Kegan gained awareness slowly. He was in a cabin, there was a few glowing coals in a hearth at one end of the cabin, and pot of soup suspended over it. His fever dreams perk had activated, while he slept, which made a lot of sense given the wound in his stomach.

There was someone else in the room. She stood slowly and peeked over at Kegan. He looked back at her. “Ah looks like you’re awake, I’ll go fetch Don, don’t try and get up.”

A few minutes later the large man that had saved Kegan the day before entered the cabin. He was wearing a heavy leather apron over his chest, and a hide wrap around his waist. The man was covered in dark coarse hair, and seemed to have soot all over him. But he was clearly in a good mood when he spoke:

“The brave warrior awakes, I want to speak with you about your journeys, but first I shall give you my name. I am Donell, son of Darren. I fought for five years in the frontier wars, but now I am a craftsman. I make most of the weapons and armor for the villagers. Now, tell me your name, so we may tell stories of your valor around the campfires.”

“I … am Kegan. I have lived in the valley south of here for as long as I can remember.”

Don’s face suddenly showed confusion.

“South of here is the ridgeline, the whole land beyond that is riddled with goblin infestations.”

They just stared at each other for a few moments. Don was expecting an answer, but Kegan wasn’t used to social interactions, and didn’t understand that Don was asking a question.

“So are you saying you are from some lands further south, beyond the goblin infestations?”

“No, my cabin is just past the ridgeline, and I’ve been dealing with the goblins for a while, but I just figured out how to beat them in this life.”

Don stuck his finger in his ear and rooted around, pulled it out and inspected his finger like he was expecting something to be there.

“Say that again, I’m not sure if I heard you right, or you’re suffering from fever dreams.”

Kegan repeated what he said.

Don sighed. “Well thank you Kegan, your help with the brood mother and goblin elites probably saved the lives of a few lads from the village.”

He stepped out of the cabin and closed the door behind him. There was a conversation just outside the door, but Kegan couldn’t hear what was said.

The woman came back in and quietly fed Kegan the stew. It was really delicious, he had never thought of combining a bunch of ingredients and cooking them in water.

She left soon after, and Kegan fell back asleep.

When he woke up again he realized his Fever Dreams perk had activated again to fight off another infection from his stomach wound.

Kegan had to go through this process for three or more days before he finally gave up. The wound in his stomach was constantly causing new infections, and while the skin was healed on the surface, something must have been wrong on his insides. He activated his suicide perk to break the cycle.

He awoke in the spirit realm. The annoying blue spirit was waiting outside the cabin to greet him as always.

“Hello Adventurer Kegan! Congratulations on completing the first and second challenges! You managed to do this with only 13 deathsssssssss ….”

The spirit didn’t seem done speaking but seemed stuck stuttering the last word. It suddenly cut off altogether, there was a high pitched tone that seemed to come from all around Kegan. He looked around in fear, nothing like this had ever happened, and he was pretty sure he would have tried to remember it.

Next to the wispy blue spirit a hole emerged in the air, with a pop a wispy golden spirit appeared where the hole in the air had been.

A tendril of wispy golden light reached out and wrapped around the blue spirit. Pulses of light travelled from the blue spirit to the new golden spirit along the tendrils.

The golden spirit spoke in a much deeper more serious tone than the blue spirit had ever used.

“Oh no, things have not gone as well as we had hoped. I am truly sorry Kegan, the tutorial was not meant to be so difficult. We could not intervene or even observe until you had completed enough challenges.”

Kegan was only a little shocked at this turn of events. After all he had a rather limited set of life experiences, and this one ranked somewhere below finding out that other humans existed.

“I don’t really remember the tutorial anymore.”

“That is odd. May I check to see if your memory is functioning properly?”

“Uhh, yeah, how would you do that?”

A golden tendril snaked out from the spirit and wrapped around Kegan’s head. For a moment it felt like he had fallen asleep and the tendril was pulling away.

“This is much worse than I thought. You requested that your memories be sealed, likely due to the many excruciating deaths you went through. I could partially unseal your memories so that you could start accumulating more memories again ...”

Kegan had to think about it.

“I think I like being able to forget. The deaths of my previous lives have always stuck out quite a bit, they are usually one of the last things I remember about any given life. Is there some way to be able to just forget the deaths?”

The golden spirit pulsed for a bit, not saying anything.

“I’m afraid not. Vivid and painful memories are hard to erase. This lesser spirit here”, the golden tendrils around the blue spirit glowed brighter momentarily “did the best it could by slowly erasing all memories of past lives.”

“However, it seems to have figured out a solution within the perks system. I can make the memory perks cheaper from now on, and much easier to unlock.”

“You can change how the perks work?!”

“Yes, it is actually why I’m here. I was supposed to implement the perk system for you, explain it, and then hand off control to the lesser spirit. However, since the tutorial took too long the lesser spirit was able to implement the beginnings of the perk system in order to help you.”

“It was actually trying to help me? I’ve always thought of it as being very unhelpful.”

“This lesser spirit has a … reduced intelligence. It did the best it could. And it is too difficult to offer you a greater level of assistance.”

“Why not? You have been much more helpful, can’t you become the spirit of this realm and continue to help me?”

Once again the golden spirit said nothing for a little while, before once again speaking.

“With your memories sealed away I think it would be too difficult to explain everything to you. There simply are not enough words in your vocabulary or a high enough level of understanding for you to comprehend the situation. I will be able to visit you again once you complete more challenges. I can offer you some advice now that you will understand. First, the lesser spirit that is your guide does not understand your existence and it does not understand its own existence. Second, the perk system is your ultimate tool for growing powerful, use it and abuse it as much as possible. I’ll be making alterations to it before I leave. Third, the lesser spirit may speak lowly of the creatures you encounter, but you should know that all of those creatures are as real as you. They think, feel pain, they struggle, and they cling to existence. You have just started to encounter other human, this lesson applies even more so to them. Treat them as you would wish to be treated.”

“This is a lot to think on, but thank you for the help.”

“I’ll make sure that you do not forget this interaction, it will stay a part of your memory forever. Now, let me organize these perks.”

“I’m going to separate your unlocked perks into groups. First there are your subsistence and survival assistance perks. These would have been more useful for you in the tutorial, but you still have found a bunch of use for them.”

Subsistence Perks:

Perk Name

Perk Effect

Food Coma 12/12

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.

Herbivore

Gain Nutrition from Plants

Iron Stomach

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

Hunger Pains

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

Sleep Expert

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

Potty Trained

‘Hold it in’ indefinitely without pain. (note: will not protect you from the negative health consequences of holding it in)

Inner Warmth

Generate more body heat for the same amount of energy.

“Next there are your home related perks. These seem useful and tailored to how you have survived so far. I’ll also make sure there are some opportunities to unlock new perks in this area.”

Homeowner Perks:

Perk

Perk Effect

Homeowner

Unlock the “Homeowner” series of perks. Homeowner perks apply while in your home residence (a place you have lived in for 100 days).

Homeowner (home is where the heart is)

Reduce the required number of days to set a residency. Reduced to 25 days.

Homeowner (healthy)

Natural healing rate is twice as fast while at home.

Homeowner (well fed)

Calorie requirements are halved while at home

Homeowner (well rested)

Sleep requirements are halved while at home.

“Next there are your memory perks. These shouldn’t have had to be perks in the first place. I’m going to make them easier to unlock and cheaper to purchase. Training a skill or sometimes simply doing something should unlock the ability to get a memory perk for that thing. I’m also going to spend some of your points unlocking memory perks you should already have. However I can also get some refunds for the full memory perks, so you are almost breaking even.”

Memory Perks:

Memory User

You can learned skills through restarts. 50 points to add a skill. Memory skills added:

Javelins, Spears, Daggers, Clubs, Traps, Hand to Hand fighting, Wilderness survival, Winter survival, Carpentry, Wood Carving, Hunting, Skinning, Tanning, Pathfinding, Goblin slaying, Deer slaying, Wolf slaying, Wolf Taming, and Spirit Advice.

“Next your healing and physical improvements. Your bone head perk is not as effective as it looks. Before you ever crack your skull you would start suffering from serious concussions. I’m going to rework it and combine it with the Strong Bones perk, so now you will just get a 3x boost to all bone strength. I noticed you died last time due to internal organ injuries. I can make a perk that will allow you to spend large amounts of calories to heal internal injuries, would you want that?”

Kegan nodded and accepted the 2000 point perk purchase to get the ‘Internal Surgery’ perk.

Healing and Physical Perks

Perk Name

Perk Effect

Fever dreams

Sleep for 24 hours to fight off any infection.

Blood Fountain

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

Strong bones

Make all bones 3x stronger.

Walking expert

Tripping, twisting your ankle, falling, and other failed attempts at walking are far less likely.

Persistence Hunter

Long distance running is made easier. Your legs will recover faster, you will need less air, and your body will control its temperature easier. This perk will effectively double your running distance.

Thick skinned

Your skin is thicker and more resistant to cuts and scratches. It takes twice as much force to break your skin.

Peak Condition

Start each life at the peak physical condition of your last life.

Scratching Post

Your skin heals three times faster from cuts and scratches

Deodorant

You give off no scent.

Internal Surgery

Spend 1000 calories over 6 hours to mend 1 cubic inch of internal injuries.

“Finally, your magic perks. I noticed you haven’t been selecting new magic perks, is there a reason for this?”

“I didn’t trust the lesser spirit, and its explanations of the perks make no sense. I don’t understand any of the numbers until I actually have a perk.”

“Ah, yeah I see that your memory of measurements has badly degraded. I can fix that, it is going to momentarily hurt.”

“Do it.”

Kegan felt the blinding mental pain that he had felt when the lesser spirit gave him reading knowledge. It was gone quickly just like last time. Kegan was happy to finally understand what the magic perks were offering.

He was thinking of getting the blood mage perks, even though he couldn’t afford them all. The blood healing seemed too useful to pass up. Kegan told the spirit this.

The Golden spirit hesitated before speaking.

“I’m sorry Kegan, but the lesser spirit did these perks all wrong. It thinks you are playing a game and tried to set you up with a class. You would have been restricted to a single class. It would have permanently hindered your growth in other areas. I am glad you did not select one of these. The Trainer and Ambusher perks can be reworked and easily added. I could give you the option of the blood drinker perk, but it does nothing about the taste of blood so you might want to pass on that.”

Magic Perks:

Perk

Perk Effect

Taming Fire

Create a small flame on your fingertip.

Stop hitting yourself

Choose any time to instantly die.

Ambusher

Illusion magic, actively blurs the outline of your body. Makes you more difficult to spot. Burns approximately 100 calories an hour.

Trainer

Body enhancement magic, muscles rebuild twice as fast, allowing much faster training. Burns 2000 calories over the course of a day.

“With your recent kills, nice job by the way on killing the goblin elites and goblin broodmother, and your perk purchases you now have 11,230 experience points. If you don’t have any more questions I can send you to a new universe to start again. You’ll have to start back a month prior to the invasion of the goblins in the forest. If you ever want to start further along then just go to the shrine at the top of the mountain, and the spirit there can save your progress.”

Kegan felt good for once about starting again. He wasn’t just being thrown back into the meat grinder to find his way. For once he felt like there was an entity that actually had his interests at heart.

“Thank you great spirit, I am ready to return.”