Contract Details

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{{Congratulations on returning from death! Your contract with the Savior: Deer Doctor Hyde has been finalized. In return for your revival, you will now serve them as their Apostle in your world!}}

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Derek took a deep breath in, and out, then continued reading. He wasn't hallucinating after all, not if what he remembered from the non-space was real. 

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{{Both you and your Savior need Souls to survive. Your duty as an Apostle is to design Paranormal Events for your Savior to turn into reality; anyone killed by an Event you design will have their soul harvested. Use the full breadth and depth of your imagination to create Paranormal Events and you will be rewarded!!

If you do not successfully harvest 1,000 souls within the first week of establishing your contract with Deer Doctor Hyde, your status as an Apostle will be revoked and you will return to death. After the trial period, you must harvest at least 1,000 souls per month in order to maintain your Apostleship. The first 1,000 souls do not count towards your first month's total.

Make sure to work hard, Apostle! You are not the only Apostle of a Savior in your world. There are hundreds of other Apostles also competing for souls. At the end of each month, 50% of the Apostles in this world will be slain -- those who have harvested the least souls. So hurry and design Paranormal Events, harvest as many souls as you can, and prove that you are an Apostle worthy enough to survive!}}

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Derek fiddled with a stick he'd found on the ground. So, he had to kill 1,000 people this week in order to keep the resurrection he'd been given? Normally, he wouldn't bat an eye at the thought, but for some reason, the idea made him nauseous at the moment. Was there no other way? 

He slapped himself hard in the face. What are you thinking, Derek? This isn't like you. Just design events that target those who deserve to die anyways. 

A sound vaguely like a radio crackling came directly into his mind, and he jumped to his feet in alarm. "Who is it?" He asked in his characteristically deep voice.

Wait. 

Was his voice usually this deep? 

He clutched his head, mind fogging. He couldn't remember. Why couldn't he remember?

The strange, radio-like crackling came again into his mind, and a scratchy voice could barely be distinguished from the interference.

[... a… me? … … ca… ]

"What was that? I can't hear you, who are you?"

[I …o… ember… .umm.. … status! … your… atus!]

"Status? What's my status?" Derek felt doubtful. He wasn't about to tell a random entity that was trying to speak into his head about his physical condition -- what if they were an enemy? Could another Apostle be targeting him already? He felt that the likelihood of that was extremely small, since he had only just been revived and did not know of any recent rumors of paranormal activity. He guessed that whatever the Apostles did to harvest souls would end in mass panic -- especially once paranormal activities started to occur one after another without restraint.

In the most extreme scenario, the Apostles' activities would bring out a situation comparable to the end of the world. 

Regardless, he wasn't about to give an unknown entity what they wanted without having first been given some reason to trust them. The radio static and mostly indecipherable syllables continued for a while before whoever or whatever stopped trying to communicate with him. 

Sorry if you're not an enemy, he thought, but I'm not about to trust a voice I can't even properly hear.

He returned his attention to the translucent screen, which was still floating in front of him. He read it over again to see if he'd missed anything important. At the bottom, he noticed a right-facing arrow that he hadn't seen before, and not knowing how he knew that meant there was a second page, he clicked it. There, it read:

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{{About Designing Paranormal Events:

The Paranormal Events you are able to create are dictated by the powers of the Savior you serve. Savior: Deer Doctor Hyde has 3 domains which he can influence. These are as follows:

~~Wildlife, especially deer or other wildlife that commonly stray into human settlements

~~Medical Practice, especially in relation to pharmaceuticals 

~~The idea of "good" and "evil," particularly causing one's evil nature to overtake them over time

You will be given 1,000 Paranormal Points with which to design your first Paranormal Event. Paranormal Points are earned from harvesting souls via Paranormal Events, and are required to create Paranormal Events, so make certain you use them wisely! 

To maximize earning Paranormal Points, there are 3 methods:

~~Creating great social upheaval with your Paranormal Event 

~~Designing clever Paranormal Events that are difficult to avoid/dismantle due to complexity

~~Creating Paranormal Events with great longevity (the longer your Paranormal Event goes on, the more Paranormal Points it accumulates)

Using more Paranormal Points will allow you to design a more powerful Paranormal Event, but you can also use less Points in order to create more, less-powerful Paranormal Events if you so choose.

Happy Harvesting!}}

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For some reason, this page made Derek feel a bit excited. Now that he had a basis to work with, his mind was loving the complexity of this challenge, and it rekindled his spirit of competition -- suddenly, his characteristic will to dominate surged, and he was determined to create the best Paranormal Events he could. More than that, he wanted to win 1st place in whatever damn Apostle contest this was. He wasn't going to be satisfied by simply surviving; no, he was going to absolutely crush anyone who dared defy him.