Reincarnated in Quality Assurance

Marke lay panting in the dirt. He had ground the little stick into sawdust against a notch in the bigger stick. When the first stick failed, he had picked up another small stick and tried again. He went through five sticks before a bit of smoke twisted slowly up from the pile of sawdust. The sixth stick broke in half as it spun, but the seventh stick left red glowing patches in the sawdust. Marke had carefully blown on those little embers until they burst into flame right in his face. He turned his head toward the jolly little fire and smiled. “I probably don’t have eyebrows anymore.” He said.

Marke soon spotted a problem: the leaves in the dome directly above the fire were wilting and blackening. “Oops!” Marke observed. He used a larger stick to try and push the fire more towards the middle of the fire pit and the middle of the dome. The fire broke apart and he nearly had a heart attack thinking he would have to grind more sticks to get it started again. He piled the embers back together and breathed a sigh of relief when the flames started up again. Since he didn’t want to accidentally light the whole dome on fire, Marke laid down between the little fire and the pile of fuel. When the fire reduced to embers, he added a few sticks on top to catch fire. Marke watched the fire for hours, thinking about nothing in particular, until he fell asleep.

Marke woke up shivering from the cold. A dim grey light was visible through the gaps in his dome, so Marke figured it was morning. “Ow.” He greeted the world. Marke didn’t want to get up, but he had to pee really badly. “Why does camping make me have to pee so early? This isn’t even the same body but it’s the same thing as on earth.” Marke said as he sat up. He managed to tie his footwraps back on with stiff and scabbed hands, then push aside the branch that covered the top of the dome. “Humm… I didn’t think about how to get out of here.” The top of the dome came up to Marke’s chin and he wasn’t sure his body could hop up that high. He did manage to get his knees up on top the dome without ripping open his hands too badly, but he tripped and rolled off the side of the dome to the ground. “Ow.” Marke insisted. After a quick look around, Marke jogged over to a tree and relieved himself.

“Priority two: Don’t Die.” Marke reminded himself. “I desperately need water and I might need to return to this shelter tonight.” Marke rubbed the stubble on his still dusty chin. “Priority five: Break Systems. I guess I could benefit from investigating the traits and stats and things I got yesterday. Could help me survive and be ready to break the system later. Status.”

Name: ineedabreak

Class: Soul Eclipse

Level: 1

Stat Points: 1

“Stats?” Marke guessed.

Strength: 1

Agility: 1

Endurance: 1

Intelligence: 1

Soul: 1

“Assign stat points.” Marke sounded more confident about this one. The box with his stats updated to have plusses next each stat. Marke had a brief panic attack as his mind flashed back to when he had 2000 Con but was paralyzed by 0 Str. It took a great deal of mental resolve for Marke to push the plus next to ‘Endurance’, bumping it to 2. The plusses vanished. Marke raised one eyebrow and looked disgusted. “No confirmation window? Geez, nobody better make any mistakes.” Marke tapped the stats box just to be sure it wouldn’t do anything, then waved it away. “What was it called? Oh right. Traits.”

Traits: 0/4

Marke put his face in the palm of his hand. “I could do better than this. A little effort, is that too much to ask for? Assign traits.” A box popped up with the title, “Available Traits:” Marke spent a minute scrolling the list to see if it would break. Now that he was aware that all decisions would be final, he carefully read each trait before choosing one. As he read, he walked downhill to try and find some water. By the third time he tripped over tree roots, he made his decision. He tapped “True Soul” and the list disappeared. “Traits.”

Traits: 1/4

True Soul – See the Truth

“Vague much? Hope it’s better than ‘Sturdy Legs’.” Marke looked around himself and realized that he was completely lost. “Dang it! Oh well.” He continued walking downhill. The slope increased and Marke started to jog. His thirst was painful, but the cool morning air was slightly damp and made jogging easy. Marke nearly fell on his face when he jogged around a large rock and found a tiny stream seeping out from under the rock. He did stumble back and fall on his rear when a box popped up.

Water

Poison (mild)

“Poison?? Aw man…” He got back up and looked downstream. “I suppose if it joins up with more water, the poison might dilute enough so it won’t do anything.” Marke turned and trudged downstream. The water disappeared into the ground before he had walked a hundred feet. Marke continued trudging downhill in case the water reappeared. When he finally found water again, his legs trembled with every step. A small pond rested in a depression between tree roots. A box popped up when Marke focused on the water.

Water

Poison (minimal)

“Good enough!” croaked Marke. He knelt and scooped water into his mouth for a few minutes. When he couldn’t drink any more water, he crawled over to a tree and crammed himself between two roots and fell asleep. Marke woke up a couple of hours later with a terrible feeling of hunger. He groaned as he levered himself out of the tree roots. His entire body ached and he felt weak. “Priority one: Don’t Suffer. I need food.” He placed his hands on the sides of his head and shook it slowly. “I don’t know how to find food in a forest. How would an animal find food? Smell? Food needs water to grow; I can just follow the water and keep my eyes open.” With this figured out, Marke continued downhill.