There is, hypothetically, a maximum amount of panic that any person can exhibit. Spend enough time hyperventilating, and you pass out. Push those fight or flight buttons for long enough, eventually your body hits a cap for the amount of adrenaline and other hormones it can produce and absorb. If nothing else, the psyche is just going to get exhausted of hyper-fixating on whatever is causing the panic, and will slowly drift back and forth between other matters.
After an unclear amount of time, Colton managed to bottom out on everything necessary for him to panic. While the hyperventilating had not knocked him out altogether, the lack of O2 and surplus of CO2 as causing him to get a little lightheaded. His new body, which apparently functioned with very similar flight or flight rules and responses, was running out of the capacity to pump out new hormones to keep his body primed for conflict. Finally, the absurdity of his situation slowly dawned on him as he found himself ever so slowly gathering his wits as he looked around.
Thankfully his rather laud breathing and occasional panic/pain induced sobbing had not attracted any more of the horned menaces that had assaulted him earlier. Perhaps wherever the mysterious voice had deposited him was very sparsely populated by potential enemies, and he had just managed to attract the closest three with his impromptu performance.
Speaking of where he had been placed, had the mysterious voice even gave so much as a name to the world he was in. Colton supposed he could be on earth, and landed on some weird heretofore undisclosed genetics testing facility. This could also be a Planet of the Apes scenario where he had teleported to the future where, for some reason, rabbits had evolved to have horns. Either scenario sounded relatively ridiculous, although he had a hard time thinking it was more ridiculous than being summoned by a pantheon of alternate-universe gods and placed in a new body of his choosing.
‘Oh god, I actually chose this for myself! What was I thinking…oh that’s right, I was not thinking, because whose first instinct is to assume they are being pulled into some Isekai/portal fantasy bullshit when they are sitting down at their computer to play a game. No one sane, that’s who!’
Taking stock of the situation, Colton tried to figure out what he actually knew about his situation, and what he didn’t know. It soon became obvious what he didn’t know what a much larger list:
1. Where he actually was? That mysterious voice had just kept referring to wherever he was going as ‘the world.’ Not even so much as a name.
2. What he was actually supposed to do? Other than “kill the god of death,” the voice had actually been pretty clear that the path to do so was very much up to him.
3. What else out there ready to kill him, and how far away? Thus far, he had encountered a trio of what would probably be called a “trash mob” in most RPGs, and they had managed to nearly kill him.
4. Were there any humans (or at least sapients) nearby? The voice had been vague, but as much as he doubted his capability to do whatever he was actually supposed to do, he was even more cynical about being able to do so without some sort of support.
5. What around him was edible? There obviously were some analogues to earth flora and fauna, but he had no guarantee the analogues were similarly edible (inedible in the case of grass), or if there would be convenient berry bushes to keep him from starving.
He also still had a tiny rabbit horn sticking into his back. It had been in there long enough that whatever process was needed to numb most of the pain had occurred, but he was still very aware of the intrusion into his new being. Trying to reach around his back, he realized that it had managed to impale itself on that part of the back that it’s nearly impossible to reach. He also realized that trying to reach back caused his muscles to shift around the penetration point, sending new waves of pain through his body.
Okay, he couldn’t reach it, but he had tools at hand. At the very least, he had a single tool, and while his now broken guitar obviously was not functional as a musical instrument at the moment, it could at least extend his reach enough to get to the rabbit carcass and offending horn.
Taking as much care as possible not to overly antagonize the puncture wound, he used his guitar to prod at the dead bunny. Doing so caused the horn to shift around more, resulting in most waves of pain, and after knocking it around 3 or 4 times, Colton was not sure if he was making things better or worse.
Pausing to take a few deep breaths, he realized that he would have to “take off the band-aid” so to speak, since small little jostles seemed to be doing nothing. Taking a moment to steel himself, he positioned the guitar about two feet away from the puncture spot, and then awkwardly swung the guitar as hard as he could at the offending corpse.
This resulted in a fresh wave of agony as the horn violently moved about, and opened up the wound even further. Collapsing to his knees, Colton bit down on a scream. Realizing he was not going to be able to hold it in, he fell face forward into the grass, and proceeded to scream into the dirt.
The subsequent muffled scream was thankfully enough not to summon any more of the bad bunnies. As an added bonus, while the procedure had been incredibly painful, Colton could not help but notice that he was now about 3lbs lighter, having excised the small rabbit corpse.
‘I am impressively screwed,’ Colton thought to himself again. ‘Nearly taken out by three trash mobs, and then brought to my knees again just trying to remove a single tiny horn from the fight.’
Somehow, he doubted any future enemies would be less dangerous, nor any future wounds easier to recover from. Then again, who was he joking? He had not even recovered from the single battle, only managed a single step in the recovery process. Taking a moment to gather himself, he summoned his status screen again:
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Name:
Fiona
Level:
1
Dexterity
11
Race:
Orc
Strength
8
Job:
Bard
Constitution
15
Experience:
115/200
Intelligence
11
Mana:
35/50
Charisma
16
Soulbound weapon:
Modified lute
Wisdom
11
Soulbound armor:
Shaped chest piece
Skills
Healing
8
Martial arts
5
Modified lute
12
Acrobatics
6
Archery
15
Singing
3
Drawing
13
Cooking
17
Swimming
11
Tinkering
19
Fencing
7
Map reading
9
Sleight-of-hand
30
Mana manipulation
2
Perk
Imbue weapon
Utilize magic to briefly imbue your weapon with a variety of effects. Make it harder than its base materials would otherwise be. Make it radiate cold. Make it lengthen or widen as needed. It's magic, its limitations are entirely up to you (and your mana pool).
Prank magic
Hey kid, you are not what any of us were expecting, and I dig that. I had to bend the rules a bit, but here’s an extra point for making things interesting. Think of Prank Magic like Roger Rabbit rules, you can do just about anything you want, but only if it’s funny.
Inspect
If Erious can bend the rules a bit, it seems orderly that I would be able to restore order and balance by ALSO providing a perk. Inspect will allow you to visualize characteristics of the world around you. While you are the only one who has "levels," Inspect will also estimate the level of your enemies and allies.
'I appear to have a mana pool, but not hit points or health pool. While everything else on this status screen is absurd, it would probably be even more ridiculous to have quantified his overall health into a single number. After all, there is really not set amount of damage a body can take before it expires. A thousand tiny bees stings might be survivable, but one single sting from a bee that managed to fly down your throat and sting your esophagus might be the thing that does it. I guess that might give you an “asphyxiated” debuff.' Overall, Colton could see how a “health pool,” just did not make sense. Even if it would have been convenient to see exactly how close he was to actually dying versus just feeling like death.
Looking at other parts of his status sheet, he noticed two things that offered him some small degree of hope: “Healing” and “Mana manipulation.” At least in the case of imbuing his weapon, mana manipulation seemed to respond to his general will, rather than a set of spells without set outputs. Maybe combining mana with healing could actually provide some relief from the hole in his back. He really hoped it would, since he doubtful there would be an urgent care center ready to disinfect and stitch him up nearby, and if they were, he really doubted they would be in-network (not that he had had health insurance for years anyways).
Sitting cross-legged on the ground, he tried to calm himself down and envision that flow of energy again. As he was doing that, he mined his memory for anything from his first aid classes related to the healing process, hoping he could guide the mana in how to heal his body.
‘Let me think, antibodies are definitely a thing. Same with white blood cells, probably important since he very much doubted that wound was self-disinfecting. Need to guide those to the area. Platelets are definitely a thing to stop the bleeding, although he was already pretty sure the bleeding process had stopped already. After that, what needed to be done…’
He tried to think harder has he concentrated on pushing the mana towards the hole in his back. At least, he thought he was pushing the mana towards the hole in his back, since he was pretty sure he was just imagining the flow of energy rather than actually feeling anything. Still, he kept at it.
For a minute…
And then five minutes…
And then ten minutes…
Whatever zen state he might have been approaching was on the verge of fraying as there was no feedback or indication that he was doing anything right. It was pretty amazing how quickly he managed to get spoiled from the semi-rapid feedback when imbuing his weapon. That was a perk though, something a literal god had gifted him. Obviously using that should be easier than whatever it was he was trying to do.
Over an hour passed as Colton slowly breathed in and out, concentrating on the hole in his back, when finally:
Skill gained: +1 mana manipulation
And then fifteen minutes after that
Skill gained: +1 healing
“Oh, thank gods,” Colton exclaimed to whatever gods might or might not still be watching the start of his hero’s journey.