the past.
Through multiple attempts that spanned over 45 minutes, Soren managed to pinpoint an approximate distance of around 15 feet, before the doll started moving and pelting him with spells. After finding the appropriate distance, Soren moved towards the second part of the plan, which was to get gain the drop on the doll. Unfortunately, that part of the plan was easier said than done, as either he'd have to cross those 15 feet, while risking a hit from one of its spells, or he'd have to somehow kill it from a distance, which wasn't feasible with his current abilities. Of course, those weren't his only options, as he had the option to throw one of his junk items and momentarily disrupt doll, but the only location that gave him a clear shot at it, was a small open area with no cover, aside from a rotting tree trunk, which barely reached to the top of his legs.
In the end, he took a small breath and focused his eyesight on the sleeping doll, while aiming his hand to throw a pebble and prepared himself to run away, just in case he missed and the doll woke up. Silently, his hand moved swiftly and the pebble flew through the air, going past the tree and hitting a different tree, while the doll slept blissfully, unaware of the flying pebble. Seeing as the doll didn't wake up, despite hitting something, Soren felt a bit of relief, but wondered if the pebble would even be able to stun it, let alone hit it. Rather than continuously throwing pebbles, he decided to pick up some bigger rocks from the nearby trees, the same size as the doll's head, and went back to the spot to repeat the process of throwing, until hitting the doll.
The moment he threw the first rock, it flew through the sky and rather than going past his target, the rock hit the doll, straight on its forehead and cried with a loud shriek, before it fell from the branch and hit the ground with a loud thud. The moment it did so, he quickly brandished his sword and charged towards the doll, while the doll quickly rolled to the side and brandished its own stick, as one of its palms glowed with a purplish aura and clashed with Soren's sword, causing the two of them to exchange a glance with each other, before being pushed back a couple feet.