Ladiesman217 was a popular streamer on the website Fidg.it, and would often choose a singular game to be his focus for a few months, or even years in some cases, until the game fell off or he got bored of it.
Obviously Dawd had invited him so that he would decide to choose their game, stream it online and bring them millions of new customers. It was safe to say, in his opinion, that he could make or break this game.
Of course, he was naturally ignoring the dozens of other people with the same sort of following and the same level of influence that were in the same room as him. Obviously that was because they didn't matter, not as much as him. That was just fact.
Rising from the pool of blood, he quickly fixed his hair that he had spent twenty minutes customising to perfection. So what if this was a burner account? Does that mean he had to look bad while doing it?
He glanced around the room until his eyes landed on the curvy, lavish figure of a pale woman. Her face was beautiful like a porcelain doll, her body just like he loved. It's like she was made for him. The 'Queen of the Night' vibes she was giving off worked perfectly for him.
Clearly, since she was in this room, she was another player. But most had left already to go level up and get early access to the good stuff. He didn't care about that and happily spent the time on his character.
But this girl? She looked like she took some time, but not as much as him. She was just standing there, her face adorably scrunched up in a pained expression. Poor dear was probably struggling. Perhaps she was one of the journalists or even some kind of lottery winner that didn't have the same experience as a professional streamer such as his glorious self.
He might as well help out, see if he couldn't get some 'after hours' entertainment out of this event by acting as the knight in shining armour for some poor, lost journalist or the likes.
"Excuse me Miss. Do you need my help? I'm kind of an expert at these games. In fact, you've probably heard of me, my name is…"
His charming smile slowly faded and his voice trailed off as the luscious girl turned to face him. At first he was smitten by her face, but soon enough his eyes had trailed down and discovered the key to his loss of words.
A knife was sticking out her throat! And if that wasn't weird enough, she was the one holding the damned thing!
Her right side had been hidden from his view before, so it was no wonder he didn't see it but… but what the hell was she doing?!
The luscious lunatic tilted her head in confusion before flashing him a warm smile, seemingly uncaring about the knife in her throat.
"Oh, that's kind of you. But I'm fine on my own. Thank you though~"
She flashed him another smile, before yanking the knife forwards. Ladiesman217 let out a sharp, and admittedly girly, shriek as her blood splattered across his face. She gargled on her own blood, swaying slightly before collapsing to the ground.
His body froze up, staring at the corpse before him with a mixture of utter befuddlement and abject horror. The only movements he could make were the slight tremors as his mind reeled, trying to process what it just saw.
So when a hand slapped him on the shoulder, squeezing it slightly, he nearly jumped out of his skin and let out another, even more high pitched scream of terror.
"Sorry guy, I didn't mean to frighten you. I just wanted to get back to my body."
Slowly craning his neck around, he found that woman standing behind him, her hand on his shoulder. The same woman whose corpse was still lying at his feet. She was smiling at him, both versions of her, but it no longer carried the same warmth and radiant beauty it previously did.
Not in his eyes at least.
To him, it was the smile of a monster. A monster in human skin.
"What did you say your name was again? I don't think I caught it the first time."
"It doesn't matter. Ha…haha… I have to… I have to… Bye!"
Turning on his heels, Ladiesman217 immediately sprinted out the door, a river of sweat running down his back as he fled from the monster woman as if she was about to give chase. It was this encounter that would be the origin of an infamous figure within Dawd. It was the origin of the being known as The Baroness of Blood, and the first of many instances that would only build upon that legacy and turn it into something to be truly feared and dreaded.
But that is getting ahead of ourselves.
Unaware of what she had set in motion, or even what the other person was thinking, Belladonna titled her head in confusion and tapped her corpse with her foot. As soon as her foot made contact, the body melted like a popsicle on a hot summer's day, as it dissolved into a puddle of blood that was absorbed back into Belladonna.
The black crystal, which was embedded in the back of her hand, pulsed with a soft, pale light as soon as the entire puddle of blood was absorbed. With a thought, she activated the crystal and a screen floated in the air in front of her, projected from the crystal itself.
This crystal was how they accessed their status screen.
[Corpse Reclaimed. Stat's Regenerating…]
Belladonna regarded the screen with little interest. This was, after all, about the tenth time she had seen it.
Becoming intimately familiar with Death had taught her a few things so far.
For one, there was a limit to the amount of pain they could feel. Whether it was the system protecting them, or the brain itself, they had a pain cap. Damage like stabbing herself in the throat was definitely painful, but it felt roughly the same as cutting her arm. Bad, but endurable.
Secondly, when they died their corpse dropped and stayed where it dropped. It didn't despawn, at least from what she could see. Their stats would drop too. At her current level, which was unsurprisingly 1, her stats would half from 10 to 5 across the board when she died, and return to 10 when she reclaimed her body.
However, whether this halving rule would persist, she had no idea. It could be because her level was so low, or it could be based on some formula, or it could be something else.
She would have to experiment more at higher levels, the same goes for any exp loses. Her level couldn't go any lower now, but that might change in the future.
But, since her body dropped on death, that meant all of her equipment dropped too. It wasn't much of a difference now, since it meant all she was losing was the journal and her knife as she still spawned in noob rags. But for higher levels, that could be very risky.
Especially if you considered what happened if someone else got to your body first. Who knows if stealing was available, but she had a feeling this system was designed like it was to allow such things.
Dead bodies couldn't protect equipment, after all. So hoarding was going to be off the table, unless she wanted to lose everything on death. That was important to remember, as she had to reign in her loot goblin tendencies.
Finally, there was the issue of the games health system, or lack thereof.
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[Status: Healthy
Name: Belladonna Walachia
Race: Fell-spawn (Sanguine Maiden)
Class: N/A, Level 1
Innate Talent: Unawakened
Attributes :-
Strength(STR): 10
Agility(AGI): 10
Vitality(VIT): 10
Perception(PER): 10
Resistance(RES): 10
Attribute Points: 0 ]
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[Healthy]. That's all it told her. No numbers, no total. Not even a percentage. From what she could gather, there were four states. Healthy, Wounded, Heavily Wounded and Fatally Wounded.
The first three were, from what she could tell, what they used for full health, any amount of injury and being close to death respectively. That did, however, leave a wide gap of health that was unhelpfully covered by [Injured] and which could be anywhere from a paper cut on her finger to a large stab wound in her stomach.
If she had to put a number on it, roughly, she would say that [Heavily Wounded] came at the 10% mark.
[Fatally Wounded] was self explanatory, and hinted at an important detail within the damage system and possibly why it was so vague.
In other games, where they had helpful HP, each weapon did an assigned amount of damage. Cut 100 times with 1 damage knife, and you would kill a 100hp mob. Simple.
But here, in Dawd, that 1 damage knife would be able to kill the 100hp mob outright with a well placed strike. Heart, Brain, Throat. Even her arteries. Her body was simulated so perfectly, it only made sense, but many would overlook it because it's a game. They would probably figure it out eventually, but for now it was an early advantage for Belladonna. Not to mention, she was simply doing her job, in her mind.
Jotting down all of her discoveries in her journal, Belladonna placed it back into the small bag she had been given.
She was in the middle of considering whether it was worth carrying out another experiment, or whether it was time to go grind the early levels, when she heard another voice addressing her.
However it wasn't the nameless stranger this time.
"You have a curious mind, one that is not held back by pain nor hardship. While many of the other Graceless run blindly towards the forests in pursuit of strength, here you remain, pursuing knowledge instead. Most curious."
"Graceless… You mean the other players?"
Belladonna addressed the hologram of the wizard, the same wizard who had been in the character creation menu and who up until this point had stood silently by the door. However now he was looking directly at her, a knowing smile on his face.
"Yes, that is the name the people of this world will know you by. You are the Graceless. Now, come over here child."
She slowly approached him at his beckoning. He lightly grabbed her wrist, lifted her hand and lightly tapped the crystal embedded into the back of her hand and began to inspect her status screen.
Belladonna frowned softly, but let him work. This had all the flags of a secret quest, and those usually gave some kind of good reward, or at least led to interesting story lines. So she let it play out, and instead focused on the curious feeling of his hand around her wrist.
It was not entirely solid, but not fully spectral either. Where his hand touched, it left her with a tingly sensation across her skin, like she had sat on it for hours on end and cut off the blood supply.
After a few seconds of inspection, the wizard stroked his short and scraggly beard as he hummed softly.
"Hmm, an innate talent. Quite rare for your kind, I'm surprised to find one amongst you. Although it's inert for now, with the right care and attention it can easily blossom."
'Ah, so was that the trigger for the secret quest? Or was it affected by multiple things?'
"Tell me then, Is there a way I can nurture it to fruition?"