I'm back. Onto the next mission.

I lay there for an hour, coughing up blood and bits of my lungs, chatting to my new friends, and enjoying the ambience of a creepy meat packer plant from the floor. I regenerated fully every ten minutes and had a few other benefits, but I'd taken a lot of poison. It was worth it for this victory though.

Another little bloody shard of glass pushed its way out of my skin. I grabbed it and flicked it away.

Laura Hunter looked down at me, armed crossed, face in a frown.

"Are you done? That is repulsive."

"Don't hate the player, hate the game. Didn't you ever pop pimples with your sister? It feels like that. There's a weird annoying itch there, and then this comes out and it's." I wiggled my shoulders trying to find the right word.

"Euphoric."

"I felt pretty euphoric popping out Kramer." Said Tapp. He was sitting on a crate, gun in hand, looking calm.

I looked at the bloody corpse of John Kramer, head broken and destroyed. "I guess he got a seize and de-cyst order from my fist!"

Adam smacked the concrete wall with his hand and laughed. "Seize and de-cyst. I should write that down."

I slowly got up. "You know, inappropriate jokes aside, you guys should see my title. I got it when I killed him. It's badass. Would have helped a lot if I got it before him."

I opened my interface.

Options

Stats

Inventory

Skills

Perks

Party

Patrons

Quests

Titles

I flicked open the last one, and sent a screenshot to everyone in my party.

"Check it out."

Kramer Murderer. You have had a long running obsession with a serial killer, and from that you have gained a connection with death itself. You can focus your obsession on any serial killer and forge a connection between you that will let you find them and understand their works, but be warned. The connection goes both ways.

"What's a title, and why does this seem so terrible? It lets him track you." Laura said.

"It's basically a buff that impacts everything I do. I have one called pipeslayer say, which makes me better at everything pipey. It defines me. I can switch it on and off though, so this will help with finding them, then I can just switch to a title that works better. Which reminds me."

I pointed my finger at her. "Alacazam I give you my binds. Now you have Gamer's Mind."

Laura looked around, seeing notifications. I could see her eyes glow, and read in reverse the perk in her eyes.

"It'll take time, but no more ptsd for you. You saved my bacon a bunch of times, and you deserve to go to sleep happy. All of you should have access to the perk buying system as well, so you should all be able to buy perks. Just think about perk options and it should pop up."

Everyone's eyes glowed as they all checked their systems.

Gordon spoke first. "There's a lot of things here I can buy that would greatly benefit us all. Just a few hundred perk points and-"

I held my hand up. "Woah, you should just earn them yourself. You can buy transport to the Stephenverse with just 100. Then you can destroy supernatural horrors there. That's the cheapest way to farm points. Once you buy it you can move back and forth at will. Or you could pool together and buy a perma portal for 1000 perk points."

Laura spoke up. "I'm not paying for that. I'm done with this. I never want to be locked in a Saw Trap again."

Adam put a hand on her shoulder. "That's how it starts. But, didn't you enjoy some of the rush?"

She looked back. "I liked killing him." She said with a smile, looking at the increasingly dead corpse of Kramer.

I pointed finger guns at both of them. "Gamer's mind is a hell of a drug. Anyway, I gotta practise my element stuff. I'm pretty sure I won't keep infinite stamina when I get out of here, and I wanna get all my powers to rank 2.

I proceeded to block them out and grind. I was on a power tap for now, and I wanted to upgrade my powers.

At the basic level they were each about as powerful as a lighter. I could do a few tricks with them, but they weren't a strong trump card. If I got them all upgraded they would have a hell of a lot more kick, and I could probably actually use them to escape traps.

I pushed my life energy into the power. My right hand burnt, my left hand curled water out of the air, and a flow of air kept both in line.

I pushed my hands together, and an explosion of steam rushed out. I waved away the damage and debuff notifications and tried again, seeking to mix the four elements.

I didn't know what I was doing. Why the four elements? I was pretty sure that this saw universe didn't run on avatar aang anime logic. Was it an old module from a naruto gamer system? What sort of magic system did the logic come from? Was wood in the system, the fifth element used in a bunch of anime things.

Maybe that was the plague control? I guess with it I could resurrect the old senseis of people. That didn't feel right though.

I had used the power a lot lately. It fits this world. It felt like the natural magic of the saw verse, or at least a close fit. It worked really well with technology. It had been easier to use it to craft things than to use it as an elemental shifter.

And the only subtype I had unlocked had been metal. I had tried repeatedly to see if I could get a plastic subtype, or a plasma subtype.

What magic would Kramer have had? He had gained great and terrible powers to stop me at the end, but before, the thing that set him apart was his ability to build impossible traps from scrap. That shouldn't be possible. He had well made, solid traps that resisted life or death efforts from people to escape.

A sudden impulse struck me, and I didn't immediately indulge it. I spent a few minutes thinking it over to make sure it wasn't some residual influence from that evil thing that took over Kramer. Then I pushed the button.

I opened my eyes, exiting the mad scientist fugue I had triggered to merge my skills, to a notification.

You have unlocked technopathy. An epic skill, tier 2. The world itself will bend to your inventive spirit. You have a subtle control of the elements which allows you to more fluidly craft things, pushing the materials to the limit of what is possible. Improves material quality substantially, and substantially increases the ease of working materials.

This felt right. It was also what I should expect from kramer's apprentices. They would be able to make traps which were solid and functioned well even from trash.

I looked around me. Everyone had left. I was sitting alone, surrounded by twisted metal pipes, and a lot of blood. It smelt fresh. I touched my fingers to the blood, and touched it to my lips. My full set of biomancy powers had long since regenerated and I had no fear of disease.

It tasted like Tapp's blood. I had tasted enough of it to know in our fight in the insane asylum.

There was a trail. I picked up my makeshift gun. I could feel my power in it, keeping the makeshift parts together and slowly transforming it into something more deadly. It was very ready for a fight now.

I moved forward, quick and deadly. Had one of Jigsaw's other apprentices come for them?

I stalked forward through corridors of steel, the smell of dead flesh and rotten meat all around. I would kill anyone who hurt my people.

I turned a corner. On the wall I saw a message written in blood.

"Ph'nglui mglw'nafh Cthulhu R'lyeh wgah'nagl fhtagn" which was fictional speech for - "In his house at R'lyeh, dead Cthulhu waits dreaming."

What the hell? His many tentacledness was invading now?

I reinforced my mental barriers and moved forward at a run, my body filled to the brim with power and the will to kill whatever was next.

I turned a corner. A door. I pulsed energy into my shoulder, and rammed my way through the door. Everyone was there in the larger ice room. They all stared at me blank faced. I looked each one of them in the eye, and didn't see a hint of humanity in them. I slowly raised my gun.

"Did Cthulhu get to you?"

Laura spoke quickly, her mask cracking and emotion on her face. "You fell for it! You actually think cthulhu is real!" she pointed and laughed. Adam and Tapp joined her.

I blinked. I blinked again.

Gordon sighed and pointed at my head. "You told us to do all... this, when you were in your fugue state. A total waste of time. Did you achieve elemental harmony?"

Oh. Oh I fell for it. What sort of day was I living where Cthulhu being real felt like a realistic thing?

I laughed at myself as well.

We had a lot of good times. We prepared for the future, spent time talking and bonding, sharing what each had been doing.

It felt good to not have a time limit. I had been constantly pushed to my limits again and again and spending some time with people while not having my life be in danger felt good. I felt good about my prospects for the first time in a while.

When the pull got too great, I spent a month after in my pocket dimension between worlds relaxing some more. I played a lot of catch with Cure, and rewatched every Saw movie I had. I had taken back some of the media from the Saw world. It was mostly similar, but with some variances in creative choices.

Once I gained a bit more freedom I bet I could start a thriving business selling alternative versions of movies. The Stephen Spielberg directed version of Star Wars had a lot less focus on how irritating sand was.

Eventually my wanderlust struck me again. I liked the rush of inventing things and discovering secrets and being more. It was time to see what could be.

Universe options.

Alien isolation. You are an innocent alien isolated on a ship with the dangerous psychopath Amanda Ripley. Escape her and the many dangers of the ships.

Too murderous and high tech for me.

Poppy playtime.

You failed to survive the dangerous child's factory. But with the undead powers of the soul transfer perhaps you can save someone else.

No clue what that was about.

Freddy vs Jason.

You are the target of both Freddy and Jason and must survive their murderous rage.

A fear demon and an undead slasher. Sounds fun.

Sucker for love.

Can you seduce an eldritch deity to save your reality?

Sounded like a bad idea. I'm not really into romances, and I'm not into hentacles.

The Mummy

You are native slave 011. You have been pressured into a dangerous dive of a forgotten tomb that could have terrible consequences.

That could be fun.

There were two I really wanted to try. The Mummy and Freddy vs Jason. Both were pretty low stakes, and would let me fight some horror monster without a huge risk of having my soul eaten.

The Mummy seemed riskier. Freddy and Jason were both physical murderers, and I healed very quickly from physical damage now with my many upgrades. In the Mummy there was some risk I could get caught in an immortality trap and trapped for thousands of years.

But I might be able to steal some sweet as hell magical tomes which would let me do a lot more. I only had very basic magical rituals at the moment, and having ones which could be fueled by the death of my enemies would be sweet in low magic worlds.

But, I needed a rest. John Kramer had tapped a lot out of me. I clicked the option to enter, and was sucked in.

"Marry Fuck Kill. Your choices are the three stooges. Go." I felt myself say, as I settled into the body.

Female, not very athletic. I breathed in. I could feel some lung damage from a lot of smoking, and the beginnings of some cancerous cells from a lot of drinking. Damn, this girl might not live to be thirty without my help!

She might not even live past the night, given who was watching us. As the girls around me in the house debated my hard question, I armoured up.

For once, I wasn't trapped. I had my inventory. I pulled on a stab proof vest, and hefted out a big shotgun.

I'd thought a lot about the best gun for killing him. I could have just gone for an assault rifle of some sort, but I didn't want to murder everyone around me as I fought a serial killer in an urban environment. Shotguns had a lot of kick, and Jason didn't have body armor. I'd gone for a Mossberg 500, tweaked out a bit with a new lighter stock, a laser sight, a sling and a bunch of other things. It was very comfortable to wear over my shoulder, and my ammo belt should allow for quick reloads.

We had sighted it in, so at closeish ranges I could just aim the dot and blast away. My host's girly arms probably wouldn't be able to handle the kick, but with my massive strength buffs I could handle a minigun. This would be easy.

The girls looked at me in shock as I dressed up.

"What are you doing Gibb?" asked actor Kelly Rowland, playing Kia Waterson, the last victim of Jason and Freddy.

I winked at her. "Be vewy vewy quiet, I'm hunting wabbits!, He-e-e-e-e. And you were great with Nelly in Dilemma." She looked very confused at my anachronous and fourth wall breaking comment. I didn't care. I had a serial killer to catch.

I pushed out my senses to full, opened the window, and stepped outside into the cold wet night.

I did have a solid idea of buffs to the gun, and modifications he made to the shotgun, but then I realized everyone is living in the past and I dunno when all of these modifications were made. Living in weird timelines is hard.

Next chapter. Macgyver vs Jason.