---Richard---
Richard awoke in the middle of an empty town. He could still feel his skin melting and peeling off his chest, could still feel his own hands plunging the tip of a knife towards himself.
He had gained tons of stats – more than needed by a huge amount but…he didn’t think he could continue mutilating himself anymore not with undeadened pain.
Taking the time to read his last few achievements – they weren't leaving until he finished – Richard stopped when he noticed a message formatted differently.
R. That's the big boss huh. Guess I did break some things huh?
Wandering through the empty town was eerie. All the buildings were husks of themselves - still brightly painted but missing food and weapons and furniture.
It was less fun than it sounded. Richard peeked into the Inn moving through the empty wooden room and checking behind the counter. A single coin sat behind the counter but no achievement popped up when he picked it up.
Continuing on Richard found the room he had briefly been given the day before – 201 – and stepped into the empty area.
His hammer lay in the middle of the floor instead of leaning against the bed where he had left it.
"Guess he decided to bring this with me huh."
Picking up the hammer, Richard left – wandering through the town peeking into buildings and finding nothing to loot. Once he reached the gate he could see what looked like a sea of curling tentacles.
Everything outside of the town was changed – the bright field was full of slimy spiked grass that waved back and forth seeking and stabbing at the air.
In the distance the barrier lay, same as before but now it looked cracked. Like a glass pain that had been hit by a thousand chucked rocks it held but reluctantly.
"Do I want to stay here? Say fuck you to the great R in the sky and not leave?" Richard asked directing his question towards the nearest tentacle grass.
"There doesn't seem to be any food...and I can't gain any achievements so there's no point grinding anything...feels like the only option is to just be a good little boy and follow orders huh." sighing Richard checked left and right and then started running towards the distant barrier.
The grass attacked his body barbed tentacles slashing at his back and side and trying to trip his legs.
The attacks slid off his skin – shredding his jumpsuit but mostly leaving his skin unharmed.
Doesn't seem too bad?
A particularly fast-looking slash pierced his back slightly making Richard wince.
Jinxed it. Had to jinx it.
Pressing forward Richard endured a storm of blades mostly unharmed, his back stinging but otherwise unharmed.
Reaching the barrier Richard leaned into it and passed through – without a ripple.
He stepped into nothing.
The moment the tips of his eyes passed through everything went dark and the moment his back foot came through after him everything faded – the slight sting from his back disappeared and his senses muted.
Tutorial clear!
Clear description:
Your path through the tutorial has been rarer than most. You started off an [Obscene rooftop marksman] hellbent on [Chaos] then mellowed out and learned to [Jump] and [Climb]. The largest gains you made were those of self-flagellation however – your mind finding many imaginative ways to kill and maim your poor weak body. [burning], [slashing], [stabbing]. You were [Reborn in Acid]. May your journey be fruitful. Your path ever upwards.
Nomenclature for Rarity:
[Unique]. The only person to have done something. x5 free stats.
[Rare] 99.7%+ of people haven't done. 1 in 334 x2 free stats.
[Uncommon] 95%+ of people haven't done. 1 in 20 x1 free stats.
[Common]. 68%+ of people haven't done. Close to 1 in 3. No additional rewards.
[Trash]. >68% of people have done. No additional rewards.
Rarity linked to global stats for [Earthlings] across all zones.
Rarity linked to both total [Earthlings] and total achivement percentage gained.
Clear stats:
Clear time 1days 9hrs 5min 2s.
Coins found 2/100
Steps taken 5700
Monsters killed 1.
NPC's knocked out 1
Times revived 6.
Highest stat, Piercing/slashing body defense.
Second highest stat, Acid body defense.
Achievements earned 18.
Total stats earned 149
Clear state: Rank 1, Tier 1.
Next: Rank 1, Tier 2. 168 total stats.
Clear Rewards:
#1 stat earner.
+5 free stat points
#1 defense stat earner.
+10 free defense points.
Unique titles x2
+10 free stat points.
Rare titles x4
+8 stat points.
Uncommon Titles x2
+2 stat points
A choice!
Body reward and foundation. Mind reward and foundation.
Richard stood in darkness drowned by the scroll of a system message. It appeared he had done…well? The game seemed to have approved of his actions so far.
It ended by giving me a choice…I guess body?
Making his selection a new panel appeared below detailing another choice.
The narrative has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the infringement.
Body -> A choice!
Description: Focused or spread. This choice is non revertible and may drastically effect your future. Choosing both or neither is equivalent to your current state.
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General body of distributed flesh. [Choose?]
Flesh blended into a single material and re-distributed throughout its previous container.
As a factor of your total stats, the more points you have in each body leaning move you closer and closer towards that goal.
Damage towards any body part becomes less dangerous quickly, but inversely damage to non critical body parts becomes more dangerous on average.
Losing a foot will become just as bad as losing your head…However, high defensive stats will mean losing your head will no longer be lethal and you won't have a single weak area.
Warning: You will no longer be able to individually target specific areas of your body with stats for a more specialized result. All existing and future body stats will be applied equally throughout your body.
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Specialized body of key organs. [Choose?]
Your life will become focused into a variable number of key areas (Default: Heart and/or Brain). Those locations will become quite a bit more vital towards your survival while every other part will become less so. So long as those key areas are kept protected, the rest of your body will become easier to heal. The more key areas are made, the less important each becomes and the more disposable every other part of your body will be.
Warning: You will no longer be able to give individual body parts multiple leanings. You will no longer be able to add defensive stats to a key area – only surround your weaknesses in defensive armour.
Each of your existing conflicts will be given an option to lock in and separate out part roles and future stats will conform to those choices.
Tip: To make a limb both strong and defensive you will need to concentrate defensive stats into your skin and bones while strength stats are focused into muscles.
Richard stared at the two options for a moment trying to figure out if he cared and by how much.
“How do these work?”
He asked after a moment waiting to see if someone would respond.
…Only silence met his question.
…yeah figured that was the case.
“Which works better with my current stats? Which is less painful?” he tried again.
Another pause met his question but this time the options updated slightly after a few seconds – new words pushing into existing lines.
Body -> A choice!
Description: Focused or spread. This choice is non revertible and may drastically effect your future. Choosing both or neither is equivalent to your current state.
Bodies are messy and your current state is more painful than either option.
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General Body of distributed flesh. [Choose?]
Flesh blended into a single material and re-distributed throughout its previous container.
As a factor of your total stats, the more points you have in each body leaning move you closer and closer towards that goal.
Damage towards any body part becomes less dangerous quickly, but inversely damage to non critical body parts becomes more dangerous on average.
Pain is your bodies method of informing you about damage. With this option, the degree of pain will be communicated based on the percentage of your body that has been damaged.
Losing a foot will become just as bad as losing your head…however high defensive stats will mean losing your head will no longer be lethal and you won't have a single weak area. Losing either will still hurt. They will hurt less than you think.
Warning: You will no longer be able to individually target specific areas of your body with stats for a more specialized result. All existing and future body stats will be applied equally throughout your body.
Spreading out defensive stats and reducing weak points can be seen as more effective to environmental or hard to block attacks.
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Specialized body of key organs. [Choose?]
Your life will become focused into a variable number of key areas (Default: Heart and/or Brain). Those locations will become quite a bit more vital towards your survival while every other part will become less so. So long as those key areas are kept protected, the rest of your body will become easier to heal. The more key areas are made, the less important each becomes and the more disposable every other part of your body will be.
Pain is your bodies method of informing you about damage. With this option, the degree of pain received by most of your body will lessen, but damage around your weakpoints will give massive warning spikes and damage to those weakpoints will be excruciating if not immediately fatal.
Warning: You will no longer be able to give individual body parts multiple leanings. You will no longer be able to add defensive stats to a key area – only surround your weaknesses in defensive armour.
Each of your existing conflicts will be given an option to lock in and separate out part roles and future stats will conform to those choices.
Tip. To make a limb both strong and defensive you will need to concentrate defensive stats into your skin and bones while strength stats are focused into muscles.
Focusing defensive stats on places more likely to get hit such as your chest and head can be more efficient than spreading them out.
Hah! It responded this time… I’m spending too much effort on this. Both seem fine – I hate how convoluted the stats are anyways, the first option lets me ignore them and just raise the three all together…Or I can go 'all in' defense and try and become a hydra who can regrow his head.
After selecting the option a final pair of panels appeared briefly flickering into view and then fading even as he read them – as if impatient and showing up solely due to formality.
Balance:
25 free points.
10 free defense points.
Please distribute your clear rewards.
Due to previous choices, if directed towards your body, all points will default to “total body” stats.
As if feeling himself from the outside, Richard held a mass of swirling potential in his focus. “Free Stats”. He had chosen to generalize his body due to convenience… but only in name.
It only mattered when he flung more defense into it.
A thought and the potential shifted – overlaying itself over his entire body and beginning to sink into him as it got harder to direct.
Letting go of the defense stats Richard pulled the less focused potential and willed it to do the same.
All in defense let's go!
Choices being mined.
His consciousness faded.
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“Hey Dicky, hand me the fun bag – I’m going to shove it down his throat.
“You getting turned on by the idea of shoving shit down someone’s throat Mike?”
“Don’t talk back, you know what I mean.”
Richard’s friends had cornered the transfer student and were in the midst of giving him a “bad day”.
It was just a minor prank – the fun bag they had made was a cocktail of laxatives and LSD – but Richard was loath to waste it this way.
“I told you, I made this because I wanted to slip it into the teacher's coffee machine. I had a heist all planned out and you are wasting it.”
“This twig gave us extra homework, acted like a know it all and hit on Tracy in the middle of class. He obviously deserves it much more than our bumbling teachers.”
“Simp.”
“Someone help me hold him down.”
“Prank's less funny when you force it into him instead of tricking him…”
"Dicky are you helping or not? Want to eat trippy shit instead? Stop whining and get over here."
Richard found himself wincing slightly as he watched his younger self. He was an unwilling participant sliding the serum down Basil's throat. Back then he had felt like this was a waste. Now remembering…reliving it, Richard found himself wincing again and again.
He wasn’t proud of this. Not like all the other pranks he had done, Those had been funny. This was just…
The scene played out, his whole shitty crew waiting for the LSD to kick into effect and pushing the poor kid into the cafeteria.
Basil ran across the room panting eyes darting back and forth before climbing up onto a table and kicking lunch trays about.
Mike laughed beside him, collapsing to the ground as he watched the transfer student kick and stamp people's lunches before suddenly dropping to the table – his face turning red as he vomited and convulsed.
“…I think he’s overdosing bro, that was meant to fill a whole coffee machine not a single boys throat.”
Mike sat up and squinted watching carefully before climbing up and patting Richards's shoulder.
“He’ll be fine… Should be fine. Don’t worry about it. Let’s take the rest of the day off.”
Come on mini me, Grow a spine and fuck up those 'friends' of yours. They deserve it so much more than him.
Do it before they leave your life forever and remain a bad memory.
Please.
The scene jumped forward. Richard was held against the wall by two lanky gangsters beating him again and again. But now he was less a bystander, each hit sinking deep into his flesh. He was reliving the pain personally.
“Think it's funny to drug our lil bro don’t you?” Gangster1 spoke while grabbing Richards's throat and holding his arm back.
Gangster2 was silent, simply punching every single visible part of Richard’s body, meaty fist bruising his chest and arms and legs and face.
The beating continued for what felt like hours before a single unidentified pill was pushed down his throat and everything began to fade.
The last words the gangster spoke were something Richard didn’t remember happening the first time around. Gangster1 spit onto his face and whispered. “Karma’s a bitch isn’t it.”
Achievement get: General body of distributed flesh gained!