Have you ever been in a situation where you just felt "I hate this, I wish I could turn back time and do it again?" I often have. I could have done so much better if I could just go back and plan for it, prepare for it.
Now, short of time magic, which wasn't an available skill for me, there was one way to do this. A lot of planning. If you thought up in advance what you should do for every situation and prepared for it, you wouldn't be in danger.
For example, back on earth prime, I live in a flood risk zone. Area gets fucked up often enough and power lines can die, access can die. So of course, I have power packs, batteries. I am a prepper, so I have several freezers of food, survival supplies, and a secret place nearby in the woods where I can run if my neighbors turn into blood thirsty zombies and try to eat me.
I know you, Karen. You would totally try to eat my brains.
I have plans for all the likely dangerous possibilities. When I enter a new place I scout out the exits, try to work out where is safe to go, where is unsafe.
When I fuck up, I work out how to not fuck up in the future.
After Saw 1, I had a more solid grinding plan. It had worked. I was much stronger in preparation for Saw 2. After Resident Evil I had decided to rely more heavily on teamwork, and I had tried it here.
But one of my team mates was Amanda, and another was Obi, and another was Gus. I had such a focused vision on them, I ignored the signs, the reputation losses. I had let myself be poisoned again. I hadn't worked out in time. I had to burn one of my impossibly valuable healing potions to survive. I had grinded well there, and got a host of skills and powers from it. I opened my stat window.
Name: Macgyver
Job: Gamer
Level: 1 (0/100)
Title. Macgyver
HP: ?
Stamina: ?
Strength: 12
Constitution: 3
Dexterity: 3
Intelligence: 7
Wisdom: 12
Luck: 0
1000 perk points available.
2 stat point available.
Skills
First aid level 8 30/100 exp
Survival, advanced apprentice grade, covers observation, crafting, and scavenging. Level 13 4/100 exp
Baseball, level 9 10/100 exp
Stealth, level 30 0/100 exp
Computers, level 45 34/100 exp
Disease control, advanced apprentice grade, level 27 76/100 exp
Diplomacy, level 89, 93/100 exp
Shooting. Level 64, 67/100 exp
Poison Resistance. Level 9, 75/100 exp
Unarmed combat. Level 4, 25/100 exp
Animal handling, level 10, 95/100 exp
Earth control, level 11, 55/100 exp
I had dumped quite a few points into my group of allies back in Sawland. I hoped it would pay off. I wasn't going to go into Saw 3 alone, not with Amanda's fuckery. But still, I had a 1000 free, and solid stats. I needed stronger stats though. I hadn't ranked any of my stats other than disease control and survival to rank two, and I wanted more sweet perks and buffs. I needed more stats- at 10 I was pretty sure, I got access to new perks and skills.
I needed some actual combat skills I could use as well. So, I needed some solid time to grind.
Above that though, I needed to grind my exotic magic skills. I needed an edge above what had happened before. Jigsaw was gonna be ready for me, and I could expect some fuckery. I needed to be stronger, in a way that Jigsaw couldn't predict. I needed my A game for Saw 3. It was a big one.
I went over to my new kitchen. There was a lovely new fridge, stolen from the nerve gas house, thank you for trauma. It was painted white. I went in, and found… ooh, tinned of baked beans. I opened it, and in honour of Rorschach, flipped off the lid and ate it cold. It was nice to be able to eat food not a decade old.
Cure was hungry for my food, and making sounds at my feet. I patted his adorable head, knelt down on my void floor and nuzzled him.
"Good boy. Don't worry. I'll make sure you're well fed." He was a bit unsure and hesitant walking on the black void of the abyss below us, so he definitely needed some re-assurance. I found some dog food, and sat down with him, feeding him spoon fulls of food with my fingers, testing my agility to dodge hungry lips.
"So, Cure, my better fed and beautiful brown doggie, I made some mistakes. I tried to make friends, but with toxic people. Toxic people always betray you. This isn't an anime where you save everyone with true friendship and love and hope. This is Saw."
He looked up at me, not really caring or understanding me, but hungry for meat.
He had 3 int now, after nomming on Amanda. He might be able to understand language. But for now, hunger dominated.
"I need to learn to not trust bad people, and plan ahead around everyone I meet. Yes I do, yes I do." I said, as I rubbed his neck.
And there was something else… I blinked and tried to remember it, but I couldn't pull it to mind. Even after I had dumped the extra points in int. Annoying.
Oh, new title. Macgyver. I focused on it.
Jigsaw. John Kramer and Amanda know you now! You have been dubbed Macgyver, after the mechanical genius who escaped many a trap. Any reputation gains with John or his apprentices are doubled, and you can construct devices 100% faster.
That would be appreciated. And I could sense with my wisdom- I got a passive, emotional, intuitive sense of titles- that this would also make it easier for me to do complex tasks.
Well, I had things to work out. And I had Saw 2 to watch, back at my couch, along with Resident Evil 7 to play. It was time for me to think through Saw 3.
I got up, and patted Cure's side. "Ready to watch some torture porn with me?"
Cure barked, which I interpreted as yes.
I had really gotten RE7 wrong. Eve was the villain? But she seemed so nice. Maybe it wasn't the best of ideas having her infect Amanda. Oh well. Yolo.
Like, I definitely wasn't sure that mind control was gonna work. Basically everyone in RE went crazy. But, it would be a valuable experiment, and good for the future. I definitely was not experimenting myself with those spores till we knew more. I had given some to Gordon to play with, and I had given them a contact number for Amanda to give them info.
I hoped it worked. If not, well, turning into a zombie monster was real sad for her, but I would get over it.
I ate another hand of popcorn, and rubbed Cure's ears. He seemed a lot calmer, now we were away from other people.
I glanced at my skills. Nope, no animal control from this. I was pretty sure I couldn't grind in here.
I needed to grind hard for Saw 3. There was a real risk. I could get caught in a death spiral. Eternally living and dying with no hope of survival.
I had two choices for that. I could go to IT. There, the foe was a weird creepy clown, and I could pretty easily avoid him and go off and grind and power up.
Or, Alien. There I would face challenges, but I could loot cool tech, learn from cool people, and violently handle most things there.
I was leaning towards IT. A bunch of eager kids had killed that clown. I was pretty sure I could handle it. Big risk of getting into a death spiral if I spawned into the cat in Alien or something.
IT it was. Pennywise, here I come.
I dropped a cool 606 points into fully leveling up my gamer's mind. Against Pennywise, I needed every edge. Another 6 went into the backup chest, so I could swap things in and out. I grabbed a holdaway compartment for my special Pennywise surprise, and became a stealthy predator so I could dodge him better. 640 down.
Picture perfect and video perfect- I felt tension on the video perfect. I was pretty sure this one was dependent on my host body. If I had 11 int, I could use it. If not, I needed more. 649. Packrat and Packhorse. 658.
Desperate struggle, enlightened mind, clear thinking, minimap, drug fueled strength, break it down. 723.
Gamer's body was a must. 823. Ninja body, because I wanted to branch out my skills, and earth mastery so I could grind that out. 973. Let's add in local expert, and I have exactly 2 points left for final death.
Still a no on that. I could fight, I could experiment, and he wouldn't break my mind.
Into IT I went.
This time the journey was different. I stepped through the portal and saw- a field of roses, as bright as suns. They glowed around my feet. High above me, piercing the clouds, I could see it rise. It felt vaster than me. It's atoms, larger than my body, all consuming. Twelve forces pierced the tower from below. Massive, with monsters on each of them, they held it above all, supporting it against the dragging force holding it down.
And I was down in a body. I was wet. I was wearing yellow. I was looking down a sewer.
Eyes, glowing, flashed in front of me. I saw thick red lips, and a thick nose, white cloth around it's neck.
"Hi there Georgie! What a nice boy. Do you want it back."
Oh fuck. This was not a good place.
"No, keep it pedo clown. I don't take gifts from sewer clowns" I got up to head away. I saw a look of panic on his face, then understanding.
His hand lunged out, and grabbed my foot.
Demigod level entity encounter. Complete gamer failure imminent. Good luck.
I felt a stabbing, tearing pain, like my skin being ripped off, my soul burnt bare. I felt the strength tear out of me. Every bit of knowledge, every skill, every power I had as the gamer torn out of me. I looked back. He had it in his hand- a yellow ball of fluid, twisting and turning, trying to escape.
He pulled it to his mouth, and bit into it.
"You came to the wrong part of town, Macgyver." He said, with a giggle.
And I heard Georgie's voice screaming in my mind, in my head, as I lost control of my body. Georgie was back in the captain's chair.
Well, fuck.
Time to see how he handles not having gamer powers as a crutch and having control of the body he is in as a crutch.
Alien Isolation is top now. I've not played it. I can definitely see it as a solid place to go. I think I am leaning towards IT as his next world, but I could definitely be persuaded to run it next. I haven't played it yet, but since I am under quarantine, I definitely could. Why do people like it so much?
Thorison1080. I guess you shall have to read and find out. Also yes.
Arkyong. The MC got abducted before corona virus was a thing, so he can't make any jokes about it. Stuff around the topic is gonna bubble up, since I am a prepper and corona virus is all around.
Tetsujinvinalay. Creepy clowns coming up tomorrow.
Gatling2745. Thanks for all the perks and world ideas. I'll add them to the list for next time. So many worlds. Maybe I'll have him speed run several sometime. And no, elder gods can break max level gamer's mind, though it could resist at the edges for a while. Grandmaster isn't the final rank. I have a bunch of ranks planned beyond it, like transcendental, demigod, god, elder god, primordial. He can sorta manage with max ranks against transcendental and demigod, but beyond that it would just snap unless he buffed it somehow. Not that he would be stopped by that. He tried to kill a grandmaster at level 1. Get the right leverage and gods can die.
DG2. He is a total hypocrite. He doesn't follow his own rules and is really inconsistent. People make a lot out of the philosophy of a suicidal dude with brain cancer.
Crimsonsylvan. He would happily go to Minecraft, just he only gets options for horror movies and games. There are lots of places he would love to go to grind. And, he probably isn't genetically unique like Mercer. He would have to convince Mercer to upgrade him. But yeah, once he does that, serious gameshift, no more survival horror. That said, I more meant, he would probably die quickly and repeatedly, since the limits to his combat skills are being ok at shooting and basic at baseball, and he wouldn't have any easy way to ramp up. Plus, he probably wouldn't have unique DNA and wouldn't be great to evolve. He's not that lucky.
Soda-fied psycho. Totally the best perk ever. He needs to step up his jerkass game. Piss off everyone.
Incognitominerals. Some fuckery is definitely going on with Summer. And yeah, around Saw 3, much will be revealed.
See next time Jigsaw vs Macgyver with no body, skills, and in the hands of a psychotic clown who likes balloons.