I return. Most of my emotional energy was consumed as of late by the recent fairly famous trial, but it is over. Onto grinding and lore dumps.
The machete slashed into my back. A thick gout of blood gushed out from my ripped apart skin and bones as the metal parted my flesh
You take 100 damage! You gain condition severed lumbral artery. 20% physical debuff. Negated by Gamer's Body.
Mental Combat levels up!
I stumbled forward, waving at at a passerby as I staggered forward. "This is fine. We're filming a scene."
As I said that, Kia caught up from the side. She shoulder checked me, and I tripped, smashing into the wall, grazing my shoulder and pulling open. My blood sprayed both of us.
"I really want to deck you." I said, holding back the knife with overpowering strength. Lori came at me with the machete, screaming her blonde head off, and I caught the machete in my hand, using my technopathy to push away the sharpness. The blade dug into my flesh, but not through my hand.
"Not in public." I said, straining against the two women.
Lori spoke. "That's what you're afraid of, isn't it?" Kia tried to knee me in the groin, and I dodged it. "That all your secrets will come out. That you'll be locked away, and die. Your perk points vanished into the wind, and Freddy and Jason alive again. Run away or it will happen."
Mental Combat levels up!
I felt a spike of dread, and then felt the connection. She was pressuring my mind. I could see images of my failure.
"Thanks." I said, and I twisted away, feeling my connection with the pair as they hunted me down, seeking to tear me apart.
I dodged through surprised people, my hand quickly regenerating as I considered what to do. I quickly bought both mental combat perks.
Clothed in skills. You walk the path of a skill cultivator. You can equip your skills to fight off mental attacks, and those skills gain increased effect the more they are used. 25 points.
Obsession. Pick a skill. You will gain increased effectiveness with that skill, and reduced effectiveness with others. 3 points.
There must be other ways, but it made sense. You used your obsession with a job to resist the power of an enemy.
Maybe upgrading explosive stealth would flush Freddy out?
I picked Explosive Stealth as my obsession, and focused on using it. I felt focused on stealth. I lightly dodged around a woman reading a book, and then slipped past a newspaper kiosk. I palmed a motolov I'd saved for Jason, and tossed it in the pile. There was a massive whoosh of flames, and the smell of burnt paper as I darted into the alley. I'd pay them back by killing the horror villains murdering their children.
I could feel the connection on me deepen, but their ability to find me weaken. I climbed up on a blue Alliance Dumpster, and hopped up to grab the overhanging window frame, swinging up, moving carefully to avoid being felt.
If I wanted to do this, I needed more. I quickly bought a new perk.
Iron will. Once a day you can induce a trance like state, reducing pain, cutting out noises of pain for a minute, and reducing sweating and bleeding. You can recharge this perk with stamina. 9 points.
I triggered it, and quietly swung across the window frames, feeling my blood no longer drip out of me, no sweat dropping down to betray my presence. Outside the alleyway Lori and Kia were looking confused and frustrated at me vanishing suddenly, pacing around and scaring passing people who sought to simply get bagels and other delicious treats from the store.
I felt my claws extend. I leapt, and with a single deadly motion stabbed Kia in the back of her neck with my razor sharp claws. She wasn't dead, but she'd be paralyzed for the rest of her very short life. I licked my claws as Lori turned to me, tasting Kia's delicious blood.
"Surprise!"
I grabbed Lori, and forced her face into the fire. She fought me, scratching at my face, but I was too strong for her. Her flesh slowly started to crisp and sear.
No one was stopping us? This was Ohio. It was an open carry state. This didn't make sense. I felt Lori die in my hands. They were my allies. I wouldn't do this. I reset Gamer's Mind.
I was still there. I felt that another part of me had been corrupted. Picture Perfect. Freddy had his hooks in there as well.
Freddy swung from a pipe above me. "I'm looking forward to taking over as the universe hopping Macgyver. You can be my sidekick. Any tips for success? Do you have a diet, an exercise plan?"
I needed to grind. I couldn't let Freddy take control of my soul. I leapt down off the window, and landed behind Kia.
"Booo!" I said. I dodged out of the way of a swipe of her fist, and ran off.
"You limp dicked fucker!" She said, chasing after me.
We practised for a long while. I bribed people who complained, and told them it ws for a film. The fact that despite being stabbed repeatedly I was fine helped. Getting rich from future tech was the best. I pushed up my mental combat skill, and they got used to hunting. I took quite a few more hits, and managed to shock them a few times, and my skills all ticked up. Training a skill in a life or death situation made the exp flow a lot faster.
Freddy kept taunting me and pushing hallucinations at me, and I got better at forcing them back. I asked the two 'goddesses' if they'd seen him, and they said no, so he was restrained for now.
Eventually I ranked up mental combat. It made it a bit easier to combat Freddy, but he was incredibly skilled. I'd attack at one point, and he'd flow around to fill up three more. Gamer's Mind was a blunt sledgehammer I could use to crush anything he made, but he was very fluid with all he did.
I got a perk to reorganize my inner space with the upgrade. That was neat.
I had no new quests, and I was waiting for something to happen. Maybe Jason would pop out and I could kill him? Maybe I'd push my skill up enough to defeat Freddy? I asked Maturin for advice later while we all sat together outside the newest satellite of Jungle Jim's market, drinking wine with Lori and Kia and watching the sunset.
"Keep on the steady path. This world is still going towards the apocalypse, step by step."
"Apocalypse? What's gonna happen."
"I'm not sure. The future is clouded. Maybe a plague that wipes everyone out. Maybe the dreaming crashes into reality and every nightmare comes true. There's some chance of the planet being lost into the void of nightmares, or thermonuclear war."
"Those are likely possibilities? I thought I was just world hopping."
"No, you were sent for a reason. It's not that uncommon. The Imperium's records say that half of new worlds have the barrier between reality and unreality fracture, and another quarter create or release some sort of plague that wipes them out. Most of the rest that fall die to nuclear war, environmental collapse, or releasing dark gods into reality. Every world you've been to has some chance of death. When you stop it reality becomes more stable."
"I thought nukes would be what ended more of us."
"Most don't last that long. There's lots of monsters in the void. How well would a medieval society handle Freddy Krueger?"
Freddy flexed his claws. "Sir Freddy Krueger is ready to vanquish evil in any timeline." He struck a noble pose. "This bond of power you have with Macgyver isn't easy to cut. We'll be spending a lot of time together, my turtly friend, when I'm in control."
"Is that what you want Freddy? To break the barrier between nightmare and reality, and end this world?" I asked.
"You've spread nightmares everywhere you went, body snatching innocents like Gibbs." He gestured at my body. Gibbs seemed fine. She was there in the background always, though I'd taken firm control.
"Not gonna answer?" I asked.
"He's exaggerating. I'd unleash the dreaming on a few towns at most. I'm not greedy. Cross my heart and hope to die."
A popup appeared.
You have lost Fluid Shapeshifter to Freddy's influence. Your form is being adjusted.
"Just like you." And he faded away.
Kia looked at me and shoved me on the ground.
"Freddy! Get away!"
I held up my hands. "Just mind control. What do I look like?" She look out a mirror, both Lori and Kia looking at me.
I was wearing a Fedora, and a striped jumper. Half my face was Gibbs as normal, and half was horribly burnt and scarred.
"Bastard got fluid shapeshifter."
"Fluid shapeshifter- you said-" Lori got out a notebook and did some quick sketches, as I wrapped up my hideous face in a scarf.
"Soh soh soh… what was it..."
"Sohcahtoa. You'd remember that if you spent less time day dreaming about your boyfriend in maths class." Said Kia, flicking Lori.
"Will was unjustly held in a psychiatric hospital because the town didn't want to seriously handle a murderous gnome." Freddy rolled his eyes and shook his head.
"Anyway, I did the maths." Lori said.
She held up a notepad, with a picture of my inner space on it.
"It's a pentagram." She said. "A five sided star. I thought the placement of perks was weird. He's avoiding luck, and he needs some weird lines to get it right, but that's what he's doing. He's drawing a pentagram inside you. He'll need another intelligence perk, and a con perk. He'll skip strength, because the angles don't work."
Kia frowned, tracing out the symbol. "Is it a satan symbol or something?"
I shrugged. "It's magic probably. I've seen a bunch of wicca people using it. I guess it may mean that? Did your town have satanic panics?"
Kia nodded. "Yeah, they blamed everything on demons for a while. Dungeons and Dragons is banned in the town because of it."
Both I and Lori looked at her. I spoke. "Are you a dnd fan?" Lori pointed at Kia accusingly.
"She's a secret nerd. She likes to mock people for it, but I've seen her room." Kia shook her head and rolled her eyes. "Anyway, maybe you can twist it into a protection symbol? Or destroy the places where the power is."
I shrugged. "Maybe I would but-"
I relayed what Maturin had said to me.
Lori and Kia listened carefully, getting more and more worried as I relayed the bad news. When I was done, Lori slammed her hands on the concrete. "We need to do something. We can't let our world be destroyed. You can make zombies right? Why don't you mass zombify people. A horde of them would stop Jason."
I waved my hand. "Someone summoned Jason and Freddy. I'd be worried about bringing undead into the mix in case they could summon them. Plus I might cause a zombie apocalypse even if I win. It's an option though."
Kia made a fist, and slammed it down. "Could you summon a nuke with your gacha talent?"
I shook my head. "It works off local rarities and there's no chance basically of a nuke being around here. It might work in an army base, but not in a supermarket. We could go drive around and find an army base though and get a nuke. I might be able to hack the nuclear system the government has to launch nukes since I have computers a million times more advanced than theirs, but I fear starting ww3 would cause some problems. I do have a solution though. Rather than using science, I can use black magic."
"You can curse them to die with a voodoo doll?"
I shrugged. "Probably if I knew how to do it. I wish I had a magic book. But no, I can track them. Let me show you."
I set up the ritual, using some chalk to draw the ritual circles on the supermarket concrete parking space. Some people looked at us weirdly, but given how blood splattered we were didn't seem to want to intervene.
Then I empowered the ritual. I could sense that the ritual would be a lot easier if I sacrificed Lori or Kia, or anyone, since death empowered magic here. I restrained myself, and used my own limited reserves.
A glowing golden path appeared in front of me as my luck flooded out of me, directed at a single target.
"Let's follow the yellow brick road. You can see the golden route, right? The magical golden pathway floating through the air"
"That sounds like mental illness." Kia commented. "Just like everything else that has happened today."
I sent them a party invite. They accepted.
"Oh. I see it. That's in the direction of the rave in the cornfield." Kia said.
An image flashed through my mind, of the movie. Of Gibbs being speared through by Jason and dying. Of me dying. I could feel Gibb's fear, though it seemed fairly muted. Maybe she was getting burnt out. I'd fight for her.
"Time to murder Jason." I said. I wouldn't let him go this time.
