---Richard---

  Richard awoke chained to a wall in a dungeon.

  Chains were a bit of a stretch – they were more like restraints of coiled fabric – and the dungeon was mostly metaphorical – the place was brightly lit and painted a light blue…but it was still the feeling he got.

  Bad end. You got caught.

  An angry looking man came into the room dressed in a ridiculous frilly outfit then began monologuing in a foreign language.

  Not understanding the words definitely lessened the impact of the no-doubt full of exposition scene. The frilly man got a mad glint in his eye and then pulled out a gun of sorts triumphantly.

  The gun looked like a stapler tipped with barbed hooks. Stepping forward and waving the device in front of Richard's head he suddenly jolted it to the side and shot Richard’s arm.

  Fuck.

  The strangely jagged and curled fish hook flew through Richard's reinforced skin and pulled flesh forward with an awful ripping sound and sensation.

  It hurt – quite a bit more than anything had in a while – and the man started laughing as he shot Richards side and legs and chest and side again and again – each shot more erratic each hit closer to where Richard would think his vitals were. At least where they used to be.

  This section of a game – either some sort of storyline cinematic or extended game over was…something that should be skipped through quickly.

  There wasn’t a point in dragging it out was there? Richard lay his head back wincing through the pain and hoping it was over soon. He wanted to get back to breaking stuff. He understood. He got complacent after how easy everything had been. He got caught and now he was being punished cause actions had consequences yada yada.

  Richard activated his field of misfortune burning useless chaos points and watched as the noble misfired the gun somehow – hurting his finger a squeal of pain ringing out. Seeming to have enough of his torture game, the man spat on Richard's face and turned away. Richard memorized the noble's face as he walked towards the door to his cell – which opened just as the bastard was reaching for it and smashed his arm and head slightly.

  …still a useless skill but it's at least slightly cathartic.

  The new man who walked into the room was also wearing a business suit but a more subdued one. A solid grey, brown colour. A bowler hat and a cane.

  This second man was at least carrying a translator.

  “I think there’s been a misunderstanding. I’ve been framed!” Richard spoke.

  …he realized he wasn’t wearing a translator and the interrogator didn’t seem to care…there wasn’t a point in saying anything. There wasn’t a point to any of this.

  “Okay yeah you got me, I am actually related to someone. That checks out – turns out I’ve been having relations with your mum. Surprise! You have a new father.”

  Yeah…this is a sham. If it was a real interrogation they would give me a translator. Seems like they can do whatever they want with me – and are just going to go ahead and do it no matter what I say.

  The man was grinning at Richard as he finished up.

  Richard looked at both options.

  Chance of escaping some workers prison? Low. Do I want to play prison bitch? Not particularly – I’ve seen how workers are being treated in this town.

  Chance of being able to get revenge after reviving? Pretty high.

  Only reason not to choose the second option is if I were a pussy afraid of some pain.

  Both suck. This sucks less.

  Not having a hand free to reach out and select his option, Richard was forced struggle a bit before accepting it mentally. With a glance down as if reading the choice Richard had made, the man looked surprised for a moment. He suddenly laughed and took out a panel about the size of a dog tag.

  Richard paused at that for a moment before mentally accepting it. It's not like they seemed to have any care for rights up till now.

  Stepping forward as the last box floated up, the officer stabbed a needle into Richard's side. Richard found his body slowly but surely fading out for the second time today – his last view a grinning face staring at him like he was a hunk of meat.

  …

  Richard awoke again – this time wrapped in something like a straight jacket and held on the end of a crane. In front of him a man in a lab coat and oversized glasses stared maniacally towards him.

  The man looked unhinged – he probably had to be to buy Richard as a research subject, but – from Richard’s experience – most unhinged people were pretty good at hiding it. Seeming normal at first, then shifting to crazy – this man however looked the part. His hair was messy half frizzed a corner burnt somehow. His lab coat had chemical stains on the sleeves and a blood stain near the bottom of it.

  Not speaking to Richard, the man wandered over to a panel of buttons and began manipulating Richard’s position in the air. The crane pulled him towards the first vat in a long line of vats and dunked him in unceremoniously.

  Perhaps unsurprisingly, nothing seemed to happen other than Richard was now very wet. The liquid smelt awful – like nail polish and vomit – but besides that fact it wasn’t really an issue.

  Unauthorized tale usage: if you spot this story on Amazon, report the violation.

  Coming over while humming to himself the doctor pulled out a scalpel and stabbed Richards's arm.

  …attempted to stab his arm – the blade slide right off without scratching him.

  Grabbing his arm firmly the doctor tried pushing the blade into him fruitlessly.

  Nodding to himself the man gave up and left to his workbench returning with a bulky scalpel at the end of a hose.

  Turning on a machine, a whirr began to fill the air – and the scalpel began to vibrate. The man waited for a moment for the machine to warm up – glancing at an arm band presumably giving him the time. After a minute or two it seemed to be ready and the man stabbed once again – this time slicing through a section of Richard's flesh in a similar manner to the CEO’s nailgun-like machine.

  Dunking the exposed flesh under the liquid, the doctor began shining lights at Richard and pointing various machines at the tank.

  ... “Want to send me to the strongest batch you’ve got? Come on I want to get this shit over with” Richard called out.

  His wound had closed over already, a faint sting lingering despite the regeneration.

  Ignoring him, the mad scientist manipulated the crane to pull Richard out and dunk him in a pool of water – washing off all traces of acid before starting all over.

  Moving on he excitedly dropped Richard in the next tank…and the next.

  After four tanks the sadistic fuck left the room – Richard's body soaking in a swirling pool of inky blackness.

  …

  An hour of stinging later and the doctor returned – this time dumping various bags of dried chemicals into the following batches. Taking his time to record the notes, the man moved Richard to the next and the next.

  Some were drastically worse than others – it seemed the scientist was more interested in getting his money’s worth from Richard than he was melting him… because every pool that was strong enough to get through his defenses quickly had him removed and dried off.

  This was much less painful of an experience than the acid in the tutorial had been – his current body just felt pain in a different way and he no longer had his nerves separately increased in strength…

  But it was much much worse. Easier in a way, but more mentally draining.

  Before Richard had been in control.

  He had been the one pulling the trigger. He had also been frequently gaining stats every time he stopped.

  This time around the system seemed silent. Stingy as it sat back and watched him get tortured for hours.

  The wait was worse. The wait between dunks. The wait for his skin to heal and stop dripping.

  A few times the doctor rubbed a healing goop on Richards's body that seemed to sink in and increase his already supernatural regeneration.

  Extending the suffering.

  The only way Richard could stay sane was to disassociate harder and harder as the torture progressed. This wasn’t actually something that was happening. He was just going through a cut scene. He had memorized the faces of the CEO, the sham of a security guard, the doctor. Each of them were shifted to the #1 spot on his shit-list – triple tied for #1.

  This was a first for Richard – he wasn’t used to wanting revenge for himself – especially if he provoked someone.

  Richard wasn’t a hypocrite. If people played pranks on him he’d laugh them off. If he became the butt of a joke he wouldn’t get offended – people often said don’t do anything to people you wouldn’t want to have happen to yourself and Richard often thought of that when playing pranks people thought went “too far”.

  In university, he covered the toilet in his roommates room with plastic wrap so when the guy pissed on it in the morning it went everywhere. That had apparently been ‘too far’ – Richard would have laughed if it had happened to him.

  …it would just be friends messing around with each other – the proof they were friends.

  All this was to say he normally didn’t get mad if anyone retaliated.

  But this wasn’t normally. This right here was a…an overreaction. He hadn’t even burnt down the place.

  Richard disassociated.

  The pain was real. This was just a game. Each of the fuckers who were doing this to him would pay. They weren’t real – hurting them was safe. They were real – hurting them would matter. The pain was fake.

  Richard disassociated harder – his thoughts becoming a jumbled mess.

  You could say the last of the thrown away chains were melted away – like the acid baths melting his skin went deeper and melted away his consciousness.

  The pain built and built with each subsequent bath until finally, a box appeared.

  ...but Richard wasn't paying attention anymore. If anything the skill made things worse – he wanted to die quickly and this was keeping him alive longer.

  Immediately the pain he was dealing with abated – the current bath he was in slowly faded from a fire, to a light sting, to nothing.

  His head cleared slightly in time to see the confused face of the scientist noting the change.

  A new bath – the pain resumed for a bit and then faded.

  Another one. The same effect. Most of the acids had been too weak to harm his defense stat focused body that much... but now they straight up stopped harming him after a few seconds.

  And then suddenly the scientist seemed to give up – lifting Richard up and dragging him towards the empty bath at the far end of the room.

  Moving hoses around the man combined the result of several of the most effective vats then unceremoniously dumped Richard all the way in.

  Immediately everything went dark as his eyes were burned off. The world was fire – his existence fading quickly.

  …

  Richard woke standing in the street a blue box floating to his side.

  Richard stood in the street in silence. His mind felt rattled – supposedly he had a high number of stats but he felt weak. Incredibly weak.

  Both due to the shitty death penalty and due to the after effects of his trip to law enforcement.

  The system seemed to be trying to kick him out. To make him move on already.

  For the second time – this was just a repeat of the tutorial.

  ...although the difference between whatever rank 2 was - something less than 267 - and 350 was alot greater than the difference in the tutorial. That had been...81 and 117 I think?

  As far as Richard was concerned he had just gotten here. He still had so much he wanted to do!

  Richard wasn’t leaving till he had revenge at a bare fucking minimum.

  Part of him wanted to immediately seek out and fuck up all three of his targets but his body was shaking and…he had failed his last attempt.

  Besides, he hadn’t even figured out skill breaking yet?

  …that was a productive use of his time while he waited out his death penalty right? How long did he have to wait?

  Supposedly I have 267 stats. 10 minutes for every one of those is…300 would be 50 hours minus whatever the difference is....basically 50.

  Around 45 hours? That’s almost two days of nothing.

  Fuck me with a cactus that death penalty is brutal. It seems like the worst part of it is not being able to progress well in that time – not being able to do as much in general due to having lower stats?

  The main negative of the death penalty is wasted time.

  ...also I'm pretty rattled. I keep thinking of numbers – not that I'm not good at math but I usually don't fixate on it this much.

  …but it also doesn’t matter that I’m not progressing because I’m reaching the cap already? and I still have almost a 100 stats before thats even an issue?

  The smart thing is to keep going. Find the next zone and all that.

  Key point – The smart thing is not the fun or satisfying thing so I’m going to ignore it.

  Let’s find the delvers association. I have time to kill.

  Walking along and asking NPCs that looked approachable where to go, Richard finally came across a huge complex that seemed to be the place.

  The front gate led into an open courtyard with small buildings everywhere. Most seemed to be stores selling armor or weapons or food or even expensive healing serums but one stood out as an information shop – walking over Richard asked the women manning the counter where he could go for skill breaks.

  …first off. Fuck I forgot my money in the locker. The death penalty and trauma addled me more than I thought. How could I forget something that basic?

  …and secondly where the fuck does my chaos affinity fall under…can I throw it under kinetic? It usually moves random things right?

  …fuck it's other isn’t it?

  Selecting the other he watched the women's face grow embarrassed.

  Richard flashed back to his time with the mad scientist. Wouldn’t it be ironic if she sent me there?

  …this is a defining moment isn’t it. What kind of man are you. Do you still trust so called scientists or do you now have some deep seeded trauma that makes you want to push them all into traffic.

  “Sure, that would be great.” Richard responded smiling.

  Panic'ed when I gave Richard a needed reward that felt big enough for his troubles, entered it into my spreadsheet and then realized how close he was this zone's requirements. >_<

  I just spent ages trying to decide if I wanted to address it - there are rules for how many stats achievements should give but I've also just been gifting stats based on my hearts desire and have been showering the guy with stuff.

  Decided I didn't want to ret-con any of his previous stats. I didn't want to retcon the un stated zone requirements, and ended up with this result - addressing it and then ignoring it.