He hadn’t even gotten all the way out of his car before dying. That was a new low. At least he didn’t have any ink clouding his vision anymore.
Set Attributes.
Strength 05
Endurance 05
Agility 20
Intelligence 20
Luck 0
Movement speed was just as important as his reaction speed. He needed to be smarter. Better.
Father burst out of the car and nearly collapsed. His head swam unlike the time he had driven away. The only real difference was a lower endurance by 5. If that was enough to make the car crash more disorienting . . . he stumbled away. No time to think about it.
The lobster finished crawling out of his car. He reached for the baseball bat.
Father’s heightened speed carried him far faster and more chaotically than he had anticipated. Instead of simply tackling the lobster, Father smashed into him. Both of them tumbled into the ditch, scrambling for the baseball bat.
The bat wasn’t the most important thing.
Father climbed to his feet and stomped. Lobster shell cracked under his foot. The Hardbody Crustacean pulled his arm back and howled in pain.
“Intelligence helps,” Father said.
“What?” The lobster scowled and reached for the bat again.
Having such a simple thought stopped Father from fighting over the weapon that he didn’t even need. This lobster wasn’t strong. Without the bat, Father could win a fight.
Another stomp knocked the lobster out, and another stomp put Father’s foot through the shell.
He probably didn’t need 20 intelligence to realize stomping on the lobster would be the better idea, but he was thinking quickly enough that his thoughts had already moved past the first fight and onto finding a map to actually get to the Reef on what little gas he had available.
“Wait.”
Father rolled the lobster over, dug through his jacket, and pulled out a wallet. It was mostly cards and a tiny amount of cash. All of it would help. He stuffed the wallet into the waistband of his shorts.
His headache had calmed to a manageable level, though it continued throbbing. Instead of sprinting back to his car, Father rested his back against the lobster’s overturned vehicle. He needed to take a second. He needed a map.
Unauthorized duplication: this tale has been taken without consent. Report sightings.
Small things could help him succeed. He would just keep repeating the same moments if he rushed.
“Maybe he has a map too.” Father crouched and stopped. His head swam from the sudden movement. He either needed to pick a higher endurance every time or figure out how to get some pain killers or ice right away. When his vision steadied, he crawled into the overturned car.
Everything was a mess. Random bits of napkins were scattered like a whole pack had been stuffed in the glove compartment. Old wrappers from fast food were stuffed in the door’s pocket and all strewn about from the crash.
“Gross.” Father muttered. He opened the center console, which spilled all of its contents directly on Father’s face. More wrappers had been stuffed inside. Some were even old enough to be moldy. He sputtered, swatted them away, and dug through the mess for a map.
There wasn’t one. He looked through everything, under every wrapper, and found nothing.
“Get out and get your claws up,” a voice said.
Father froze. If he didn’t move . . .
Something kicked him.
“I’m working on it,” Father said. “I’m injured and moving slowly.” The injury wasn’t a lie, but he was definitely moving faster than ever before in his life. Putting points in agility helped a lot.
Father slid out of the overturned car and looked at two bug-eyed, uniformed pigfish standing in a half circle around him. Limitless points in agility wouldn’t help if he was surrounded. Father slowly sat up, pressed his claw against the car, and stood. He immediately raised his claws all the way above his head.
“Can you explain why there is a dead lobster behind me?” the left pigfish asked.
Both stared at Father with their fins placed firmly on handguns holstered on their hips.
Father didn’t have a specific dislike of pigfish throughout most of his life, but when he had called in a panic to help his Son, they didn’t help at all. Not in the modestly deep trench, not in the Reef.
As far as Father was concerned, the pigfish could go fillet themselves.
“He was part of the Hardbody Crustaceans gang that abducted my Son.”
The pigfish cop on the right made a point of acknowledging Father’s car. “It looks like you backed into another car, then murdered the driver.”
Spending time explaining his situation or just getting arrested and going through legal proceedings would leave his Son alone.
Every wrong step he took led to failure.
Luckily, he could keep trying again.
Father, with his high agility, lunged for and grabbed the left pigfish’s gun. He shoved the fish’s fin away and tugged, but a strap held the handgun in place.
“Resisting arrest!”
Multiple gunshots popped on each side, flashing brightly.
Returned to Start.
Beginning Run 7.
Debuff: police brutality
You were killed by pigfish. You are 50% more suspicious to police.
Set Attributes.
Father opened the door as he set his attributes.
Strength 05
Endurance 15
Agility 15
Intelligence 15
Luck 0
The spread made his head feel perfectly fine, if a bit bruised while staying fast and still thinking at a decent speed.
Luck was still a mystery, but unless he just wanted to risk dying, he couldn’t afford to put all or really any of his points toward it.
Father rushed over and stomped on the lobster until he stopped moving. He flipped the corpse, took the wallet, and hurried back to his own car.
Without a map, the best he could hope for was to accidentally find the Reef by driving the opposite direction. Actual signs guiding him would be more likely to be along the road side if he was heading the right direction.
Father put the car in drive, left his neighborhood, and took the opposite turn he had taken before. It wasn’t a perfect system, but it was a whole lot better than getting squid ink in the face or being shot by pigfish.
