1026 eee

-mission - Jumping at Shadows

When he had been little, Ryan had been scared of the dark. Most children were. The darkness was a veil of uncertainty over one's surroundings, and all animals had a fear of the unknown. It was the main reason he had hated going to his grandpa's farm, where the toilet was a longdrop located in a separate outhouse. Many a times he had fearfully stood over that seemingly bottomless pit, dreading what might happen if he slipped.

Sitting with his back to a wall, Ryan felt as if he were 5 again. It wasn't even dark outside, with the sun turning one side of the sky a brilliant orange as it inched its way towards sunset. The angle of the light however meant that there were many lengthening shadows being cast. Affected by the (Fear), Ryan's mind kept imagining that these were moving, illusionary predators in each and every dark corner of the room.

The shadows weren't the only problem. Every little noise sent Ryan's heart aflutter, and in the absence of noise the silence choked the air from his lungs. He had tried blocking his ears so that he could only hear his own heartbeat, but this started him worrying about being unable to hear the monsters that might be creeping up on him.

Ryan looked at the clock. It had only been an hour since he got back.

Upon the completion of his last mission Ryan had decided that he would spend the karma he had on another perk point. The outcome of the mission had made it obvious to him that the more he changed the course of a story, the larger the potential reward would be. Or at least, that was the theory he was operating on. He would have levelled up 'Forewarned is Forearmed' if at all possible, but the next level was locked and required him to reach [redacted].

He was really starting to get tired of these security restrictions.

With that avenue closed to him, Ryan's intention was to purchase a perk called 'Open Eyes'. It didn't do much by itself, but it was apparently a pre-requisite for higher level observation and understanding perks. So he would take the 'increased awareness of one's surroundings' and be happy with it for now.

The only issue with Ryan's plans was the death penalty he had picked up from dying. (Fear) was different from the physical ability penalty that he had been hit with last time. It didn't make itself known straight away, and Ryan had even thought about going on another mission without removing it.

Then, he was startled by the kitchen tap as a drop of water hit the sink. Things went downhill quickly from there.

So here he was, back against a wall because he was scared something might come up behind him. A silly fear, but one that he just couldn't ignore. There was a distant part of Ryan's mind that was bemused by the whole experience. It was almost like he was watching himself in the third person, knowing that there wasn't anything to be afraid of. That wasn't much good for the rest of his being though, and he curled up tightly as he counted down the minutes till he could afford to get rid of the death penalty.

One hour and seven minutes. Just three hours and fifty-three minutes to go. This was going to be a long wait.

Mission - Parcel Pickup

Mission - Parcel Pickup

World Type: Bound Extra-planar Territory - District Scale - Earth - Multi-planar Demonic/Divine/Spiritual Influence Present

Tech Level: Pre-industrial Base - Limited Arcane Presence / Limited Expression Ability Presence

Time Limit: 12 hours

Entry Method: Transposition

Location: Human village

Primary Objective: Pick-up medicine order and return to village

Secondary Objective: Complete delivery within 8 hours

Familiar khaki shirt, comfortable faded jeans, and his worn-in sneakers. It seemed that transposition meant that it was his own body that would be used in the mission. The mission in Egypt must have been one as well judging by the sand he had picked up while there. Ryan wondered if this meant that his clothes would retain any damage after the mission was finished. That would be a nuisance, as his non-existent karma balance would be affected if he had to buy new clothes. He would just have to hope that this job would be as easy as the description made it out to be.

His surroundings were a promising start. Ryan found himself in a rustic oriental village, with houses made of what looked like mostly clay, wood, and paper. With the sky turning dark overhead there were no houses on fire, no armed men rushing about, and no horrible monsters set to eat him. The only people he could see on the street were either going home for the day or stopping at one of the eateries for dinner.

Feeling a bit like a tourist, Ryan strolled along the main street gawking at everything until he spotted his probable objective, a worried looking middle-aged woman who had a flashing yellow question mark floating above her head.

"Good evening," Ryan said with a wave. "You look distressed, is there something wrong?"

He may have come off a little strongly, as the woman flinched away from him before she relaxed and gave him a forced smile.

"Hello there stranger," she greeted him back timidly. "I am fine. I don't believe I have seen you before. Are you from the outside world?"

Ryan scratched the back of his head as he tried to figure out what she meant. The mission description had described this as a 'bound extra-planar territory'. Did that mean that it was separated from the rest of Earth somehow? Ryan wasn't sure what the best answer would be, but decided to try honest as the first policy. To a degree of honesty, that was.

"I'm not from around here, no," Ryan told the lady carefully. "Found myself in this nice little village and I was looking around for something to do when I spotted you there. You looked like you needed something?"

He actually had no idea what someone in need would look like, but the knowledge that she was the quest giver in this mission let him cheat a bit.

"Oh dear, was it that obvious?" the woman said with a sigh. "Truth is, my son's sick and we are out of the usual medicine he uses." She wrung her hands as she looked back towards what Ryan assumed was her house. "I would have asked Keine or one of the other village elders to help, but they are all at the shrine after the mess we had last week."

It looked like he had his in. Ryan smiled as kindly as he could manage as he asked, "Is the doctor's house far away? I was intending to head out for something so it wouldn't be a bother for me to pick something up for you."

"I couldn't do that," the woman replied. She appeared comforted, but also slightly horrified by his offer. "Not when it's turning dark outside. It's too dangerous for an outsider to be moving about Gensokyo unless you have help. I would never forgive myself if you got eaten by a youkai."

Gensokyo? Youkai? Ryan bit down on a curse that almost escaped his mouth when he realised where he was. Touhou Project, the Japanese shooting game world with crazy magical girls and monsters. He wasn't too familiar with the setting but he remembered that there were vampires and man-eating spirits that lived here. This was what he got for choosing a fantasy world mission over the delivery mission set in South America.

"I will be fine," Ryan lied through his teeth. "I can see well in the dark and I can look after myself. Just point me in the right direction and I will be back in a jiffy."

The local looked doubtfully at him. "Well, I suppose you must have some sort of ability if you managed to reach the village by yourself... Are you sure though?"

"Yep, it won't be a problem," Ryan confirmed. There was no way to cancel a mission he could see except dying, and since he wasn't sure what the penalty was for failing, he may as well give it a go.

Ryan's false confidence overcame the woman's hesitation, and he was soon leaving the south gate of the village on his way to the Bamboo Forest of the Lost. A slightly ominous name, but he had been assured that it was actually much safer than the surrounding areas were as only rabbit youkai and a few civilised spiritual beings lived there.

The sun completely disappeared below the horizon as Ryan began to jog down the dirt road to the South. Getting darker with every step he took, the reduced visibility gave him a chance to truly appreciate the new perk that he had picked up. Whereas before he would have stumbled over every pothole and loose rock, he was now able to pick out rough details from his immediate surroundings. Enough so that he found that he could keep running with no difficulties.

With that barrier cleared, Ryan's only real worry now was running into a youkai. It was kinda funny that he had just come from worrying about imaginary monsters in the dark to a world where this was a real fear. He just hoped that it would remain a joke and that Murphy didn't decide to bite him in the ass, possibly literally.

Surprisingly, his luck held out, and after about forty minutes of tedious jogging Ryan arrived at the outskirts of a huge bamboo forest. While he caught this breath, he slowly looked around the place from the outside, and he had to admit being discomfitted by what he saw.

The bamboo grew dense enough that, in the darkness, Ryan found it difficult to see much past about three metres. He shuddered to think how bad it would have been without his improved eyesight. The obscuration extended to the view of the sky overhead, with the thick leaves shrouding most of the ceiling so that the only clear feature that could be made out was a few broken glimpses of the moon. Had he a choice in the matter Ryan would not have chosen to enter the forest. A thought that only grew stronger as he realised he would have no way to tell the direction inside.

Unlike a game HUD, Ryan's Spirit Interface did not come equipped with a minimap or compass. That was actually a perk he could purchase from the shop. Something that wasn't much help right now when he had no access to the shop during a mission, nor the karma to buy any perk points.

With no other options, Ryan decided to go in and hope for the best. After all, the worst thing that could happen was being eaten, and that was more likely to occur outside the forest than within it.

His confidence soon faltered as he lost sight of the grasslands outside, the view covered by a thick screen of bamboo. Ryan also found that it was almost impossible to keep going in a straight line. There were clumps of bamboo in places where the trunks were clustered so closely together that he doubted even a rabbit could get through. After going around a few such obstacles, Ryan had almost lost his sense of direction, and all he could do was try and keep the moon on one side of him and hope that was enough.

The knowledge that he was almost certainly getting lost brought anxiety, and anxiety called to its friend fear. It wasn't the crippling terror that he had experienced while under the effects of the (Fear) penalty, but it was hard to avoid a shiver as the wind rustled the leaves and set the bamboo clacking against each other.

An hour passed in this manner, then another, and then three more. By now the moon was high in the sky, and despite having tried to adjust for its movement Ryan had to admit that he was completely lost.

Ryan frowned as he looked at the time. He now had less than half the time required to meet the secondary objective. If he didn't manage to stumble across the place soon he wasn't going to make it.

"Hello, is anyone there?" he cried out, as he had started doing since about half an hour ago. Again, there was no response but for a haunting echo of his own voice that seemed to ring through the trees.

Ryan sighed and continued to walk in what he hoped was a southward direction. He had a piece of bamboo in his hand that he hit against the trees as he went, hoping that the noise would attract some attention. He would almost welcome a meeting with a youkai right now if it meant that he could get out of this frustrating forest.

It was moments later that Ryan felt his foot trip on something. He wasn't given time to wonder what it was before something fell on him from above.

"Ah!" Ryan cried out involuntarily as he desperately try to clear his face. It was only when he pulled his hands away that he realised that he had just been hit with a clump of leaves and weeds.

"The hell?" he muttered as he tried to see where it had come from. There appeared to be some sort of netting overhead, which had presumably released its contents on him when he tripped over its trigger. A trap then. Did that mean that he was getting closer?

"Is someone there?" Ryan tried again, but got no answer for his troubles. He spent a few minutes examining the area, but apart from the crude trap he didn't some across anything else.

Well, it was better than nothing, he reasoned as he headed forward once more. A trap had to be built by someone, and that meant somebody had come by here, hopefully recently.

Some distance deeper inside the forest, Ryan was unsure where to be happy or annoyed when he was hit with another trap. This time it was a slender branch that lashed across his face, leaving him screaming in pain as he brought up his hands to clench his cheeks. This was only the beginning of his troubles, and soon Ryan was finding that everywhere he went he was stepping into covered holes, or getting tripped up by bamboo logs that raised themselves up from the ground as he passed.

He had just hit the ground with his face after the latest tripwire when he heard a muffled snigger from the left. With an alacrity that no one would have expected from the poor human stumbling through the forest, Ryan picked himself up and crashed through a stand of young bamboo shoots to find the source of the laughter.

"Eep!" "Run away!" "Human, human!" "Eek!" "Oops!"

Rabbits? Ryan's eyebrow raised itself as he caught sight of the tuffy tails dashing into the cover of the forest in all directions. Then he realised that one rabbit hadn't fled and was frozen as if in shock. Seeing his chance, Ryan quickly put his hands around the bulldog sized bunny to catch it before it could recover and escape.

Being held up in the air seemed to knock the rabbit out of his paralysis, and it started to squeal in a high pitched voice.

"Lemme go, lemme go!"

It was stronger than it looked, and Ryan found himself struggling to keep it in place as its legs kicked at his arms and chest.

"I just - oof - need you to show - ow!" Nose stinging from a direct hit, Ryan decided to give the rabbit a shake, rocking its head back and forth. "Stop it! Or I'm going to hold you by your ears you damn pest!"

"Eeeeek! Torture! Help! Bunny torture!" the rabbit shrieked as it escalated its attempts to escape.

Perhaps he shouldn't have threatened the thing, but the words had left his mouth before his brain could stop them. A sign of his built up annoyance after suffering through trap after trap. It was causing unwanted delays now though and he wished he had just tried to calm the rabbit down.

Ryan's regrets intensified when he started hearing voices around him, accompanied by the rustle of dry bamboo leaves being disturbed under foot and paw.

"It's a bad human!" "Let's get him!" "Rescue Ashi!" "Get him!"

"... I thought I was Ashi today?"

"Rescue Ashi anyway!"

Oh, bugger, was the thought that ran through Ryan's head as he saw the oversized rabbit mob charging at him. He barely had time to drop the rabbit in his hands and cover his face with his arms when a furry leg slammed into his guard. This was followed by an impact to his back, then his leg, and so on. Individually the hits weren't a problem, being about the strength of an average punch, but the continuous flurry of kicks and slams was too much. He couldn't even fight back properly as every time he tried to knock one away another two rabbits would hit him through the opening in his guard. Before long Ryan was crouched down with his arms over his head in an attempt to protect himself.

Fwooosh!

"Eeek! Mokou!" "Phoenix girl! Run!" "Awww!" "Fire! Fire!"

He had started to wonder how long it was going to take for this pack of rabbits to batter himself to death with their paws when there was a bright flare of light. Hearing the rabbits clamber off in a panic, he cautiously opened his eyes to see a pair of legs in dark pants standing in front of him.

"What is a human doing in the forest at this time of night?" the owner of those legs asked in a dispassionate tone. Ryan sat up and saw that his rescuer was a girl with long pale hair that came all the way down to her ankles. In the darkness of the forest he couldn't distinguish much more than that, and he smiled awkwardly as he got up onto his feet.

"Mrs Sato at the village ran out of medicine for her son," Ryan said with a wince as a particularly nasty bruise made itself known. "I offered to come get some for her, and... Well..."

The girl crossed her arms, and Ryan could feel that she wasn't too impressed with him.

"Let me guess, you got lost until you ran into those idiot rabbits," she said with a slight shake of her head. "I would have thought that everyone in the village would know by now that they should wait until I come by to go to Eientei."

Ryan laughed sheepishly. "I'm kinda new around here," he said with a self-aware chuckle. "And besides, it's kinda urgent, I don't think the kid is in good shape."

Pre-mission - Pit-stop

He was a tax clerk himself, and he had heard the saying 'nothing is certain except death and taxes', but he hadn't expected the phrase to literally apply to his own affairs after (a) death. He was a New Zealand tax resident for god's sake, his country didn't even have estate taxes!

Lame accountant jokes aside, Ryan felt he hadn't drawn a bad hand with the death penalty this time. A 20% deduction on karma earned wasn't too bad compared to the crippling (Fear) he had experienced. Whether it was better or worse than the physical ability debuff was debatable. On one hand it was likely to cost more karma overall, but with a debuff he was given the option to remove it whenever he wanted and could also wait it out. In his case, Ryan supposed it was a positive as he planned to head out as soon as he had eaten. This way he didn't have to feel bad about 'wasting' karma to restore his condition.

Having his hypothesis about dying during a mission be proven true was also a good thing. Gone were the rips in his shirt, the hole in his head, and the tenderised meat feeling from the beatdown he had received from the (evil) rabbits. If it weren't for the memories and the karma earned he may have believed it if he were told he had hallucinated the whole mission. It was something he would have to reserve as an option for the future. Not that he wanted to experience death, but he suspected from looking at the shop prices that dying might actually be cheaper than post-mission treatment. Definitely another tick towards this being an EA monetised version of the afterlife.

No, wait, that was a lie. He still had no fucking idea what this was. Ryan frowned to himself as he remembered his one-sided conversation with Eirin. One thing he had gotten from it was that he wasn't the only one in this situation. She had met others like him, others who knew more about both her and this forced road-trip through the multi-verse. How or where he could meet these others was a mystery, but it was more than he had to go off before.

To that end, he would have to go earn more karma. A thought that was getting depressingly common recently. He almost felt as if he had a mortgage again. That hadn't gone great the last time, so hopefully this wasn't going to be a re-run.

Closing the shop menu, Ryan moved to the kitchen to prepare a meal using the supplies he had purchased earlier. A quick meal and an hour or so to let it digest. That was all the rest he was going to allow himself before he went on the next mission. Then it would be time to go make someone (he didn't know) richer (in whatever ultimate use karma had).

Mission - Hunt or be Hunted

Mission - Hunt or be Hunted

World Type: Baseline Earth

Tech Level: Baseline Earth (2003)

Time Limit: 6 hours

Entry Method: Corpse Possession - Civilian

Location: West Virginia - Greenbrier County

Primary Objective: Hunt down the three hunters

Wet dirt and moist dead leaves. He was going to be able to tell the difference between floor types by taste if any more of these corpse possession missions started with him face down in the ground.

Ryan raised himself off the ground and looked around. He was on the side of a dirt road, in what looked like a mostly pine forest. The mission had said West Virginia. That was in the USA somewhere wasn't it? Spitting out the remainder of the debris in his mouth, Ryan took stock of what he had. He was in a lanky european male body, dressed in a... Shit, was that blood on the t-shirt?

Ryan poked at the holes in the t-shirt. Three holes, right in the chest. Whatever had done this had been thin and had come straight through the body. Some kind of rapier? Whatever it was, it had been lethal.

That was worrying, Ryan thought as he patted down his shorts pockets to see if there was anything useful there. He found a wallet with some dollar bills, a nokia flip-phone, and a pearl necklace of all things. Nothing very helpful. The cord for the amulet he had around his neck would probably serve more use. This was a bust.

Acutely aware that the mission targets could come by at any time, Ryan began to look around for anything he could use as a weapon. There was nothing obvious at hand, and being in the ass end of nowhere he was unlikely to find any tools. In the end Ryan settled for breaking a young tree in half. The 1 metre of so length he salvaged was about as thick as a cucumber along most of its length. Ryan figured it would serve as a staff until he could trade up.

With a weapon in hand, no matter how crude, Ryan was a bit more confident. The next step would be to start looking for the targets. This wasn't going to be easy. He was no hunter, and while he could 'see' the world better than most people now, he didn't know what to look for. Even now the only thing he could tell from his surroundings was that this body had been dragged along the road for a short length before being dumped. He could try walking in the direction that this indicated, or he could stay here and hope that the targets came back.

Inaction equalled boredom, so Ryan chose the riskier option to go after those who had killed this man. Unlike the Bamboo Forest of the Lost, there was a clear road to follow here, so he was able to make good speed with the staff slung over his shoulder. He stopped occasionally to see if he could spot anything, but didn't have much luck.

About twenty minutes had passed, and Ryan had started to enjoy the bracing hike through the forest when a person came out onto the road ahead. They were... Ugly, to put it mildly. With a deformed face and mouth that their mother wouldn't kiss, Ryan realised he was either in a zombie movie or a hillbilly slasher fic.

The one-eyed freak did a visible double take on spotting Ryan on the road, which he found funny. He recovered quickly though and with a beastly snarl the beastly man began to run towards Ryan with a two-headed axe held high.

Ryan waited with an odd detachment from the scene as the inbred mutant approached. He wasn't scared, not after what he had already gone through. He wasn't excited either. There was maybe a hint of nervousness in there, but it was more around the question of whether he could time this next action correctly than the prospect of harm and death. Was he really becoming jaded about dying in a horrific and violent manner? Maybe if wasn't just the death penalties that he had to worry about. His mental health could stand to be examined carefully too.

Despite the slight internal distraction, Ryan did in fact manage to time things right as the mutant hillbilly got to swinging range. Spinning to the left to get further momentum going, Ryan dodged the wild swing from the axe and retaliated with a strike to the back of the target's head. The force of the impact staggered the inbreed, but at the same time Ryan felt the wood splinter and break. The top third of the length had given way, and Ryan quickly reacted to the breakage by thrusting the now pointed end into the beast's back.

Not being sharpened, the attack didn't pierce the freak's clothes. Still, the squeal of pain it drew out told Ryan it had been painful enough. He wanted to follow this up further, but had to jump back as the hillbilly spun around and nearly got him with the axe. A dangerous game of tag then began with the murderous hillybilly as 'it'. With his diminished weapon Ryan was unable keep out of range of the axe without completely giving up the initiative, so he gambled that his heightened reflexes would be enough to let him keep dodging.

He was right, for a time.

Circling around the malformed man, Ryan was able to keep hitting his with quick jabs to the head while evading the attacks. What he didn't expect was for the mutant to let go of the axe mid-swing and try to tackle him to the ground. The change in pace caught him off guard, and Ryan wasn't quick enough to avoid one of his legs being caught in the mutant's grasp.

"Whoa!" Ryan gasped as he was pulled off his feet. He braced himself and managed to keep a hold of the wood staff turned club as his back hit the packed dirt road. Frantically, he thrust one end at the monster holding his leg. With the angle he had though Ryan wasn't able to put much force behind it and the blows were shrugged off. Stung, but overall unphased, the mutant tightened his grip and bit down on Ryan's bare lower leg.

"Arggh! ***** ***** ******! Get off of me!" Ryan screamed.

Fun fact. A bite from a mutant inbred hillbilly hurt more than a bullet to the gut. This was one of the more useless lessons Ryan would take away from this later. For now though his only thought was to get this freak off his leg. Taking the club in both hands again, Ryan thrust away at the cannibal mutant's head. With the stronger grip he was able to put more power behind the blows, and he managed to knock the mutant's head back so that the follow-up could be plunged through its misshapen left eye.

"Aiiiieee!" Now it was the mutant that bellowed in pain as he thrashed about. Determined to finish the job, Ryan ignored the noise and continued to push the wood further in. He felt something give way after a while, and the monster gave one final shudder before falling limp.

Breathing heavily, Ryan used the club as a support as he stood up. Pain flared from his right leg as he did. Grimacing, he looked down and saw that a chunk of his calf had been torn off and now hung by a flap of skin. That would need to be treated. First however he had an axe to pick up.

Ryan hobbled his way towards where the mutant had thrown the axe. He could safely say it was the most painful ten metre walk he had ever taken. He regretted every moment of it until he picked up the axe. Then, as soon as he felt its hefty weight in his hands, everything somehow seemed worthwhile.

Sagging onto the leafbed below, Ryan decided to tie up his wounds to reduce the blood loss. That would be the best he could do without tools and medicine he didn't have. With nothing else available to use, his t-shirt became the sacrifice for the bandages. It was pretty dirty but Ryan figured that he was more likely to die from blood loss than infection within the next 5 hours that he had here.

With his leg in a makeshift wrapping, and the pain now a nagging neighbour that just wouldn't go away, Ryan limped back over to the monster's corpse. Standing a short distance away from it, he studied it for about half a minute, looking for signs of life. Seeing none, he brought the axe up, and then swung down.

He had seen way too many monster movie over his life to not go choppy choppy on a monster's corpse after it was 'killed'. That way lay horrible sequels and even worse prequels.

Once his gruesome job was finished. Ryan went over the remains of the freak to see if there was anything else that might be useful. He eventually came away from it with a rusty bowie knife that he wrapped in the remains of his t-shirt.

There was nothing more to do here, and Ryan decided to press forward. The mission hadn't finished, and the mission specs had said 'hunters', so he assumed there were other mutant hillbillies out there. He just hoped there weren't too many, because he wasn't going to be surviving this if there were.

He walked down the road with the axe in his right hand and the bloodied club in his left. He had pulled it free from the severed head and used the axe head to sharpen the point as he went. If there was a fire nearby he would have fire-treated it as well to harden it, but there wasn't, so raw wood would have to do.

While doing this he reached a blockage. An ancient truck sat there in front of some trees that had fallen across the road. It seemed to be abandoned, and Ryan remembered where he had seen this scene before.

A few years ago he had been travelling through the United States and got stuck in Atlanta because of a hurricane cancelling flights to Miami. It had been close to Halloween and the movie channels were basically dedicated horror spectaculars. One channel in particular was showing a series of slashers called... Wrong destination? Final Turn? Something like that. Anyway, it had been about a group of inbred mutant hillbilly killers that preyed on people who drove into the wrong part of the country. There had been one point in the... First movie? Where a few of the young men and women that were being hunted had managed to steal the truck the monsters drove around in. Then they had gotten stuck in the mud before some fallen trees and had to get off.

He recalled that they had for some reason decided to head up the hill deeper into the forest from here. It had confused him then as to why they didn't just continue walking down the road when they had a lead on the monsters. He didn't remember too much else about the movie though except that the female lead, who actually survived the movie, was Faith from Buffy the Vampire Slayer.

Sure enough, when he searched the side of the road that led up the hill, Ryan's enhanced visual awareness soon picked up spots where the leafbed and undergrowth had been disturbed. It looked like he had a trail to follow.

As he trudged up the hill Ryan found he had to avoid putting weight on his wounded leg. Something about the movement required meant that the bite wound kept being opened, and the amateurish bandage was already seeping blood. Using the club as a crutch made things better, but Ryan realised that in this terrain he wasn't going to have much time before his movements became seriously affected. To make things worse, the sky over head was getting visibly darker. Ryan wasn't afraid of the dark after using his enhanced eyes in Gensokyo, but he was afraid that he would lose the trail.

However, it seemed that Ryan was in luck today. Extremely lucky, as ryan had just raised up the axe to adjust his grip on it when something clanged off it to ricochet into a nearby bush. An arrow he saw as he turned to look at it. Without even thinking about it, Ryan threw himself to the side and narrowly escape being hit by a second arrow that buried itself into a tree. The aim was good enough that he would have been skewered if he hadn't moved.

With a direction plotted, Ryan moved to put a nearby pine between himself and the shooter. This done, he then peeked around the thick trunk to try and spot the attacker. He soon saw that it was another one of these ugly mutant hillbillies. This one unfortunately had a bow and arrow, and Ryan pulled his head back as a projectile shaved bark off the pine tree.

Okay, that wasn't too bad, Ryan figured as he stood back up. His reactions were fast enough that he could probably avoid being shot from range, and even close up he would be fine as long as he could keep this tree between them. As long as there wasn't another -.

Ryan heard something crashing through underbrush on the other side of the forest from the archer. Turning his head, he saw a third mutant, this one holding... Oh shit. Was that a gun?

The new mutant, who Ryan saw had even worse dental problems than the one he had killed, raised the gun to his shoulder. Ryan thought quickly and decided to take his chances with the archer. Lunging backwards, he was rolling across the forest floor when an arrow came whistling through the air.

"Arggh!" Ryan couldn't help but scream as the arrow buried itself into flesh. The same bloody leg. The same bloody leg that already had a chunk falling off it! Why did they have to shoot the same bloody leg?

Mind clouded by fiery pain, Ryan still managed to get into a new hiding place that sheltered him from both of the mutants for now. Screaming and swearing at the top of his lungs. He checked their positions as he gripped the arrow's shaft. The archer was circling around to his right, while the one with the gun came towards his right. He wasn't going to have time to bind the wound. Ryan decided to break off the shaft so that he could move better. The pain that caused though meant that he couldn't put enough strength into it. Some painful hacks with the axe worked, but he cut himself a bit as the axe head came down. Compared to the other wounds though it was nothing so he ignored it as he tried to work through the trauma.

Heavily wounded leg, enemies on two sides with ranged weapons. He was pretty fucked. The layout of the terrain meant that the mutants also had the height advantage for as long as they chose to hold it. Ryan prayed Star Wars memes held no power over fate in this universe, and he began to crawl towards the archer who was the closer of his two stalkers.

It was fortunate that they were in a forest, Ryan thought as a shotgun slug shattered a branch close to him. Without the obstructions that the trees presented, the mutants would have been able to shoot at him with impunity. Here though, Ryan was able to quickly crawl his way from one tree to another so as to deny clear lines of sight on him.

"Kyyaa!" he heard the mutant archer shriek in apparent frustration as another arrow missed its mark. They were close to each other now, not more than eight metres apart.

Ryan eyed the distance, even as he carefully made sure that the other mutant couldn't get a good shot. It wasn't far, but with his crippled leg the mutant would get at least one last bowshot on him if he went for it. Could he still dodge?

A lightning bolt of pain ran down Ryan's side as the arrow in his leg caught on something and was jostled. That decided things for him. He was dead anyway unless he did something soon, so he may well throw the dice again. Double sixes, lady luck. Double sixes. Just keep the good luck rolling.

Bursting out from behind the tree, Ryan ignored the white hot blinding pain from his leg as he rushed towards the goblin-faced mutant. All of his attention was on the bow and arrow in the mutant's hands. Five steps in, the archer loosed the string, and Ryan raised his left arm in a last ditch effort to shield himself from instant death.

To Ryan's surprise, it actually worked, and though an arrow stabbed itself through his left shoulder he was able to get on top of the monster with axe held high.

The monster raised its hands towards Ryan as if trying to shield himself, but the heavy axehead chopped straight through its wrist and into the head below. There it came to rest with a meaty thump, but not before caving in the monster's skull like a tin can.

"Die you mother- whoomph - ugh!"

Ryan had let out the beginning of a celebratory cry when something slammed into his back with the force of a runaway train. Thrown forward onto the ground, Ryan realised that he had been shot.

Scrabbling with his rapidly weakening arms, Ryan clawed himself next to a fallen tree trunk against which he could rest his upper body. He couldn't move his legs at all, suggesting his spine was done for. His thought were becoming hazy as well so he probably didn't have long.

In his new position he was able to see the last mutant hillbilly roar like he was going super saiyan as it spotted his fallen... Family member? Comrade? Probably family member if they were as inbred as he suspected. The sight made him dream up a weird pseudo-Disney scenario where cannibal hillbillies rescued a princess and fell in love before eating their newborn baby.

... Jesus, that had to be the blood-loss talking.

The mutant was heaving with rage as it stalked towards Ryan with a hatchet in hand. Damn it. Not only was he going to fail the mission, the freak was probably going to take his time killing him out of revenge. Ryan began to wonder if he should try biting off his tongue like he had seen in a movie once. The person involved seemed to die pretty quickly, but he wasn't sure how well it would go in real life.

Thunk.

There was a sudden noise, and suddenly the mutant was hanging upside down in the air while it screamed at the top of its lungs. At first Ryan could only stare blankly, his mind unable to process these recent developments. Then, he realised what had happened and he started to laugh deliriously.

There were an extensive array of traps that the hillbilly family had scattered all across this forest. Among them were bear traps that were intended to grab you and then haul you up into the air. Bear traps just like the one this idiot had been caught by. The inbreed had been so angry that it had probably missed its own signs that a trap lay in that location.

Still laughing like a loon, Ryan began to painfully crawl towards the last mutant. He left a trail of bloody mud behind him as he dragged his broken body through the leaves. He was close to death, hell, death should already have claimed him. However Ryan had seen a delicious opportunity for payback and put superhuman willpower into taking it.

Reaching the spot where the mutant hung upside down, flailing and squealing like a hog tied up for slaughter, Ryan's hands closed around the shotgun that had fallen to the ground. With a nasty smile he picked it up and found to his delight that there was still one more slug loaded in the barrel. Raising it up, he put his eyes to the sights and lined it up to the murderous monster's face. Then, with his last breath, he pulled the trigger.

SpoilerPre-Mission - Brain Drain

Me Ryan. Me was BIG SMART guy, but me die and now dum dum.

... Okay, it wasn't anywhere near that bad, but if this was what the R1 mental penalty was like he didn't want to think about what the higher ranks would do.

Ryan's mouth closed on an empty spoon before his hands lowered it back into an empty bowl. The spoon was halfway back to his mouth again before the command to stop was completed and Ryan's hand froze in midair. Yeah, this was annoying, Ryan thought as he began to clear away his lunch dishes. It was as if his brain was lagging, causing a one second delay between perceiving a need and then acting on it. It wasn't a physical thing because he reacted to stimuli such as pain instantly, it was purely for anything that required even a smidgen of active thought.

He had found his memories were affected too. Though in this case it was probably more accurate to say it was his recall. A two or three second rummage through his head to recollect something didn't sound so bad, but it was incredibly frustrating when it occurred every second thought. In fact, he had just noticed that he couldn't remember why he had started thinking about this again in the first place.

Oh wait, that was why. The penalty was about to finish.

His head was clear and his mood brought a smile to his face. The feeling Ryan got when the penalty lifted was akin to that of when he finished his first cup of cofee in the morning. To be able to think at normal speeds had never felt so good.

Now that he was back at 100%, Ryan decided that he should probably head back out. He had taken an entire 24 hours off as he felt he had earned it after the last mission. The time had been used well in exercise and recuperation, but with the penalty gone he would much rather try and earn some more karma.

Mission - Rodent Destiny + Mini Time Skip

Ryan was on his sixth mission now, and he was still unable to find any rhyme or reason behind this whole enterprise. Was he saving lives? Yes, but for what purpose? Was there a multi-versal scale somewhere that measured 'good' versus 'evil'? And even if there was, how could it make a difference in an infinite multi-verse?

To make things even more confusing, the missions did not seem to make sense. He could understand the airport missions or the killing of the mutant hillbillies. They removed threats to human life, making the world a slightly better place. The Mummy mission was similar to this as well. He had been asked to prevent the resurrection of a being that could have buried an entire country under literal biblical plagues. Of course that would make a difference. Why then, with such options on the line, did they make missions like this?

Mission - Rodent Destiny

World Type: Meta Earth - Unlimited Universe

Tech Level: Advanced Modern (2050) - Meta-Science Presence / Structured Arcane Presence / Organised Divine Presence / (+50 other entries - expand?)

Time Limit: 2 hours

Entry Method: Role Play

Location: San Francisco Wharf

Primary Objective: Disable Rat Traps

Adjusting the rear-view mirror, Ryan looked at the khaki cap he had on his head again. It said 'Pest Control' in the most generic garish lettering he had ever seen. The only way it could be more stereotypically exaggerated was if the background was a yellow explosion.

Not finding any further clues to his immediate life questions in the company uniform typefacing, Ryan put the mirror back into position and got out of the van.

The vehicle was parked on the wharf, and Ryan could smell the familiar briny air that you learned to love if you lived near the sea. He couldn't actually see the ocean though, as he was currently surrounded on all sides by rows of sheds. The featureless kind that you found in port areas all around the world.

There had been a sheet of paper in his hands when he got to this world, and Ryan got it out of his front pocket. It was a job order for a pest control firm. Quarterly maintenance of rat control apparatus for client 'U-Store-It Self Storage'.

Ryan glanced up at the nearest sign. Yep, looked like it was this building right here.

Heading inside, Ryan was greeted by a loud buzzing noise from one of those annoying sensor activated doorbells. This in turn drew the attention of the overweight Asian security guard who had been watching tv in the small office area to the side.

"Hey man, you here to clean out the rat traps?" the guard asked as he came out to greet him.

"Yep," Ryan replied as he looked around. The dimly lit shed was filled up with a number of wire fence enclosures, all of which were in turned filled with various types of junk and rubbish. "Mind if I get to work? Can't remember where they all are."

"Sure thing," the guard replied as he walked over to a set of switches. "The lights are here," he told Ryan as he flicked two of them down. A series of flourescent lights came on throughout the facility. "I will be in my office if you need me. Just yell if you do."

Ryan nodded back and then began to walk along the length of the wall. He didn't know exactly where the traps were, but there were only so many places you would put them.

What then followed was one hour of going through the dark nooks and crannies of the storage facility to clean out the little plastic bait traps that were there. There was no great difficulty involved though and before he knew it, Ryan was done.

Spoiler

Closing up the last trap after emptying it of any remaining poisoned bait, Ryan saw the familiar green light of a mission accomplished alert. He pressed it and was transported back to his room.

Bringing up the mission results, Ryan scrunched his face in distaste when he saw the reward. 5 karma for the level of effort that the mission had required seemed reasonable, but relative to the time taken it was a letdown.

On the other hand, there had been no danger. He had been anticipating some kind of ironic complication but nothing had happened. Maybe he could try finding other boring missions like this one? It would be a good way to slowly but steadily build up his karma balance.

-

Two days later, Ryan had reached his limit. He had taken one odd job after another and his inner procrastinator had said 'enough'. With his karma balance now at 210, his patience had agreed, and Ryan finally spent the required 101 karma for another perk point.

Ryan had just confirmed that he wanted to increase Personal Trainer to level 2 when a new alert popped up in front of him. At the same time he felt something unlock inside his head and he staggered as a rush of new knowledge hit him.

Soul Standardisation Completed - Basic restrictions unlocked

Access granted to 'The Exchange'

Access granted to 'Arx Cognitionis'

Access granted to 'Bounty Board - Copper Rank'

Well, that was new, Ryan thought as he blinked away tears. It looked like he was finally going to be able to get some answers. Time to take a tour.

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