An old man made his way slowly up a forest path. His beard and hair were roughly cut, gray wiry hairs, but not yet white and thinning. He picked his way carefully over the rocks and exposed roots. He had been this way before many times. The path slowly led out of dense forest and into more exposed rock faces.

At one of these rock faces the trees cleared, and he could see the valley below -- The valley he had lived in this entire life. He had lived through thirty-seven winters. A clearing marked the spot where he had built a small mud log cabin. He felt tears of frustration welling up as he looked at the cabin. He had built that cabin in his first year, but after sheltering him for so long the logs had rotted and the rains had weakened the structure. Yesterday it had caved in, and he no longer had the energy or will to fix it.

There was a way out though. A way to restart his life, maybe even to be young again. He turned away from the cabin and continued his journey up the path. After climbing a few boulders as large as his former cabin the shrine came into view.

A foot-wide stone pedestal sat in the centre of a ten-foot circle of flattened stone. Atop the pedestal glowed a blue and inviting light.

As he stepped within the flattened stone circle, the light pulsed as it spoke to him.

“Welcome back adventurer Kegan! It has been 13595 days since your visit, and 13595 days since your last respawn. Congratulations! By surviving three hundred consecutive days you have passed the tutorial.”

Some of the words were unfamiliar to him … it had been so long since he last spoke with this thing. The man spoke up, his voice cracking from long lack of use, and his words came slow and haltingly as he tried to remember the right thing to say.

“I am old. I did not want to visit you. You just remind me of the bad lives. I once came here many times from hunger, and then many times from being cold, and sometimes from getting injured and turning too hot. I did not think you would miss me.”

He paused catching his breath from speaking for so long. The blue light took his pause as a signal.

“You have many options right now, it sounds like you want to view your in game statistics. Would you like to know how many times you have died of starvation, exposure, and infection?”

The old man remembered why he hated talking to the spirit.

“No, I am not here for that. I am here to restart. I will accept the pain of restart.”

“You may restart the tutorial if you want, but since you have passed the tutorial you may now start a new game! A premature death penalty will not be applied if you choose to end the tutorial.”

The old man did not remember any conversation going this way, it sounded new. He remembered from so long ago when he had hope of escaping this valley. He had thought that it was just false hope that he had held onto, not something real. He did remember the death penalty, it's why he had not come here willingly in so long. The spirit would guess at whatever death he was most likely to go through in his current state, and then the spirit would make him experience that death anyways.

“I would like to start anew.”

“Excellent! I’ll spin up a new simulation for you. Meanwhile you have earned some experience points and many new achievements. Your achievements unlock perks, and your experience points are used to purchase those perks. Choose wisely and, see you again soon adventurer Kegan!”

As soon as the spirit finished speaking the old man’s view went black and he felt like he was floating in the lake. He could not tell how long he felt this way. Maybe it was only an instant maybe it was many years. It was like getting a deep sleep where part of you feels that time must have passed, but another part of you feels like you only blinked.

The sensation ended with his hearing coming back first. It seemed filled with ringing and buzzing noises at first, but it quickly died down and became background noise. The sounds of the forest became clear; birds singing, squirrels chattering, and the wind rustling the leaves. He opened his eyes and found himself standing in the clearing with his cabin, but it had somehow been fixed. The only new things was a large wooden sign on the right side of the cabin. There were lines separating symbols forming a bunch of different squares. The symbols looked familiar but he couldn’t read any of them.

He suddenly had an ear splitting headache. He was about to scream out in pain, but it stopped almost as soon as it started. He was on the ground panting, trying to catch his breath from the pain.

“Hello adventurer Kegan, it seems you have forgotten how to read! I took the liberty of putting the knowledge back in your head. Sorry for any minor discomfort this may have caused. I have set your afterlife location to your former cabin. Anytime you die you will appear back here. Use the chalk on the board to mark which perks you would like.”

He looked back up at the board and could understand all of the writing.

Perk Name

Perk Effect

Experience points required

Achievement to unlock

Food Coma 0/12 *

Each hour slept in a day gives you 100 calories. Must first sleep at least 8 hours for this perk to take effect. Cannot gain more than 1200 calories a day.

50 per hour, or 500 for all 12 levels at once.

Die from hunger. Each death allows one additional hour, for a maximum of 12 hours. You have died 320/12 times.

Herbivore

Gain Nutrition from Plants

100

Only eat green plant vegetation for 5 days straight.

Fever dreams *

Sleep for 24 hours to fight off any infection.

100

Die in your sleep from fever 5 different times.

Blood Fountain

All physical effects from blood loss are halved. Regenerate blood twice as fast.

200

Lose over 100 gallons of blood through all playthroughs. Blood loss only counted if player stays alive for 8 hours after losing blood.

Bone head *

Skull bone is 5x stronger.

200

Die from skull fracture 10 times.

Strong bones *

Make all bones 2x stronger.

200

Break a bone, 1724/206 bones broken.

Iron Stomach *

Immunity to all food borne pathogens. Never lose your food again!

250

Lose a metric ton of undigested food. Either end counts.

Hunger Pains

Hunger is no longer painful. Careful, remember that you still need to eat!

250

Spend 250 days in a state of hunger.

Stop hitting yourself

Choose any time to instantly die.

250

Commit suicide 10 or more times.

Sleep Expert

Fall asleep on command, sleep exactly as long as you intend to sleep, and wake up instantly.

250

Spend 10,000 hours sleeping.

* No effects stack. If there is a potential stacking effect the more beneficial perk will be applied.

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Summary statistics: 23961 days spent in tutorial. Died 651 times. 320 times from hunger or malnutrition. 107 violent suicides. 103 times from disease. 58 times of infection from injuries. 35 times from falling (33 had fractured skulls). 28 other deaths.

Total experience points: 23961 (exp gains in the tutorial are capped at 1 point per day)

There was a swirl of emotions going through his head as he read the sign. Anger at the spirit. Frustration at how many times he had died. Pain as he mentally re-lived some of the worst memories of death. But there was also relief. His suffering had meant something, had earned him something. It didn’t make any of it ok, but it made the memories hurt less knowing he wouldn’t have to go through some of the same things.

He picked up the chalk at the bottom of the sign, he began marking a box next to all the options he could see. He stood back feeling happy with the selection. He was somewhat confused by “next page”. His newfound knowledge was giving him a lot of potential meanings for “next” and “page”.

“Hello adventurer Kegan! It appears you have made a selection of your perks. Would you like to finalize your selection? It will cost you 2300 exp points, leaving you with 21161 exp points. Perks cannot be refunded once bought. No stacking of perk effects.”

“Yes, I want all of these.”

“Excellent, your perks have been assigned. Now the real adventure begins!”

Everything went black once again. He felt the floating sensation for either years or no time at all. And just like earlier his senses came back to him. Hearing first, then sight, and finally his control and awareness of his own body.

He was on the same ridge as before. Standing in front of the same altar. This is always how his life had began. His body was new and young again. His past lives felt like very old memories, he could sense their shape, but it felt like they were all covered in an early morning mist. Only the vivid moments stuck out, the deaths, the painful moments, but also his triumphs. He remembered his first kill, his first shelter, the first time he survived through winter to see spring, those moments felt like yesterday.

The area around the altar had changed. There had always been one path leading from the valley up to the altar. But now there was another path, going down the other side of the mountain. There had always been a barrier stopping him from leaving the valley. It was primarily a mental barrier, but he had also learned the hard way that it was a physical barrier that would stop him if he pushed past the mental restrictions.

He could be free now. He could see new lands, taste new animals and berries, find new mountains to climb, and so much more. He could finally explore outside of the tiny valley that he had known for 651 lives.

He stood there staring at the path now open to him. Then he frowned and thought ‘sounds hard’. He then turned around and headed back down into the valley.