"Do you see the house around you, It costs one 1 day ticket or the house, I bought the house, because if those veterans can't escape this place I won't as well, the person closest to leaving this place is probably Nick, but his kill count is off the charts, you can only do what he does if he didn't exist, otherwise you're screwed"
Tian said in a silent tone as if fearing that Nick could hear him.
"I was told by Lady that if I survive for a Year, they'll take me in, I've only two missions to go, but I didn't know that Nick was Lady's teacher, if Only I knew I would have gone into his group and be like glue to him!"
Tian said, causing them all to suck their breath from this new revelation.
"It makes sense as to why Lady will even assossiate herself with him, why she puts up with his antics and why she calls him names, it all now makes sense and on top of it all she's a gorgeous goddess, it all makes sense now!"
The others looked at Tian with sad glances, the guy's gone coocoo! Totaly crazy from being a year into these missions, they themselves had 3 days under their belts or so they thought.
"Every day you get a mission, if you think you might die during the mission and have a ticket, you can skip a mission, the 1 day ticket are even better than the 7 day ticket in that regard, I only had one because I was an idiot at first and bought it instead of buying 5 tickets and using them tacticaly to skip difficult missions and do easy ones, it would be much better instead of going on a 7 day disappointment trip, I might even have helped you in your mission and nobody would have died"
He said, making them understand that he wasn't completely lost, it was their understanding that was lacking and him running out of tickets that caused his current situation and breakdown. In truth however Tian himself wasn't too optimistic about their chances, he might survive, but he couldn't tell the same about them. They were terrifyingly green for people that had cleared a mission, it was evident that they were carried by someone, most probably the guy with the Relic, cause Nick wouldn't care to do anything like that, unless he saw a chance for them to succeed and get more points for himself by killing a few monsters.
"By the way failing to complete an objective doesn't mean death, you just get a 1000 points penalty, the same you get for personaly killing another player"
Tian explained to them, making them somewhat skeptical as to why he would tell them that.
"What happens if we have negative points?"
Xiao asked out of curiosity.
"There is no negative points, if you cannot pay the penalty you die"
They now looked livid, they only now understood that both Nick and Tian could probably just kill one or two people no problem. Just how lucky were they to be alive, even themselves couldn't believe it, as they looked at George whom was part of their mess, the second part was Chris, whom divided the party in the beginning of the mission and then remembered that they hadn't bought any toilet paper from the store.
"I don't know what you're thinking about, but hope it's got to do with your survival"
Tian was a bit pissed, but mostly envious of them getting a free ride.
"Something like that, by the way could I use your bathroom"
Jonas was the first to ask, with his legs fixed, he had to go.
"Be my guest, it's..."
They spent their time loitering around the house, asking about his trophies and experiences, learning as much as they could about this game of life and death. He was however most interested in their experience, NPCs doing missions for you wasn't insane, veterans had followers, but as newbies befriending an NPC is a hard task in of itself, learning however that the rambo outside could get Alice as a follower was an even bigger surprise.
Unauthorized usage: this narrative is on Amazon without the author's consent. Report any sightings.
He didn't know that Chris could get 4 followers, J.D, Medic, Rain and Alice were his four contacts, he missed on Kaplan, Matt and One, since they were in the other group most of the time and even afterwards they left to evacuate the town, unlike the others that stayed with them.
Even Nick had gained 2 contacts from this mission, them being two useless burdens, one a boy and the other a teenage girl. The two people that he left for dead in the garage, why he could summon them as followers was beyond him, but he wouldn't summon them either way, they would only waste his points.
The others hadn't as deep a connection with anyone in this mission and generaly just played around. It was a miracle that so few people died, some of them like Hera and Chrysa developed a deep hate and mistrust for the NPCs.
Tian told them that losing only 3 people was a rather good outcome for newbies, normaly less than half will make it to the next mission, so they had to be vigilant when the mission begins.
He also taught them how to pool points to one person, it would be essential later as their scores might not be as good as last time. 1000 points is the most you'll get when the veterans are around, cause they hog all the monsters and dangers.
Saving the newbies a lot of trouble, but at the cost of their growth, most newbies die the moment the veterans decide to go on break. They do so once every member gets their ticket, veterans dying is rare and recruitment even rarer, most of them are from the same batch of newbies and a few they made friends with through thick and cold, it's hard to befriend the veterans, since they don't need help and all you will do is bother them.
"Points are the only thing that matters in this game"
Tian told them, whom had figured it out by themselves till this point.
"There's two choices to store points and to use the Store to enchance yourselves, I'm an advocate for the first one, once you have the right tools, there's nothing that can stop you"
Tian said and then took out what seemed like a sci-fi gauntlet that charged electicity.
"This is called a Power Gauntlet, they are kind of cheap for their technology, but they are still good, I also have a laser pistol, but it doesn't seem as impressive"
He said as he took out what looked like a beaten up metal toy, rather than a gun.
"Just to be clear, you will have to buy a weapon for each period and that includes a sword and dagger even a club for the prehistoric period, though I haven't seen a mission that threw us so back in time"
Tian said, birthing tons of questions, from the new players.
"Have you heard of a Time Loop? It's when Time travel happens, at the present we're at the end of time, the tickets take us back in time to where we should have been, death means real death, the worlds we're visiting are possibilities we create by time travelling, someone or something is training us to become stronger"
Tian said with confidence, causing the others to rethink their own assumptions.
"Do you think there's someone watching us right now?"
Xiao asked somewhat distressed, after all she did take a bath moments ago.
Somewhere in the darkness of a room, you the reader is watching as I twist the lines of fate to their current state and favour the protagonist nobody wants, over other character you would love to read more about.
I'm giving you the readers a chance to influence the story, the people with the best comments will get to decide on stuff, it might influence the plot to a greater or smaller degree, but it's worth a try.
Some things you can do...
1-Suggest something for the story, I read all comments.
2-Insert a character you want into the story, any stereotype you like will do.
3-Kill/Save anyone other than the protagonist, his fate is in my hands.
I will only warn you at this stage, but I'll be putting death flags for characters that will die ahead of time, I wonder if you know for whom the bell rings.
During the next mission 2 people from the existing groups will die and 8 from the new batch, so be prepared and don't get too attached to the new guys, or maybe do save one or two of them, their lives are in your hands now.
"Don't be irrational, there's nobody watching, even that weirdo is sleeping outside by the fire"
Jonas said, making the others listen to reason.