One Time Only

I take a quick skim of my patient chart and find out I had been in a coma state after an accident but it had last been signed a few weeks after I had been in a coma. But nothing since then.

I look around my body for any sort of clues for an accident and that's when I notice a horrible grey and black symbol of a clock imprinted on top of my heart.

Then it flows forward in a stream of black gunk. Like a waterfall of ink it cascades in front of me. It gradually forms into the shape of a clock before I hear a voice coming from it.

"Hi Zane! I'm Tock!" A cheery voice comes out that's somehow still draped in a dark demonic tone.

Tock, I guess thats his name, has the hands of his clock merge into the sides of his clock body and he turns into a clock with arms and legs. His legs are clearly made of the minute hand while his arms are made of the hour hand, as for the second hand it manages to become a tiny mouth and eyes.

He swivels and floats up to look directly into my eyes.

"Tock has saved you over this last year! Now you are able to use the same system as the rest of the people in your world!"

"So I'm not the only one experiencing stuff like this?" I ask tentatively.

"No you are special! People have the same kind of system in terms of levels and skills. But you are the only one who wields the time loop system!"

"Why just me?" I'm confused at the notion that I'm the only one that can do this.

Tock seems to just stare for a second before dropping his cheerful voice to say, "If everyone could freely mess with time then time would be a mess." He then spins on the spot and goes back to being cheerful, "Let's check out your OTO quests!"

Not wanting to dive any deeper into what would make this clock so serious I ask, "What are OTO quests!"

"It stands for One-Time-Only quests! Just think about your time loop system!"

Sure enough when I think about a status screen pops up in front of me however, it's a white colour instead of the blue of the other one. Plus it displays how much time I have to use with the skill as well as OTO quests instead of skills and levels.

{Generating OTO quests}

{...}

After about a second a list of 12 quests pop up each seems way harder than the last.

"Hey Tock what's the deal with these?"

"The skills and levels you have right now will disappear as soon as you leave the dungeon so if you want to not be weak in the outside world you need to try completing one or two of these." Tock explains to me whilst pointing at my 2 different status screens as he does. "Plus if you want to gain more time for your loop skill then you need to complete these. Some quests have penalties and time restrictions attatched so you need to fulfil them. One of the harshest parts of these quests is they can take your time if you don't do some of them and if you have no time left for your skill then you die!"

"Wait what?! I can die if I can't use the loop skill!"

"Well yeah duh what do you think kept you alive whilst you were in a coma and the hospital turned into a dungeon!" Tock says matter of factly. "The reason they are called One-Time-Only quests is because you can only attempt to do them once which means if you have to use the loop skill before a fight for an OTO quest you better win the first time without dying!"

Now that Tock had done expositing to me he flies back into my chest, clock, thing.

I decide there's no point dwelling too hard on what Tock said and what this time loop system may have in store for me and decide to check out one of the quests.

{Beat the boss of the Minotaur dungeon before leaving}

{Penalty: -5 secs of time}

{Reward: Skill (permanent)}

So this should be done right before I leave so I'll check out some other ones.

{Impale yourself on a minotaurs horn on purpose}

{Reward: Skill}

{Consume a monsters heart}

{Reward: Skill (permanent)}

{Do a handstand for a minute}

{Reward: Skill}

I'll focus on these for now before doing more I rip open the Minotaur and grab it's heart before biting down hard. What the hell have I turned into I think as I splutter chunks of heart out and my spit comes out red. I clench my jaw before showing my face and taking more of it into my mouth. I have to keep going if I stop I get nothing and I've already started.

{Skill: Strength (Bronze rank) permanently unlocked}

I immediately start throwing up and if all my strength wasn't going into that right now I would be tearing this hospital room to shreds. I already had strength at bronze rank unlocked, the only thing that's changed is now I can use it outside of dungeons... That's if I ever make it out of this dungeon.

I'm so pissed off that I turn on the loop skill and swan dive onto the dead Minotaur.

{Skill: Defence (Dirt rank) temporarily unlocked}

When I loop back I turn it off and am at least glad to have gained a new skill. Time to get hand standing I use the wall to stand against and the blood immediately rushes to my head and my arms and body already want me to stop but I power through as much as possible.

{Skill: Acrobatics (Dirt rank) temporarily unlocked}

Time to leave this room finally, it's starting to reek of blood and vomit. I'm slowly gaining as many skills as I can to ensure that I can beat this boss first time later. You know because otherwise I'm dead.

{Do a backflip}

{Reward: Skill}

Yeah I can't do that one. Luckily there's no penalty and its not permanent so I'm not missing out too much. Let's see what other quests are available.

{Hop on one leg for a mile}

{Reward: Skill (Permanent)}

{Stab yourself 12 times}

{Reward: Skill (Permanent)}

{Kiss a minotaur}

{Reward: Skill (Permanent)}

{Punch yourself for 5 mins}

{Reward: Skill (Permanent)}

{Blink 100 times as fast as possible}

{Reward: Skill}

{Hold your breath until you complete an OTO quest}

{Reward: ???}

I immediately hold my breath, start hopping on one foot, blinking rapidly, punching myself with one arm and use a pen from my room to stab myself with my other arm.

I of course tried kissing the dead Minotaur before leaving but it appears the system wants me to go find some hot steamy lip action with a living bull monster. How thoughtful...

I navigate my way over to the room across from mine and when I get there I manage to unlock a few things.

{Skill: Weapons (Dirt Rank) permanently unlocked, Focus (Dirt rank) temporarily unlocked, 1 level gained}

It occurs to me whilst I hop on one leg and punch myself that maybe these quests were designed to humiliate me. I hop around this room and find less than nothing in here. Onto the next one...

I hop from room to room and still nothing apart from the occasional bit of food. Which sucks because the last quest I have yet to attempt is seeming harder and harder.

{Locate the golden thread}

{Penalty: -2 secs}

{Rewards: golden thread, +1 skill upgrade (permanent)}

I've been in six rooms right now and I still haven't be able to find it. I hop further along the corridor after changing my hopping leg and continue to punch myself. However I'm able to better concentrate on my surroundings probably because of that focus skill. Because of my focus I hear a clacking on the floor not too far from the corridor I'm in.

In the corridor running horizontally to mine I hear movement and an occasional huffing. Seems like there's a potential kissing partner not too far from me. I stop hopping and decide to finish punching myself for a couple more minutes in order to get something to help me out.

{Skill: Unarmed (Dirt rank) permanently unlocked}

I do a couple stretches and inspect the amount of bruises and pain running along one side of my torso. Then I try to sneak closer towards the Minotaur after all it would be better to activate a loop when closer so I don't waste time. I get reasonably near the Minotaur and I wait for it to turn around.

I inspect the minotaurs face, specifically its lips. Target Acquired! I activate loop and run towards the Minotaur which makes me feel so much faster after having to hop for so long. I see its arms going forward toward me but I try and maneuver around them and I grab the Minotaur by its neck and force its face into mine.

It seems confused for a second which I take the opportunity to stab it with a pen with my left arm in its eye and punch it in the throat with my right arm. With my added skills it stumbles backwards clutching its face, which I take the opportunity to deactivate and reactivate the loop and check what kissing it gave me.

{Skill: Dodge (Bronze rank) permanently unlocked}

Yay! I think before the Minotaur plows straight into me head first. At the last second I swivel my body around and use my practice doing handstands to do kind of a flip using my hands to to do it, placing them on the horns of the Minotaur.

{Skill: Acrobatics (Bronze rank) temporarily unlocked}

I mess it up and break my neck and restart the loop. However, it looks like it was close enough to doing a backflip so it counts. This time I dodge and use what I learned in my last encounter to end its life. However this one did not have its own weapon so I needed to work a bit harder and my pen broke because of it.

I netted a few more levels, I understand why skills are important but right now levels seem like they are just a number that goes up. I prepare myself and begin hopping again. Just 3 more quests to go!