Backrooms 3: Kiosk Kingdom - Chapter 57 - 62

Alright, as promised, here are the final chapters of Discount Dan book 3. Like I said in yesterday's post, it'll probably be quiet around here for a few weeks as I outline and prepare for Discount Dan 4 and Vigil Bound 5, but then posts will start back up again. In the meantime, enjoy the ride and please let me know what you think and if I overlooked anything super obvious in the final battle. There are a lot of moving parts, so it's always possible and I can't tell you how much I appreciate the feedback!

Chapter Fifty-Seven – The Franchisor’s Lair

Locked, cocked, and ready to rock, the party left the store behind and returned to the Loot Arcade down on the 99th floor.

“Everyone feeling good about this?” I asked, as we wandered through the vast sprawl of blinking game cabinets and clanging jingles, the air thick with the aroma of burnt popcorn and syrupy soda so sweet it made my teeth ache.

“I’ve never been more ready,” Croc said in all seriousness. “I even have my game face on.” The dog turned to me, and I realized there were a pair of thick, angry eyebrows that looked like they’d been drawn on with a Sharpie right above the googly eyes.

I snorted involuntarily and Croc frowned.

“Well, that’s not the reaction I was hoping for. Do they make me look silly, Dan? Because I was going for serious. All business, you know? War paint. At least that’s what Temperance calls it.”

“Angry eyebrows are not war paint, and you do look ridiculous,” Temperance said.

“Don’t listen to her, bud,” I replied, waving away her disparaging comment. “I, for one, am extremely intimidated.”

“Hopefully not too intimidated, Dan,” Croc said with real concern. “I want to scare the Franchisor, but not my friends.”

“You don’t have to worry about that,” Harper said, leaning down to ruffle the dog’s head. “You look positively fierce, but we know you’d never hurt us. Friends don’t try to kill, eat, or dismember each other. That’s rule number one.”

The dog perked up at the praise, though it faltered after a second. “I hate to be that dog,” Croc replied, “but that’s actually rule number two. Rule number one is to assume everything, everywhere, all the time is both lying to you and trying to murder you. Rule three is to never trust anything with more than ten legs.”

“I still don’t think that’s a real rule,” Harper groused.

“Have you ever met anything with more than ten legs that wasn’t trying to actively murder you?” Croc asked.

Harper sighed. “No, I guess not.”

“Well, then,” Croc said, “I rest my case. Never trust anything with over ten legs.”

“How about you, Jakob?” I asked, stealing a sidelong glance at the Cendral. “You’ve been awfully quiet.”

“I am fine,” he said, stoic as a stone. “We Germans have an expression—Vor dem Donner kommt die Stille. It means before the thunder comes the silence. I am just mentally preparing myself for whatever we might find when we finally reach the Franchisor. We have done everything we could to prepare ourselves, including several rather morally questionable acts”—he shot a pointed look in my direction—“and yet I can’t help but feeling that we are still somehow unprepared.”

“It’ll be alright,” Pooh said patting Jakob soothingly with his tiny paw. “We are together, after all, and in the end, I should think that will be enough.”

“I hope you’re right,” Jakob replied, though he didn’t sound convinced. “But despite Croc’s insistence that friendship can solve any problem, I’ve found that overwhelming violence is more often than not the eventual outcome.”

“Overwhelming violence,” Temperance said. “Now you’re finally speaking my language.”

“But you don’t like violence,” Croc said.

“No, I don’t,” Jakob replied. “But I’m a realist and that seems to be the nature of things, regardless of my feelings.”

Letting Unerring Arrow guide us, we finally found ourselves in front of a service door near the back of the Arcade, which—if James Graham’s notes were correct—would drop us directly into the Franchisor’s lair, bypassing the rest of the formidable security of Castle Everafter. I just hoped he was right, or we’d likely find ourselves elbow deep in murderous dwarves and whatever other nightmares Steamboat Studios had on the menu.

“Here goes nothing,” I said, mentally bracing myself.

We stepped through the door and emerged from an unbroken wall of gray granite, the stone stretching upward until it met a golden dome overhead.

Behind us, the entryway had vanished. No seam, no hinge, no trace that a door had ever existed at all.

The only other visible way in or out of the room was through a set of massive red and gold double doors—the wood chipped, the paint peeling in ragged curls, the rivets rusting in crimson splotches. Chances were good, there were guards posted up on the other side. Not that it really mattered. An enormous iron portcullis barred the way, and from the look of it, the thing had been built less to keep intruders out than to keep prisoners in.

Set high up in the walls were arched stained glass windows, but instead of saints or scripture, each one depicted one of Steamboat Studios corporate sponsors.

The cracked marble floor bore a mosaic of Steamboat Willie, grinning wide in eternal corporate cheer, except time and boot heels had chipped away his face until one wide eye was missing, leaving him looking deranged and half-blind. Seven massive pillars formed a ring around the chamber, each one sculpted into the likeness of a Dwarf frozen in eternal strain, arms raised to hold the dome overhead.

The effect wasn’t regal so much as oppressive—like the whole ceiling would come crashing down if one of the stone Dwarves decided to call for a Union strike.

Tattered banners sagged from the rafters, their faded colors fluttering faintly in some stale, sourceless breeze. And there, at the end of the hall, where I expected to find the Franchisor seated on his throne, loomed a gigantic, metal face jutting from the wall like a tumor. Its massive eyes flared with sterile white light, and its metal mouth creaked open in a smile that promised nothing but pain.

Dweller 0.991067A – Oz the Terrible, Franchisor of the Kiosk Network [Level 67]

Pay no attention to the man behind the curtain. There is nothing to see here, except a giant, leering mechanical head bolted into the wall, voice booming with hollow authority, breath stinking of rust and oil. Oz the Terrible is the corporate overlord of Steamboat Studios and the undisputed ruler of the Kiosk Network, stretching across the floors like a bargain bin QVC selling everything from Relics and Artifacts, to cheap rubber flipflops and stale Doritos. 

Physically, he’s pathetic. He can’t chase you down, can’t swing a fist, can’t even move from his wall-mounted throne. What he can do, however, is vomit endless swarms of flying monkeys from his cavernous mouth, each one shrieking slogans while they claw the meat from your bones. And more importantly, he commands the Franchise Code Enforcer—a monstrous creature stitched together from the corporate sponsors of Steamboat Studios, each one more brand-hungry and blood-soaked than the last.

Don’t bother trying to hit him. Oz is invulnerable, his polished steel hide a mockery of armor plating. He is the brand incarnate and like a lich, his soul isn’t here. It’s squirreled away in a patchwork of phylacteries scattered throughout his throne room, each one humming with malignant energy. Until every last one is destroyed, Oz will keep grinning, keep sneering, keep selling you death one unit at a time, because the sales pipeline must endure.

And you? You’re just another revenue stream…

The mechanical face loomed above us, its gears whining faintly, like the groan of a tired man’s knees. When Oz spoke, the voice carried through the cooperate cathedral. But the words weren’t lofty proclamations. They were weary. Almost apologetic.

“I knew you’d find your way here sooner or later,” the Franchisor said, his voice filled with a hint of regret. “The Monarch told me you were stubborn. Tougher than old boot leather. I was hoping he was wrong about you.” He sighed. “I guess not. And now you’re here, which means it’s too late to stop what’s about to happen.”

The statement caught me off guard. I’d been bracing for a knock-down, drag-out with the living embodiment of corporate greed—not a reluctant warlord filled with regret. I wanted to capture the Kiosk Network, but if we could resolve this peacefully that was the better option by far, especially considering how powerful Oz was.

“And what’s about to happen?” I asked, uncertain.

“Your deaths,” Oz said flatly. “Painful ones. That’s the only way this goes.”

There wasn’t even a hint of doubt in his voice. He expected this to go one way, and it ended with us in metaphorical body bags.

“But does it have to?” I asked. “Maybe we can find another way.”

Oz laughed, the sound cold and harsh. “I wish there was another way, but this confrontation was always destined to end in bloodshed. For people like us—people forged for terrible greatness—violence is the only answer. And now that you’re here, I can’t let you leave,” he said in resignation.

“But why?” I asked. “Maybe I’m wrong, but you don’t strike me as the zealot type. Our war isn’t with you—it’s with the Flayed Monarch. His empire is falling apart and ours is rising from its ashes. You don’t need to die for some dickhead, who legitimately doesn’t give two shits about whether you live or not. Why not cut ties with him and work with us instead? Let’s make a deal and then we can all walk away from this shitshow in one piece.”

“No, I’m afraid you don’t understand, young man,” the Franchisor replied. “The world doesn’t work like that, much as we might like it to.” His metal jaws creaked wider. “There is no turning back. Not for you. Not for me. The Monarch’s power is the only thing keeping me alive. Without him, I’ll unravel. Lose myself completely. Maybe I’ve already have,” he mused. “But there’s still enough left of me to hold the floor together.

“Without me, this place will eat itself and I can’t let that happen. There’s too much at stake. Too many people depend on me. I have no doubt that you think you’re doing the right thing, but so am I. Many people think I’m cruel, but that cruelty keeps people fed and puts Relics in their hands so they can live to fight another day. I am an evil, but a necessary one. Every compromise I’ve made was the cost of survival. For me and for those I care about.”

The mechanical eyes turned, this time fixing on the small bear sitting on Croc’s back, still clutching that polaroid in one fuzzy paw.

“I’ve missed you Pooh bear,” he said. “Leaving you behind will always be my greatest regret, even though it needed to be done for both our sakes. For what it’s worth, though, I never wanted things to turn out like this. But this place doesn’t give you choices. It just… keeps asking what you’re willing to trade away. Bit by bit. Until one day you look in a mirror and don’t see a man anymore. Just the things you gave up. The terrible things you were willing to do to help the ones you love.”

Pooh froze, his head canted curiously to one side. He slipped from Croc’s back and padded forward as though in a daze.

“Christopher?” he asked, the words laced with uncertainty. “Christopher Robin?”

Pooh’s words landed like a punch to the gut as things started to click into place. The journal we’d dug up in that underground bunker had made it clear James Garham had gone after the Franchisor, but it had never once crossed my mind that he might’ve actually pulled it off.

“Holy shit,” I said, breath catching in my throat. “You’re James Garham.”

The mechanical eyes turned away. “Once upon a time, maybe,” he agreed. “But not anymore. There is little left of the man I once was. I tried to fight it at first. Tried to hold onto who I was. But you can only watch so many people die—friends, strangers, children—before you realize there’s no winning. Only surviving. I might not have the power to fix everything that’s wrong with this world, but I have the power to protect Pooh, and in the end, I suppose that is enough for me.”

“Oh Christopher…” the bear said, creeping closer. “What happened to you?”

“What happens to everyone who endures the Backrooms for long enough,” he said. “Now step aside, little bear.” His massive eyes burned like searchlights as they turned on me. “I promise, this will all be over soon, and then we can be together again. That’s what you want, isn’t it? I mean, these others, they don’t mean anything, do they? Give it a little time and you’ll forget them, just like everything else in this rotten place.”

Pooh’s ears drooped and he shook his head slowly, the tiny stuffed frame trembling. “But they do matter, Christopher. These are my friends. Just like you were my friend, once. And friends don’t kill each other…” he faltered for a moment. “They don’t abandon them either.”

A faint whine rose in Oz’s gears. “You always were a good bear. The best of us, really. And that’s why you need to live on. So that there is a little good left in this awful place. As for the rest of you, I am sorry, but there’s no deal to be made. No way out. One of us has to die and it won’t be me. Not yet.”

Light bloomed from behind the Franchisor’s eyes like miniature suns and the floor cracked, splitting down the middle of Steamboat Willie’s deranged mosaic face. With a groan of breaking stone, something enormous clawed its way up from the depths below.

A massive serpentine body, plated in grimy yellow scales, heaved itself into the chamber. Leathery wings unfurled from its sides, obscuring the grinning face of Oz, and a long, coiling neck rose above us. Instead of a dragon’s head, Steamboat Willie stared down at us, his cartoon face rendered in stark black and white, his pipe hate emblazoned with a skull and crossbones.  

Dweller 0.990870A – Franchise Code Enforcer [Level 70]

Every brand needs a mascot. Every tyrant needs an executioner. The Franchisor has both, welded into one obscene body. Born from a cursed licensing deal gone septic, the Franchise Code Enforcer wears the grinning face of the world’s most beloved rodent. His whistle echoes through eternity, summoning nostalgia, lawsuits, and despair in equal measure, proving the one immutable law of the universe…

No one fucks with the mouse.

When it moves, the ground shakes like an amusement park ride about to fly off the rails. When it feeds, the air fills with the stink of grease, sugar, and burning flesh. The Enforcer doesn’t fight like an animal—it enforces policy with the brutal efficiency of a team of corporate lawyers. It slams, tramples, and bites not because it’s hungry, but because the ledger demands balance, and you’re nothing more than an overdue account.

Killing it is a pipedream fit only for the insane. The Enforcer doesn’t die because it isn’t truly alive—it’s a brand, a franchise, a legally binding contract written in gore and clothed with scales. Its life force is tethered to Oz the Terrible, and Oz is no more mortal than the logos he represents. So long as his four phylacteries remain intact, the Enforcer rises again and again, snapping jaws and spilling blood, the company line made flesh.

The dragon shook itself free of the cracked floor, fetid water and rancid grease sluicing off its scales. I felt a wave of fear ripple through me and form a knot in my stomach. Though the dragon wasn’t nearly as large as the HOA we’d fought on the 24th, it was definitely operating in kaiju-territory—big enough that “run” wasn’t really an option.

 It was also level 70 and, according to the Codex entry, damned near indestructible.

We’d planned for this. Trained. Prepped Relics and Elixirs, even sold a slice of our humanity to be ready. But now, staring at the cartoon-faced abomination, I wasn’t sure we’d done nearly enough. Didn’t matter, though. There was no turning back now.

This was one of those sink or swim moments, and I wasn’t about to drown.

“Dan,” Croc whispered softly from beside me, “in case anything happens to me, I want you to know that my expansive Twilight book and merchandising collection is tucked away in your room closet. Promise me you’ll take care of my stuff—and make sure that Ponypuff doesn’t get any of my books. I’m pretty sure she’s been trying to steel them for the altar she’s building.”

The dog paused, googly eyes darting toward me.

“Also, since this might be the last time we might ever talk,” Croc continued, “I need to tell you that I’ve been secretly eating the meat flavored ice cream from your fridge when you take showers. I know you said it was only for special occasions, but it’s just so good that I couldn’t help myself. I’m sorry, Dan. I didn’t mean to betray your trust like that and if we survive this, I won’t do it again. Probably. Unless I get really hungry.”

“Nothing to apologize for, bud,” I said, eyes still locked on the Hydra. “No mimic could possibly resist meat-flavored Neapolitan Swirl. Once we kill this son of a bitch, you can have an entire bucket as a reward.”

The dragon reared back, and its wings buffeted us with a gale force winds that sent everyone but Jakob sliding back across the floor. Pooh—who weighed about as much as a wet mop—went cartwheeling into the portcullis, smashing into the metal barrier before flopping to the floor like a limp pool noddle.

“Everyone spread out!” I thundered while conjuring walls of jagged ice with Frostfang Spire, momentarily pinning the dragon in place. Not that it would last long—this thing was a fucking behemoth.

I lurched into the air, suspended on threads of psychic power, and summoned my army of Horrors. They trundled through black rifts in space, one after the other—Sunnysiders, Kannibal Kids, Yetis, and cobbled together War Dogs—all advancing in a wall of reanimated meat as my Necromarshalls formed up behind them like commanding generals.

With each new addition, I felt my strength grow as I received a boost to Athleticism, Toughness, and Health Regeneration, thanks to E Pluribus Unum.

I sent a dozen Dopplebanger Spell cards spinning out, my mishappen clones forming in a rough horseshoe along the front line. With that many clones in play, they would effectively absorb any damage dealt directly to me over the next minute, but they’d also double as bullet catchers that the others could take cover behind.

Without even waiting for the order, my Horrors attacked as one, rushing forward in an onslaught of mutilated bodies, driven to the edge of madness by Collective Outrage, but held in check with Will of Iron.

Steamboat Willie didn’t even flinch as he stared down my army.

The dread rodent roared, and a grainy, monochromatic beam exploded from his mouth, sweeping across the room in a wide arc of utter devastation.

Chapter Fifty-Eight – Phylacteries

Temp dove beneath the beam, missing it by a hair. Jakob and Croc took cover behind the ice barricades I’d thrown up, while Harper shot skyward, wings snapping as the blast sliced harmlessly under her feet. My Horrors weren’t so lucky. One of the Kannibal Kids took the hit dead center, and the raw power of the beam simply obliterated him from reality—unmaking him as though he’d been scrubbed from existence by a giant eraser.

The distorted black and white beam grew weaker every second it burned, but it was still an unstoppable force of nature. It effortlessly sheered through one of my Kevins and both of his legs vanished below the knees, erased just as completely as the Kannibal Kid.

The Horror flopped to the ground like a fish out of water, his mangled stumps leaving a trail of gore across the tiles.

Harper reacted instantly, zipping around the throne room, planting her boundary flags while simultaneously casting heals on my affected Horrors. The Kevin—gravely maimed just moments before—stabilized, his Health Regen kicking into overdrive thanks to a helping hand from Field Surgeon. But his legs were still gone, unmade by the monochromatic beam, and all he could do now was pull himself across the floor, hand over hand, like a zombie from a bad made-for-tv movie.

Temperance darted forward in a blur, her sword carving upward, the blade punching through the vulnerable scales running along the dragon’s belly.

The tip of her cleaver opened a deep gash, nearly a foot in length, but the dragon’s health bar didn’t even flicker. Clearly, we could physically wound the dragon, but it had no meaningful effect. I had to assume the phylacteries were absorbing the actual damage the same way my Dopplebanger clones did. Until those were gone, we couldn’t kill ol’ Willie—though, clearly, we could hurt him.

Assuming I was right about the way the phylacteries worked, then this son of a bitch could still feel pain. And I knew from personal experience exactly how hard it was to fight when you were on fire.

“Temperance, get back!” I yelled.

She bounded away a split second before I hurled a flurry of spell cards.

Hurt Locker slammed into the dragon first—slowing his movement speed and making him more vulnerable to elemental spell damage—followed by a swarm of Balloon Menagerie Spell Cards, which exploded on impact. A billowing column of fire rolling upward, tattooing a hazy purple afterimage across my retinas. The Dwarven pillars groaned from the explosion, hairline cracks spreading across the surface of each as the domed ceiling trembled, raining down dust.  

For the first time, Steamboat Willie retreated a step, though he still had more than a few tricks left up his metaphorical sleeves.

The gash in his underbelly was leaking inky black ichor, which spread across the floor like an oil slick. Curling tendrils emerged from the dark pool, hooking at knees and ankles, wrapping tight and pinning my Horrors in place.

It didn’t deal any direct damage, but I knew a crowd control spell when I saw one.

Sunnysiders fought against the grasping limbs with unbridled rage, shredding their own bodies in a desperate bid to escape. War Dogs bayed, mechanical jaws gnashing at the grasping tendrils, but the creeping ooze just kept coming.

Living ink with hands, ink with teeth, ink whispering slogans as it glued bodies to the floor.

Steamboat Willie brought a massive foot down, pulping one of my Kathys on the spot and turning her into a red smear as ribbons of gore splattered in every direction. Without missing a beat, he snagged a trapped Kevin, tore his head clean off, then hurled his decapitated corpse across the battlefield toward Meemaw the Snowmaw Hag.

Uncle Sam flashed across the battlefield, streams of flame bursting from his hands while his shoulder mounted Plasma Cannon roared to life, igniting the creeping pool of rancid black sludge. The ink went up in a blaze, a chorus of half-heard voices crying out as my Horrors finally struggled free.

Several reanimated Yeti’s retaliated with pissed-soaked snowballs, while others scampered across the dragon’s forelegs as they attempted to bury the fucker in bodies. Sunnysiders launches Windblades and Feral Hairballs that smashed harmlessly into the monster’s scaly form. Steamboat Willie lowered his head like a charging bull and a spectral chain erupted from the top of his hat.

One end of the chain wrapped around a Yeti, while the other end connected to a nearby Kathy. With a thunderous crack the links cinched tight, yanking them together. The instant their bodies collided, they began to melt, fur and flesh bubbling and stretching until they fused into an unholy Cronenberg nightmare with too many arms, too many legs, and eyes sprouting in places that had no business being.

Your Horrors have been Afflicted by Corporate Merger! While merged they share a combined Health Pool but are slowed by 50% and are 50% more susceptible to all splash damage effects! Duration 10 minutes!  

Jesus, Mary, and Joseph.

That was definitely something I could’ve gone my whole life without seeing.

Croc bounded forward, unleashing a jet of fire from its mouth, tracing a bright line across the dragon’s neck, while suppressive fire tore through the air as miniguns erupted in earnest.

Mana burned hot through my veins as I unleashed StainSlayer Maelstrom, calling down a raging storm of blue super bleach that pelted scales and burned through the remainer of the dark ichor, all while passively restoring HP to my teammates on the ground below. But even though the spell was centered on Steamboat Willie, the dragon’s Health Bar still didn’t appear.

I hadn’t expected anything else.

We needed to find the phylacteries and we needed to do it fast, or this would all be wasted effort.

But before I could come up with any sort of game plan, the dragon raised a talon-tipped hand and let loose with a trio of pulsing red orbs in rapid succession. I dodged one with a barrel roll, blocked the second with an ice wall, but the third clipped my thigh and a prompt flashed across my vision.

You have been Afflicted with Cease and Desist! You are unable to cast StainSlayer Maelstrom for the next five minutes and cannot swap the Relic from your Spatial Core until the Affliction lapses!

Perfect. Not only did this corporate shit weasel have physical attacks, sentient blood, and a powerful breath weapon, it could lock down abilities as well.

I rocketed upward, gaining altitude, and activated Unerring Arrow as I focused on the phylacteries powering Oz and protecting the dragon. Blue light streaked outward from my chest, splitting into four distinct strands, which each angled toward the stained-glass windows above. Each pane showed a different sponsor—the Burger Baron, the Starbies Harpy, a masked superhero with a swatch of jet-black hair and a banner that read Captain Marvelous, and a porcelain white beauty with a bright red apple, who could only be Snow White.

“The windows!” I bellowed over the chaos. “We need to target the windows!”

“On it,” Harper called out, wings flickering as she streaked toward the stained-glass depiction of the Burger Baron.

Temp, still on the ground, triggered Ghost Leash and locked onto Rudolpho the Grippledip as he thundered past on platforms of hardened air. The tether snapped taut, yanking her skyward.

Steamboat Willie swiped at her with a clawed hand, attempting to bat her from the air, but Rudolpho juked at the last second while I reached out with telekinetic threads, deflecting the blow, and buying Temp just enough time to swing onto the nightmare reindeer’s back. Together, the pair of them galloped toward the domed ceiling, Rudolpho’s hooves pounding like a war drum as his new rider targeted the windowpane.

But Oz wasn’t about to let us smash his phylacteries without a fight.

The giant mechanical mouth stretched wide and disgorged a hoard of screeching black monkeys that took flight on glossy raven’s wings. Though not as large as the Yetis, they were damned close. And they were dangerous. Each wielded a heavy-duty machete perfect for close quarters combat, and they had ranged attacks as well—something we quickly realized when the first monkey flung a flaming gob of actual ape shit at one of my War Dogs that exploded on impact.

Below, Jakob triggered Broken Car Alarm, the sound blaring out and echoing across the walls, drawing the undivided attention of the dragon. Steamboat Willie shot forward with fangs barred, but Jakob hit him right in the face with Bash to the Future, stunning the dragon just long enough for my Horror’s to launch a counterassault.

Drumbo had somehow managed to mount the nightmare and was pummeling it with his Gauntlet of Fist Shape Problems while Krampus hacked at one of the dragon’s oversized legs with his double-headed battle axe.

The conjured monkeys wheeled overhead in a screeching vortex of feathers and flaming shit, pelting my troops with a steady rain of improvised napalm. Half of the apes broke away from the swarm and headed toward us with murder burning in their oddly human eyes. I met them head-on with a storm of flying tools—screwdrivers punching through hairy chests, wrenches clipping wings, my oversized hammer smashing bone and cracking skulls.

Three of the apes peeled off and came at me in a screeching triangle, wings beating so hard that it was impossible to miss the rancid stink wafting off them. I fired off thin streams of pressurized water, but they dodged and banked, slipping my attacks as they closed the distance and attempted to flank me on three sides.

I recalled my hammer with a thought, and pumped mana into the tool as it floated into my grasp. The hammer swelled, transforming into a weapon meant for war instead of one purpose built to drive home nails.

The first monkey swung at me with his pitted machete, and I met it with a diagonal strike. Sparks fountained as steel met steel, the shockwave nearly knocking me from the air. But the machete was no match for my mana reinforced hammer and the blade snapped, spinning away then clattering to the floor below. Undeterred, the monkey launched himself at me, digging his claws into my forearm.

The attack was feral but sloppy, and I rewarded the ape by driving the blunt tool sideways into its ribs. Cartilage popped like bubble wrap. It screamed, lost lift, and I coated its wings with a layer of heavy frost. Sheets of jagged blue locked feathers together, and the monster spun down like a broken kite.

The other two closed in fast, teeth gnashing.

One went low, slashing for my gut, while the other dropped down from above, machete whistling. I banked to the right, the machete whiffing through the space I’d occupied a second before, then whipped the hammer upward like a bat, catching him under the chin with a crunch that felt final. Teeth sprayed in a glittering arc as the monkey backflipped into freefall.

The last one wrapped its dirty claws around my ankle and started chomping at my leg like a rawhide bone. A lance of pain shot through the limb—though between my Arcane Exoskeleton and my Dopplebangers, my health bar didn’t even budge.

I aimed my freehand at the ape and activated Hydro Fracking Blast at point blank range, drilling a hole through the top of its head. The monkey squealed, its grip loosening just enough for me to kick it free. The ape finally let my ankle go and plummeted to the ground, leaving behind a mess of shredded denim liberally coated in blood.

Two more monkeys streaked past me, gunning for Harper while she busily bashed away at the stained-glass portrait of the leering Burger Baron with her red and white striped staff. The pane looked fragile—like porcelain ready to shatter—but it was tougher than it seemed. An HP bar had appeared above the window as though it were a living thing, and was slowly dropping with each hit.

I blasted the pair of winged monkeys from the air with dual jets of Hydro Fracking Blast before casting Drone Zone in short order.

With the spell now at max level, fifteen mechanical orbs materialized in a flash, zipping into the chaos like a squadron of trained fighter pilots.

They careened through the air, bobbing and weaving as they unloaded a concussive barrage of ariel laser fire. Bolts of bright red blasted through wings and knocked monkeys from the air, sending them tumbling toward the ground where Croc waited. The mimic snatched the wounded apes up in writhing tentacles, jamming them into its stomach maw while a squad of Flesh Maw Slugs devoured the stragglers that managed to avoid the mimic.

Temperance was having better luck with her window.

Between her Stamina-fueled attacks and Rudolpho’s razor-sharp hooves, the pane was below fifteen percent. With a resounding warcry, she drove her sword through the window, and it shattered in a spray of colored glass and blinding light.

Temp’s eyes glinted as she grinned in mad delight.

“That wasn’t so hard,” she said, plucking a shard of blue glass from forearm. “One down, three more to go. We’ll have this festering muck-sniveler dead in no time at all.”

“Really wish you hadn’t said that,” I muttered.

No sooner had the words left her mouth, than Croc called out from below.

“Hate to be a bother,” the dog yelled, “but something strange is happening down here!”

I spun in mid-air, eyes snapping to the dragon below.

Right beside Steamboat Willie’s neck, a new stump bulged outward, swelling at an alarming rate as it stretched into a second neck. I hung there, mute and horrified, while a slick skull forced its way up, warping into a monstrous parody of Snow White. Her porcelain skin gleamed flawless, lips forming a perfect blood-red smile.

She let out a soft giggle then her jaw unhinged like an enormous serpent and she vomited a stream of rabid woodland creatures—bunnies and birds, squirrels and feral raccoons—right at an oncoming Kathy.

Chapter Fifty-Nine– Second Chances

The rabid stream of animals buried the Sunnysider in a matter of seconds, tearing at her Yoga-toned abs with razor sharp claws and ripping away chunks of flesh with powerful jaws. A legion of birds swarmed her face, gouging out her eyes before savagely ripping out her tongue.

Croc turned and rushed into the onslaught, tentacles snatching up furry critters by the bucketload, then shoving them into its snapping stomach maw.

“Croc, catch!” I hollered, fishing one of the Chimera Kibble Treats free from the bag before hurling it at the dog. The mimic lurched upward, snatching it from the air, then devouring it in a single bite. Ice erupted across the mimic’s body, jagged shards jutting from its back and shoulders as frost poured outward in a creeping wave, slowing the rabid creatures or freezing them solid where they stood.

The dragon lunged again, propelled by powerful legs, and Snow White’s head struck like a cobra, plucking the mimic from the ground. Razor-sharp teeth attempted to chew through Croc’s hide, but the icy armor held, and veins of frost spread across her face and began to worm down the neck. She shook the mimic like a chew toy, then flung Croc’s limp form way with a disgusted flick of her jaws.

Pooh appeared in a heartbeat, moving with a speed I didn’t know the little guy possessed. The bear swelled in size, cushioning the mimic’s fall with his giant stuffed belly.

“Crhistopher,” the bear pleaded as he gently set Croc down on the cracked tiles. “Just stop all of this. It’s not too late…”

Oz’s colossal face winced, the motion almost human. “You know that isn’t true. Don’t watch this part, Pooh. Better to just look away…”

Temp and Rudolpho were already hacking away at the stained-glass window featuring Captain Marvelous, while Harper had finally managed to smash through the Burger Baron’s pane with a little added assistance from my whirlwind of tools.

As the window erupted in a flash of dazzling light, a new stump swelled from the opposite side of Steamboat Willie’s neck. It stretched and warped, solidifying into grinning clown face, covered in a thick layer of white grease-painted. A bulbous red ball sat on the end of his nose and a cheap paper crown—a mirror version of the one I wore on my head—rested on tufts of fiery red hair.

Fuck me.

With each window we destroy, the dragon—which wasn’t really a dragon at all, but rather a brand-sponsored hydra—grew weaker and meaner all at once. More vulnerable, but twice as deadly.

“Heya kiddos,” the Baron screeched, the sound a bomb blast in my ears. “Time for some fun and games! Who wants to get supersized?”

The clown swiveled toward Jakob—his Broken Car Alaram still shrieking at full blast as he hurled glowing vials from the bandolier slung across his chest. The disgusting clown spewed a boiling beam of liquid grease directly at the Cendral, but Jakob dropped to a knee and took cover behind his dual shields. The scalding hot oil splattered outward in an arc like water ricocheting off a spoon, spraying a nearby Yeti in the process.

The fryer grease sizzled through matted fur, eating straight into the skin beneath. At the same time, the Horror began to swell grotesquely, layer after layer of fat piling on until he was so bloated he could barely move. In a matter of seconds, the fur-clad monster looked like a giant, half-burned tatter tot, just waiting for some giant hand to pluck him from the bottom of a greasy fast-food bag.

Captain Marvelous’s windowpane screamed as Temp and Rudolpho tag-teamed it—hoof, blade, hoof, blade—until the glass webbed, then blew out in a white-hot starburst.

The far side of Willie’s neck bulged once again. Yellow scales and veins of living ink crawling across the swelling flesh. The neck emerged with a rubbery pop, and a square-jawed superhero head shouldered its way into the world—black pompadour perfect, smile weaponized, eyes burning red like twin jet engines.

“Watched out!” I yelled, though no one seemed to hear me over the din of battle and the chorus of screams.

A pair of scarlet lances ripped across the chamber, vaporizing one of the War Dogs and leaving nothing but ash before bisecting a Kannibal Kid cleanly from clavicle to crotch, both halves sliding apart like deli meat as his ruined corpse toppled to the floor. The beam sewered right, this time aimed directly at Croc, who was still busy dealing with the feral forest critters skittering across the floor.

Jakob saw the threat and moved, triggering Bullrush Blitz as he raced forward in a burst of superhuman speed. He slid to a stop and brought his shields to bear, dropping to a knee, and bracing himself for the impact. I’d seen those shields deflect damned near everything, including a concentrated blast from a VRD Plasma Cannon.

This time, things were different.

The glowing blue plasma shield held, but Captain Marvelous’s laser eyes carved straight through Jakob’s tower shield, shredding the reinforced steel like wet two-ply. Then the beam kept going, slicing through the arm beneath. Jakob roared once, defiant even in the face of certain death, before the light chewed through his chest. For a heartbeat Jakob was a statue, a perfect representation of man, shield, and fury—and then the top half of him slid off the bottom, blood spurting out in arterial hacks.

Jakob hit the ground in two clean slabs, his health bar at zero.

I froze, shocked into inaction at what I was seeing.

My friend, dead and lifeless on the floor.

This couldn’t be happening. This wasn’t the way it was supposed to end.

“Harper!” I bellowed at the top of my lungs. “We need a medic!”

The healer pirouetted midair, eyes locking on the dead Cenrdal. I saw a flash of pain and grief ripple across her features and the look told me everything I needed to know. She didn’t have the kind of healing magic necessary to fix him. She dove toward his corpse anyway, wings buzzing with frantic motion as she dodged around encroaching monkeys and dived beneath laser beams and gouts of flesh-melting fryer grease.

She slid to a stop beside him and immediately activated Warranty Void if Broken while she pulled out a Greater Zima. I could see the look of utter defeat on her face even through the opalescent dome enveloping her.

But before she could even press the bottle against his lifeless lips, Jakob’s body began to spasm and vibrate. Arms and legs flailing wildly as golden light, so radiant it momentarily bleached the shadows from the walls, leaked from the two halves of his severed torso. His upper half snapped upright with a ragged gasp, blood evaporating as his legs slid across the floor and fused back together. His missing arm still lay on the ground four or five feet to his right, but against all the odds he was somehow alive and breathing.

He shook his head, and flopped onto his back, laughing like a maniac.

That’s when it hit me. He had Overdraft Protection equipped—the built in failsafe, that would bring him back from the dead. Though it had a month-long cooldown, which meant he wouldn’t be so lucky the next time.

Harper didn’t even question the sudden miracle.

Instead, she grabbed his severed arm and shoved it against the bleeding stump before pushing the Zima into Jakob’s free hand. He chugged the potion and the magic went to work, restoring his missing health while skin and muscle fibers knit the arm back in place.

I turned to the last stained-glass window—the one with the Starbies Harpy leering down at us. Rudulpho hammered at it with hooves and antlers while Temp jabbed her sword at the glass. The HP bar hovered just under twenty percent, but this one was holding out longer than the rest.

I locked onto the window and cast Hydro Fracking Blast, activating Stone Splitter to boost the raw piercing power. The torrent drilled a hole clean through, cracks like lightning bolts racing across its surface. Temp swung a heartbeat later, her blade splitting the weakened pane apart. The window blew outward in a glittering storm of shards—and with the last of Oz’s phylacteries gone, the Hydra was no longer untouchable.

Still tough as an artillery cannon, sure, but not invincible.

Just like before, a new stump ballooned outward from the Hydra’s body, the Starbies Harpy’s head unspooling from a twisting column, her head dangling on a too-long neck. Stringy green hair clung to her gaunt skull like pond scum, and her eyes were dull and lifeless, a tarnished crown sitting askew on the top of her head. Rows of serrated teeth caught the light as her face split in a malicious grin.

The hydra—now fully formed—reared back, all five heads shrieking in discord, before it came crashing back to the ground.

The tiles split beneath the impact and a ripple of silvery light blasted outward in a wall of raw, unstoppable force, too fast to dodge. Every Horror still standing was flattened on the spot, their health bars cut by a brutal twenty-five percent a piece. Jakob and Harper were both still protected by Void Warranty if Broken, but Croc wasn’t so lucky. The wave hit like a freight train, hurling the mimic across the room, its googly eyes rolling in opposite directions.

I didn’t fare much better.

The wave of light extended upward, nearly brushing the ceiling, and it caught me in mid-air, smashing my chest and temporarily disrupting my psychic threads. I pinwheeled, careened into the wall, and dropped like a sack of wet concrete. White stars skipped across my vision as I coughed up blood. My ribs ached like fire, and it felt like something was broken inside my chest.

A second later, Temperance and Rudolpho came crashing to the ground beside me, landing in a sprawl of limbs with enough force to crater the floor. Temp tried to rise, lips pulled back in a snarl, limbs trembling, but collapsed a second later.

It wasn’t hard to guess why as a combat notification flashed across my vision.

You have been stunned and are unable to move for ten seconds!

For a terrifying moment, the whole party was down—every one of us caught in the aftershock of the AoE attack. The hydra loomed, shadow blotting out the dome overhead, five heads weaving in predatory synchronization, ready to pick us off one by one.

And there wasn’t a damned thing we could do about it.

While we lay there—vulnerable and exposed—the Harpy opened her mouth and her throat began to bulge and distend. She unleashed a billowing brown haze that rolled through the chamber like an exhaust cloud, reeking of scorched espresso beans.

The instant it hit my skin, the burning started. Searing every pore like I’d been dunked in acid. I desperately tried to hold my breath—to force the cloud away with psychic tethers—but it clawed its way into my nose and mouth, filling me with a bitter heat as my HP bar began to drop. The toxic haze chewed me up from the inside, searing my esophagus and lungs, every breath choking and painful.

My health finally stabilized at 60% but the damage wasn’t the only thing the cloud did. Another prompt appeared, even more unwelcome than the last one.

You have been Afflicted with Type 1 Diabetes! Duration, 5:00 minutes.

• Sugar Crash – -20% Stamina Regen. Sudden exhaustion hits at random intervals.

• Insulin Dependency – All Healing Elixirs and Spells are 75% less effective.

• Neuropathy – Creeping numbness in feet and hands.

• Vision Blur – -25% Accuracy and complimentary Eye Floaters™.

Perfect. Just fucking perfect.

Not only was I being boiled alive in coffee steam, now my hands felt like they were wrapped in rubber gloves, my vision was a blur, and every healing potion and spell in the world had just been nerfed.

Through the swirling haze, the Harpy’s grin widened, teeth gleaming. She was already inhaling again, throat bubbling as she prepared to release another toxic cloud. We needed to shut that shit down fast or none of us were likely to survive this battle.

The stun effect finally lapsed, and I managed to gain my feet.

“Focus on her!” I roared, swatting at a winged monkey that dove out of the steam with a machete raised high. My hammer caught it across the skull, splitting bone with a satisfying crack. “Bring her down before we all end up on permanent dialysis!”

The dome around Harper and Jakob faded as the initial coffee cloud dissipated and the healer opened up with a burst of Shadow Ops Eagle. A pair of inky black birds burst from the end of her staff and slammed into the Harpy.

I unloaded with ice javelins and bursts of Hydro Fracking Blast. With Stone Splitter in effect, it ate through more mana, but that was the one thing I had plenty of, and the beams of water drilled through scales and the HP bar above the Hydra began to gradually drop a fraction of an inch at a time. The bubble was still building in the Harpy’s throat, and I knew we didn’t have long before she triggered the noxious cloud again.

Mind racing, I decided to pull the same trick on her that I’d used on Croc back at the Gluttonarium.

I reached out with Hydrokensis, forming a watery ball gag before freezing it in place. That stopped the spell dead in its tracks, though the other heads were none too happy about it. Captain Marvelous let loose with twin laser beams and I threw myself into a dive, avoiding the blast my inches. A molten geyser of grease, courtesy of the Burger Baron, was waiting for me, but one of my Horrors intercepted the attack, shielding me from the blow.

The Hydra roared in fury and flapped its wings, unleashing another burst of hurricane force wind.

I wasn’t ready for it and the gust swept me from my feet, hurling me backward like a plastic bag caught in a tornado. I didn’t even see the shimmering black and white portal that had appeared directly behind me until it was too late.

Chapter Sixty – Death Blow

The portal swallowed me whole, the world stretching and twisting until I crashed onto ground that wasn’t ground at all—instead it was flat, grainy, and endlessly looping like an old film reel. The world had been completely drained of color. Every tree, rock, flower, and cloud was rendered in various shades of monochromic gray. Hell, even my own hands resembled ink sketches, fingers jerking like stop-motion puppets caught between frames.

In the distance shimmered a vibrantly colored portal—a rippling oval that connected back to the throne room.

But I wasn’t alone.  

Between me and exit loomed a massive centaur with the lower body of a bull and the upper body of Popeye the Sailor—his arms knotted with ropey muscle, one eye squinting, the other bulging comically like he was jacked to the gills on lab-grade Cocaine. He pawed at the ground and puffed at the corncob pipe jutting from the side of his mouth, concentric rings of smoke drifting upward.

Dweller 0.990351D – Popeye the Centaur Man [Level 51]

A brawler ripped straight out of an ol’ timey movie reel, Popeye the Centaur Man fights with the stubborn relentlessness of a dockside drunk and the improbable cartoon physics of a Saturday morning cartoon character.

Due to the power of Toon Force, Popeye can absorb even the most damaging blows like they’re friendly love taps before answering with fists that shatter bone and hooves that can shred steel. If you’re unlucky enough to square up with him alone, you’re already fucked with a capital F—and the fight only ends when one of you is lying dead on the floor.

And, if cartoons have taught us anything, it’s that Popeye is not in the business of losing to scrawny-armed, chucklefucks like you.

The landscape around Popeye writhed with impossible life. Trees bending too far to leer at me with wide mouths, flowers turning their inky heads, staring at me with impossibly large eyes, their leaves rustling in quiet laughter. The centaur sailor flexed, pipe bobbing at the corner of his mouth, and his voice rolled across the cartoon forest in warped, warbling tones.

“Wuh-wuh-well blow me down… looks like fresh meat fer the funny pages.”

The centaur lowered his head and charged. The ground stretched and bounced beneath him, every hoofbeat punctuated by cymbal crashes and honking horns. His forearms swelled grotesquely, spinning like windup toys until they blurred.

I tightened my grip on my hammer. Even here, in cartoon hell, the weapon still felt real—solid, heavy, and strangely reassuring.

“I don’t have any spinach for you,” I taunted, preparing to strike, “but I have a whole bag of dicks you can choke on!”

He answered with a whistle-shriek and lunged.

Popeye swung, the blow carrying the force of a runaway steam engine. Some primal alarm bell went shrieked in the back of my skull and I dodged right, bringing the hammer up in a brutal arc that slammed into his ribs. The impact cracked like a gunshot and should’ve folded the son of a bitch in half, but instead his torso stretched like an accordion before bouncing back into place with a rubbery twang.

“Tha’ all ya got, chum?” Popeye slurred, a fist the size of an anchor shooting forward like a piston.

The jab caught me in the chest, knocking the wind from my lungs as I flew backward and collided into a nearby tree. Black crept along the edges of my vision as thick roots wrapped around my stomach, pinning me in place.

Popeye was winding up for another charge and if I didn’t get clear of the tree, he was going to turn me into a cartoon pancake. With a thought, I activated Neural Slipstream and phased through the binding roots, scrambling back to my feet as Popeye raced toward me in slow motion.

I raised one hand and triggered Hydro Fracking Blast.

The jet of water ripped through his chest, spraying inky gore across the monochrome flowers. For a heartbeat his body split in two, halves flapping like ripped Play-Doh before melting back together with the rubbery flexibility of a Gumby doll.

“Gross,” I spat, before activating Frontfang Spire directly beneath Popeye’s hooves. Spears of glimmering ice erupted from the ground, skewering him through the legs and belly. He bellowed, thrashing wildly, but I was already circling, hammer raised.

“Now let’s see how funny you are without knees, asshole,” I growled, darting forward as I drove my hammer down on his front leg and triggered Gavel of Get Fucked. Popeye’s foreleg shattered and his pipe spun from his mouth, tumbling end over end.

He staggered, teetering on three legs as my Spectral Form fizzled out and I snapped back into flesh and bone. “Olive Oyl hits harder than that, you little bitch!” he barked, spittle flying. “If that’s all ya’ got, you’re nothin’ but chum for the grinder, agagaga!”

Then, before I could react, his massive fist shot across the clearing like it was attached to an extending boxing glove, slamming into my mouth and knocking one of my teeth loose. The world blinked white, and a sharp ring filled my ears. I stumbled backward, disoriented, but a root reached out and shoved me forward toward the centaur.

I spat out a glob of phlegmy blood and wiped my chin with the back of one hand.

“I’m just getting warmed up, dickweed.”

Clearly this fucker was tough, and my normal arsenal of spells just weren’t cutting it. Thanks to his Toon Force abilities, he was almost invulnerable to slashing and piercing damage, but there was one thing I hadn’t tried yet. Using the ambient moisture splattered across the ground, I summoned manacles of ice to slow him down while I quickly swapped Echoed Aura for Internal Microwave Cannon.

This was the first time I’d ever used the Relic, but I’d microwaved plenty of action figures as a kid just for shits and giggles, so I knew how this should go.

Popeye broke free from the icy restraints, but I instantly reached out with threads of Psychic Sovereignty and lifted him into the air.

Well, I tried to, anyways.

It felt like trying to deadlift an Abrams tank. Between his weight and Grit, it was almost more than I could manage. Sweat rolled down my face, but I kept pushing until his hooves slowly rose into the air.

Then, while he was hanging there, vulnerable and flailing, I raised one hand and activated the Microwave Cannon. Rings of silvery light rippled outward from my palm, sinking harmlessly into Popeye’s chest without doing any visible damage at all. No burns. No explosions. Just Popeye thrashing and laughing through clenched teeth.

I frowned, and glanced at my upraised hand. What a fucking rip off.

But just as I was about to give up and try something else, I saw his health bar start to slide down.

A few seconds later, his skin began to bulge and ripple, flesh swelling unevenly, bubbling like a hotdog left too long in the microwave. Veins popped, joints stretched to grotesque proportions, and his rubbery torso squealed under the pressure—steam venting out of his eyes and mouth.

Then, all at once, his body exploded in a geyser of black and white gore.

A ring of shredded skin and pulverized organs sprayed outward in all directions, splattering across the leering trees and grinning flowers. Chunks of meat slapped wetly against the ground, dripping and twitching like they hadn’t realized they were dead yet. The air filled with the stench of scorched ink and cooked fat, thick enough to make me gag.

I cut the spell off and grimaced in distaste.

Turned out the Relic worked exactly as advertised, but watching it in action made me question every life choice that had brought me here. It was powerful, no doubt—but the kind of power that left you feeling queasy afterward. Excessive was the only word that fit, even if it got the job done. If I actually made it out of this clusterfuck alive, I was going to have to think long and hard about whether I wanted to keep it. Because that kill was definitely going straight onto the nightmare reel.

But that was a problem for Future me. Assuming there was a Future me.

I pulled out a Zima and slammed the entire thing as I sprinted for the portal.

The instant I dove through the rippling surface, color slammed back into my vision and my feet hit cracked marble as the throne room snapped back into focus.

Everything had devolved into pure chaos during my brief absence.

The chamber was a slaughterhouse covered in shards of stained glass and swathed in corporate banners. The floor was littered with mangled Horrors, twitching limbs clawing at nothing as inky tendrils dragged my minions back into black tar pools. The mosaic of Steamboat Willie had been ground to gravel under the hydra’s bulk, each fractured tile spattered with blood, grease, or both.

Temperance and Croc had both managed to climb onto the Hydra’s back along with several of my Horrors, who were hacking away with claws, fangs, and improvised weapons. Jakob continued to draw aggro—battling the Hydra and shield bashing the ever-living shit out of the flying monkeys—while Harper hovered above him, wings twitching with exhaustion as she spammed heals to help offset the damage he was soaking up like a sponge.

It was a losing battle, though, and I wasn’t sure how much longer Jakob could endure the punishment. Hell, I wasn’t sure any of my friends had long for this world.

Temperance was covered in burns and gashes, her skintight fur suit little more than bloody rags. And Croc wasn’t doing much better. The mimic was missing more than a few limbs, and blood oozed down its chest and legs. Both of them looked like they’d gone three rounds with a sentient flamethrower and were only still moving through sheer spite.

Overhead, monkeys still wheeled and spun, diving to slash with machetes or lob their shit-bombs into the unfolding carnage.

But the Hydra had suffered injuries as well.

Temp had managed to decapitate the Harpy during my brief absence, her gaunt head laying lifeless on the floor, inky blood spurting from the jagged stump.

Temp was also making good progress on Captain Marvelous, carving deep trenches between scales with grim, methodical fury. Meanwhile, Croc was wrapped around Snow White’s neck, clinging on for dear life like an overgrown tick, tentacles jammed into a series of open wounds as the mimic tried to tear the head apart from the inside.

Even though they were doing an admirable job, the Hydra was still above forty percent Health, and even down a head, I wasn’t sure we were going to be able to beat this thing. Two-thirds of my Horrors were already pulverized meat—Uncle Sam had been cut in two by a laser blast and Synthia had been shredded by feral forest critters—and everyone else was hanging on by a tenuous thread.

I needed to find a way to keep this battle from dragging on any longer than it already had.

And as I surveyed the carnage, a rough idea began to take shape in my mind.

The throne room itself had been badly damaged during the brawl—craters everywhere, glass shards crunching underfoot, the dome overhead sagging like a cracked egg. One of the Dwarven pillars had already been reduced to rubble by Captain Marvelous’s eye-beam party trick, and the other columns were feeling the added strain, cracks zigzagging across their surfaces, hunks of stony rubble collecting at their bases.

What if I brought the whole place right down on the Hydra? There was no way anything could survive that, not even this corporate assclown.

Was my plan reckless? Sure. Suicidal? Absolutely. But if we couldn’t kill the hydra straight up, maybe I could make the Backrooms do my bitch work instead.

Mind made up, I triggered Neural Slipstream, and the world shuddered into slow motion. Monkeys flapped as though they were swimming through molasses. Blood droplets hung in the air like rubies. Howls stretched into distorted tape screeches.

In that endless breath, I slipped into thought form and went on a shopping spree.

I cracked open my Spatial Storage and started yanking out supplies like a madman prepping for Armageddon. At the tippy top of my list was all the shit I’d looted from the Sunnyside Pyro Emporium: sticks of dynamite, mana-fueled shape charges, a handful of magical claymores. A fat roll of duct tape came next, followed by all the Balloon Menagerie Spell Cards I had left—because why the hell not?

Go big or die trying, I always said.

My hands moved on autopilot. Dynamite here, shape charge there, claymore pointed inward. Duct tape wrapped it all together in a neat bundle of destructive fire power until I had six improvised bombs that looked like something Wile E. Coyote would buy from an Acme catalog. Each one was primed with a trio of Balloon Menagerie Cards, ready to pop the second I said the activation phrase.

My Thought Form wavered, then snapped, and time kicked back to full speed with a concussive rush of sound.

I didn’t hesitate.

Clutching the bundles under each arm, I shot upward, flying in a tight spiral, faster and faster, building momentum until the air crackled around me. Psychic Sovereignty’s capstone ability, Monarch of Momentum, allowed me to continually accelerate anything I lifted with the spell—there was no reason that couldn’t include me. With each pass, I built up more speed, all while using telekinetic threads to place the improvised bombs at the base of each pillar.

As I looped past Harper, I dug the Super Slammer of Shield from my tool belt and tossed it down. She caught it with both hands, confusion flashing across her face.

“Trust me!” I barked before zipping by, not slowing for even a second.

I couldn’t afford to stop and explain my plan, so instead I pulled out the Etheric Walkie Talkie. Static fizzled as I thumbed the talk button, my voice carrying to each of my allies.

“I’ve got an insane idea,” I shouted, “but for it to work, I need everyone to retreat to the far side of the throne room. Do it now and take cover. Harper knows what to do—and make sure someone grabs Pooh. I don’t want him getting killed when the shit hits the fan. And trust me, this shit is gonna be Old Testament Biblical. Like Samson crushing the Philistines.”

“Are you sure about this, Dan,” Croc said, his voice squawking over the radio. “Because this sounds dangerous.”

“So is fighting a bloodthirsty Hydra,” I replied. “But you’re just gonna have to trust me, bud.”

There was a long pause, before the radio chirped again. “Okay, Dan,” Croc said. “Just be careful, please? If anything happened to you… Well, no one else will watch Twilight movies with me.”

I watched from above as my allies leaped from the Hydra and sprinted toward the double doors on the far side of the room. I left a few of my more disposable Horrors behind as sacrificial lambs to distract the Hydra, though I banished my remaining Necromarshalls from the battlefield. I’d already lost Synthia and Uncle Sam, and though I could rebuild them, it was going to be a colossal pain in the ass.

My last batch of Dopplebangers had already vanished, and I was going to need coverage for what came next, so I used my remaining cards to summon fifteen more clones—praying that would be enough. Then, with barely a second to breathe, I cast Hydro Fracking Blast and bent it with Hydrokinesis, shaping the torrent of water into crude armor that clung to me in plates of ice.

As soon as the others were safely away from the Hydra, Harper popped the Super Slammer of Shielding, summoning the arcane dome, which would hopefully insulate them from the worst of what was to come.

And now it was go time.

All six bombs were planted, my friends were in the clear, and my momentum was reaching ridiculous speeds. It was now or never.

I bared my teeth in a snarl, blood roaring in my ears as I tucked my arms and legs in tight, then hurled myself at the first pillar like a human ballistic missile.

A second before impact, I triggered the first bomb.

It erupted in a blinding flash of golden light, and the heat of a newborn sun flash fried my skin. The blast tore through the pillar, cracks crawling across the stone, and then I hit like a wrecking ball wrapped in meat and ice. Chunks of stone exploded outward as I punched a hole straight through the column.

The Dopplebangers absorbed the damage from the inferno blast, and the layer of ice surrounding my body dampened the intense pain, but didn’t stop it completely. It still clawed at me like a million fire ants. My nerves shrieked in protest, and I could feel my bones attempting to liquify. The sheer force of the impact should’ve turned me into jelly, but thanks to my new Death from Above Title, all impact damage was reduced by 90% whenever I decided to use my body as a projectile weapon.

Like now.

I slammed into the next pillar, my momentum propelling me forward. Another detonation. Another eruption of searing light and flame. Another moment of raw, screaming agony as I blasted through, coughing ash, and struggling to see straight.

Third. Fourth. Fifth.

Each time, another bomb went off, another pillar fell, another piece of the cathedral’s skeletal dome gave up the ghost. By the time I smashed through the sixth and final pillar, I wasn’t sure if I was still me or just a screaming torch wearing my skin.

Above, the ceiling groaned like a dying god.

Then, in a rush, it came tumbling down all at once.

Twenty tons of cracked dome and rusted iron collapsed in a single apocalyptic crash, pillars snapping, rafters breaking like brittle bones. The hydra roared in fury as the mountain of rubble dropped on top of it, bludgeoning it to death in an avalanche of concrete, marble, and reinforced steel.

At the last instant, I triggered Neural Slipstream, slipping into intangibility as the cathedral fell. Rubble passed harmlessly through me in syrupy slow motion while dust erupted in a choking plume. The air turned hot and suffocating, and shattered banners and shards of stained glass drifted around me like funeral confetti.

I rose through the wreckage, then solidified on top of the mound.

My legs wobbled, my body trembling like overcooked noodles. Even with the help from the clones and my titles, my Health was at a measly 22%. And I felt like someone had dosed me with napalm then ran over me with a garbage truck. Several times. 

But I was still standing. Though not for long.

My knees buckled. I sagged forward onto the cracked stone, head hanging in exhaustion.

We’d done it. Defeated an impossible boss, swing well-above our weight class.

But there was a worrying fact still wriggling in the back of my mind.

Why hadn’t I received any experience? Or a Researcher Achievement? Hell, I didn’t have a single prompt celebrating my victory.

“Shit,” I mumbled as the rubble shifted beneath me, stone grinding against stone.

Then, with a spray of debris, Steamboat Willie’s cartoon head shoved its way free like a weed working its way through the cracks in a concrete slab.

Chapter Sixty-One – Change of Heart

Willie bared his teeth in a broad grin that said, this isn’t over yet, motherfucker. Not by a long shot. The Hydra’s health bar floated above the creature, strobing an angry red. He was only at three percent, but I was as weak as a newborn kitten and knew I didn’t have the strength to stop him. I’d used every trick at my disposal and was running on fumes.

Willie’s jaw stretched wide and monochrome light gathered in its throat, swirling into the kind of attack that would carve me in half without missing a beat.

I fumbled for the Trump Card I’d received from the Gashapon machine, but I was too slow, my hands numb and useless.

The beam exploded from its throat, and I watched, helplessly, as death approached, sudden and unstoppable—

Then Croc blinked into view directly in front of me, materializing from thin air like a guardian angel, hellbent on keeping me safe no matter what it cost.

Willie’s beam slammed into Croc, bathing the rubble in flickering static, tearing away rubbery chunks of meat and shredding tentacles like a cartoon chainsaw as it unmade my best friend.

But Croc was made of sterner stuff than my Horrors.  

When the light finally faded, the mimic was laying on the rubble directly in front of me—alive but barely. Croc’s body had reverted to a puddle of blue, gelatinous goop covered with a vast hoard of eyes and gasping mouths. Smoke rose in thin ribbons, and tendrils of black and white light slithered across the mimic’s body, erasing the dog bit by bit.

Croc had used Lethal Injection to save me, absorbing the death blow that should’ve been mine.

“Croc,” I said, crawling forward on hands and knees, broken glass and bites of stone scrapping against my palms and gouging into my knees. “Why did you do that?” I asked, tears running down my cheeks. With trembling hands, I pulled out several Regen cards and pressed them against the mimic’s side. I activated them all at once, stabilizing the mimic’s dropping health bar. Still, even with my efforts, Croc was only at 16% health—no doubt due to the Diabetes Affliction we all still had.

“Because…” the puddle of goop wheezed, “Because we’re best friends, Dan.” A trembling tentacle curled up and touched the charred dog collar fixed around a bulge of meat. “And best friends would take a bullet for one another.”

The hydra reared again, gathering power for another strike, this one aimed straight at the mimic. Croc braced for impact, but I knew the mimic wouldn’t survive a second attack.

That’s when Pooh shuffled into view, climbing over the rocks with delicate care.

The little bear, singed and battered, waddled in front of Croc and raised its arms, his eyes blazing brighter than I’d ever seen, holding that damned Polaroid up like it was a shield.

“No,” Pooh said simply, voice calm but iron-hard. “Croc is my friend. And if you want to kill him, you’ll have to kill me first.”

Everything went still.

The hydra hesitated, Willie’s head weaving, his teeth pulled back into a snarl. Oz’s giant mechanical face, undamaged by the cave in, turned curious eyes on the bear.

“You would do this?” Oz asked. “Sacrifice yourself for these people you hardly know?”

“Always,” the bear replied, voice firm with resolve. “Because that’s what friends do. They are willing to die for each other. Croc just proved it. I may have forgotten most things, Christopher Robin, but I haven’t forgotten that. This place can take my memories, but I’ll never let it take the good inside of me.”

Gears whirled as the machine carefully considered Pooh’s words.

“Friends are willing to die for each other,” the mechanical voice groaned. “Yes, I see now,” he said. “Then let me do the same for you.”

The monkeys overhead spun in unison, their machetes flashing as they dove at the Hydra, shrieking, stabbing, tearing through his face and neck. Dozens of blades hacked into scales and severed tendons. The hydra shrieked, twisting, blasting them apart with black and white beams of power, but for every monkey that perished, two more took its place.

In seconds, Willie’s was buried under a crushing tide of furry bodies and flapping raven wings, the last of its health draining away as the neck toppled like a felled timber.

[Level Up! x 1]

For a second, silence settled over the cathedral.

A hollow hiss followed, and Oz’s massive mask cracked down the middle, gears stuttering, pneumatics whining in protest. The halves curled back to reveal what was left of the man inside.

Oz the Terrible. Franchisor of the Kiosk Network. James Garham. Christopher Robin.

He was more machine than flesh now—his skin parchment-thin, sunken eyes barely visible beneath nests of tubing. Hundreds of cables slithered in and out of him, vanishing beneath his skin in puckered, angry wounds. Each breath rattled like an empty can, his HP bar leaking steadily downward, already flashing red in warning.

Pooh shuffled forward.

His steps were soft, deliberate, like he was afraid the whole world might break apart if he walked too hard. He closed the distance, not in anger but in loving reverence, before climbing into the mask and snuggling up the desiccated man’s frail arms.

“Thank you,” Pooh said, resting his head against Christopher Robin’s sunken chest.

“No,” the man wheezed, “thank you. For reminding me who I am. Of why I did all this in the first place…” he faltered, his breathing labored and wet. “All I ever wanted was to protect you, but I hurt so many innocent people along the way. And now, the end is here, and I’m scared, Pooh. So terribly, terribly scared.”

The little bear looked into his face. “It’s okay to be scared, Christopher Robin. Sometimes fear makes us do strange things. But you’re not alone. Not anymore.”

The man shuddered, the faintest ghost of a smile creasing his lips. “No… I suppose I’m not. And neither are you.” His gaze shifted to me. “I know you don’t owe me anything,” he said, “but please promise me you’ll take care of him? He’s a good bear. He deserves to be happy. To have friends who would die for him.”

I swallowed hard, throat raw, but nodded. “I will. He’ll never be alone.”

“Good,” the man rasped, wheezing through the tubes. “That’s good.” His chest hitched, the cables flexing like parasites, feeding on his last moments. “Now please, put me out of my misery.”

“We might be able to heal you,” I said, the words spilling out before I could stop them. “There’s got to be something—Relics, elixirs—it doesn’t have to end it like this.”

His cracked lips peeled back in something that wasn’t quite a smile. “Too late for that... Without my phylacteries… I can’t be healed. It’s the price of immortality. Besides”—his breath hitched, chest rattling—“I deserve this end.

“I lost my faith in God long ago, but there’s one thing I’ve never forgotten. ‘Those who live by the sword shall die by it.’ This is a fitting way to go. And if you’re going to stand a chance against the Monarch, you’ll need every scrap of Experience you can get. You’ll need to Kisok Network, too… Killing me… will grant you both.” He closed his eyes, a tremor running through his body. “Now do it.”

I looked at Pooh, who only nodded before snuggling closer to his boy. “I’m here, Christopher. I’ll always be here. You are not alone.”

We’d come here to kill this man, but I felt no satisfaction in victory. All I saw was someone who’d started with good intentions, before trading himself away, one piece at a time, until nothing remained but a hollow shell.

It was like looking into a mirror.

I thought about the Aspirants I’d hunted down and murdered in cold blood while my friends protested. About the choices I’d justified, because survival demanded it. Because getting power was more important than how I got power. It was too easy to picture myself in that mask a year from now. Maybe even less.

This was what the Backrooms did, I reminded myself. This was the price it demanded.

I wasn’t like Jakob. I knew there would be more death before this was all over—that was an unavoidable reality—but I could be more thoughtful in the choices I made moving forward. Before long, I would have the power of a god at my disposal, and I didn’t want to end up a Devil instead.

My guts twisted. My jaw locked. And then I did what had to be done.

“Goodbye, Christopher,” I whispered, triggering Hydro Fracking Blast.

A jet of superheated water blasted through his skull, tearing tubes and cables free in a spray of blood and steam. His body convulsed once, then went limp, the cables slithering back into the wreckage like worms retreating from the light.

[Level Up! x 2]

Research Achievement Unlocked!

The Final Mercy

Some victories are loud. Bloody. Measured in rubble and corpses and the kind of trauma that even cracking open a cold one with the boys won’t wash away.

This was definitely that.

But it was also quiet. Tender in a place that only knows how to tenderize.

You didn’t just kill the Franchisor of the Kiosk Network. You didn’t just bury his Enforcer Hydra under a mountain of stone and steel. You stood before what was left of an utterly broken man—eaten alive by moral compromise and hard choices—and gave him something infinitely rarer than victory.

You gave him peace.

Christopher Robin. James Garham. The Franchisor. Whatever name he went by, he was already gone long before you raised your hand for the killing blow. But in his last moments, you reminded him of what it meant to be human. Of what it meant to care, even in broken place designed to grind kindness into ash. That is by far the harder fight—one that doesn’t end with pomp or fanfare, but with a lonely man taking his final breath and a bear that still remembers what friendship means.

Anyone can swing a hammer. Not everyone can offer hope when everything else is bleak. That is uniquely and extraordinarily human.

Reward: 20,000 Experience Points, 5 x Gold Delver Loot Tokens, 1 x Platinum Kiosk Franchise Binding Totem.

Title: The Final Mercy (E) – Whenever you choose to spare a hostile Delver with less than 10% remaining Health, you gain the Experience equal to what you would have earned for killing them.

I skimmed the prompt and dismissed it with a wave, caught somewhere between conflicted and grateful. Usually, the prompts were belittling or downright insulting, but this one was different. Killing the Hydra had been a feat worthy of Hercules himself, yet it was the small act of mercy that my Administrator chose to highlight.

Sometimes I got the sense that the Researcher and the Localized Administrators were assholes just for the sport of it—and maybe they were. But maybe they were also just… tired. Burned out, the same as the rest of us. Maybe, once upon a time, they’d been hopeful. Optimistic. And then centuries of death and butchery had ground them down until all that was left was dark cynicism and barbed commentary.

I wasn’t sure, but it was a good reminder that even when things were terrible, hope was still on the table—and that mercy could be its own kind of weapon.

I shoved the thought aside as a hiss of hydraulics drew my attention. A small hatch popped open at the back of the iron coffin, light spilling out in a tight rectangle. Even half-dead and aching everywhere, curiosity got the better of me. I dropped to my hands and knees and crawled forward. A few feet later, the tunnel widened and I spilled out into a hidden chamber.

It was circular room, lit by a faint golden glow that pulsed with mechanical life. The walls were plastered with displays, screens flickering with endless data feeds. At the center sat a squat kiosk, black metal polished to a sterile sheen. Floating above it was a holographic map that stopped me in my tracks.

It looked almost like a constellation. A vast web of glimmering nodes, each one linked by strands of pulsing energy.

I’d seen this before, or at least a crude version—the map the Director had gifted me what felt like a lifetime ago. But this wasn’t a pocket model. This was the real deal, sprawling, alive, and virtually endless. Each glowing point represented a kiosk. Entry and exit nodes, portals that together formed a sprawling network connecting hundreds of floors.

I reached out, fingertips lightly brushing one of the lights.

The display nearest me flared to life, painting the wall with an image of the location: topography, floor designation, Dweller details, hazards, and resource notes. Everything I could ever want to know about that node, all laid bare in crystal clear detail.

And more than that, I realized with a chill, I had access to the master Variant Kiosk Network Mainframe itself.

Menus unfolded before me, sterile and innocuous in presentation but humming with dangerous potential. I scrolled through the options, heartbeat spiking. The Auction House was the crown jewel. Although, I couldn’t just pull items at will—the interface was locked down against outright theft—I could see everything.

There were thousands of Relics. Countless Artifacts. Elixirs of every type and variety. Weapons that could start or end wars. Whole treasuries catalogued and cross-listed in a system that stretched farther than my mind could comprehend.

A spiderweb of wealth and power, hung on invisible, interconnecting threads.

And somehow, standing there half-broken, my hands still raw and bleeding, I had my fingers on the strands. I’d still need money—or rather Loot Tokens—and some of the listed prices were well beyond what I could afford, but that wouldn’t last for long. Not since the owner of the Network could take a cut of every single transaction.

My hand drifted instinctively to my inventory, and I pulled free the prize I’d nearly died to earn. The Platinum Kiosk Franchise Binding Totem. It was warm in my palm, humming faintly with potential.

I stepped up to the kiosk, hesitated just long enough to realize how insane this was, and pressed the totem against the black, metal surface.

The air shivered. A deep rumble echoed through the chamber and a prompt blinked into existence.

Would you like to transfer ownership of the Variant Kiosk Network from Steamboat Studios? Yes/No

“Oh, hell yeah,” I muttered, jabbing ‘Yes.’

The map above the kiosk flickered, strands of energy rippling outward as though the entire constellation had been rewired. The rumble built to a crescendo, then snapped off with a flash that left me momentarily blinded. When I could finally see again, another new prompt had appeared.

Congratulations! You have claimed ownership of the Variant Kiosk Network. The Network is now a subsidiary of Discount Dan’s Backroom Bargains.

Franchisor Privileges Unlocked. While you cannot directly change prices for individual items, as the current Franchisor you may:

·         Set the Franchisor Fee—determining the cut you take from each transaction.

·         List items for sale or trade.

·         Approve or reject current Franchisees.

·         Access Network-wide transaction data and analytics.

·         Unlock Network upgrades through the Brand Expansion Interface.

I let out a low whistle. “Looks like Discount Dan’s is headed to the big leagues,” I murmured. In the span of a heartbeat, I’d just become the single biggest retail empire in the Backrooms.

Chapter Sixty-Two – Priorities

The aftermath of the battle blurred into a montage of weary looting.

With the help of my Rat Pack, we shifted through the destruction in daze, reclaiming mutilated Horrors, salvaging whatever gear we could, and looting Relics. The spoils of war all sorted into neat, bloody piles for transport. There was no trace of the Hydra—it had winked out of existence with Oz’s death, along with the horde of flying monkeys. It was a crying shame, though I figured the real prize wasn’t some carcass—even a powerful one.

It was the Network itself.

James Graham—Christopher Robin, Oz the Terrible, or whatever the hell his name really was—had left behind his own collection of trophies. A handful of battered Artifacts and some obscenely powerful Relics, including a particularly nasty one called Soul Jar. I tucked all of them away. Something to deal with later, when I wasn’t half-dead.

For now, I just wanted to go home.

Once the grisly work was done and the corpses shipped off using Conyer Logistics, we all crammed into the secret Network compartment, shoulder to shoulder, every breath warm and sour with exhaustion. We were a fragrant-smelling bunch, all desperately in need of showers and laundry services.

With everyone in place, I accessed my minimap and carefully selected the small kiosk chamber, before triggering Corvo’s Blanket Fort in an effort to annex the space. I held my breath, afraid it wasn’t going to work, then sighed in relief when the familiar prompt appeared.

You’ve selected 2,600 square feet of eligible Progenerated Material Resource Space. Would you like to use Corvo’s Blanket Fort to convert the selected material into a Personal Superspace Dwelling? You will have 160,717 available square feet remaining at your current Variant Assimilation Level. Proceed Yes/No?

Holy shit.

Thanks to my Expansionist Perk and all the levels I’d racked up over the past few weeks, my available square footage had absolutely skyrocketed. Now that we’d put the Franchisor to rest—slowing the Monarch’s advance in the process—it was probably time I set to work on expanding the store in earnest. I just needed to unlock the Modular Replication feature and then I’d be able to turn the storefront from a off-brand Walgreens into a Bonafide city.

But that was something else that could wait for another day.

I hit ‘Yes,’ and the world lurched as the Kiosk headquarters was neatly cut out of the 99th and pasted onto my store.

We piled out of the cramped room—a fact my nose was eternally grateful for—and were greeted by the very welcome sight of stretching aisles, all clean and neatly stocked, and a sea of happy shoppers. Howlers and 49ners, all pursing my wares, rubbing shoulders, even sharing meals. After the corporate hellscape of Steamboat Studios and the horrors of the Gluttonarium, the sight genuinely warmed my heart.

Steamboat Studios was what you got when unfettered capitalism started freebasing crack and got its hands on power tools. And sure, I wasn’t opposed to making a reasonable profit, but I knew damn well that was the cliff I needed to steer clear of.

Despite being dirty and covered in dried blood, Harper was practically beaming.

“Anyone up for a little we-didn’t-get-eviscerated-by-sentient-corporate-branding celebration party?” she asked, cocking an eyebrow as she looked at each of us in turns. “Because I could use a gallon of beer and something good to eat. I don’t know what it is, but there’s just something about narrowly escaping death that always makes me hungry.”

“An entire bathtub worth of hard liquor sounds like an excellent idea,” Temperance said before faltering. “Unfortunately, the demands of a Room Keeper Commander never stop. I need to check in with the others—see how our war against the Red Hands is progressing and give them an update about…” she faltered. “Well all of this,” she finished, gesturing broadly at the newest addition to the store. “Now that Dan controls the Kiosk, it changes everything. But,” she said after a pause, “I might join you later. Once I’ve given new marching orders.”

“Fine,” Harper replied with a sigh, “I’ll mark you down as a maybe. Jakob?” she asked, sounding hopeful.

The Cendral seesawed his head for a moment before agreeing with a smile. “Na klar, warum nicht?” he replied. “I will never say no to beer. And I owe you one, for this.” He held up his arm, a faint pink line of scar tissue showcasing where the limb had been severed and reattached.

Harper snorted. “Listen, the arm is on the house,” she said, “but if we’re keeping score, then you owe me about a million beers for all the times I patched your ass up back there. Though I guess we can call it a wash, since you single-handedly tanked a level 70 Hydra. That’s got to count for something.” She turned her gaze on me. “What about you, Mr. Big Shot Kiosk Owner? Care to join? Maybe we can even make a proper date out of it, if you’re interested.”

I gave it some real thought. Hot food, cold beer, and a beautiful woman sounded like heaven after the hell we’d just slogged through. But in the end I just grimaced, offered an apologetic shake of my head, and said no.

“Let’s call it a rain check?” I added. “There is honestly nothing I’d rather do, but I’ve got something important I need to take care of first.”

She shrugged. “Your loss—I was even going to pay.” She smirked, too tired to make it sting. “If you change your mind, I’ll be at the bar getting very drunk. And I’d love to hear about what possessed you to turn your body into a literal cannonball. What about you, Croc?” She asked. “You in or what?”

“Sorry,” Croc said, “but where Dan goes, I go. I am man’s best friend, after all.”

“I’ll come with you,” Pooh piped up, paw tugging at her sleeve. “That is… if it’s not too much of a bother.”

Harper crouched, smiling softer now, and took his paw. “Not a bother at all. It’d be an honor to share a meal with a true gentleman.”

I watched the three of them head off, talking and laughing, and a small part of me regretted not going with them. But I’d made a promise, and after everything that happened tonight, I wasn’t about to put it off any longer.

Croc’s googly eyes swiveled toward me, the mimic’s head cocked to the side. “Well, Dan, what now? I’ll admit, getting a bite to eat sounds nice, but if there’s work to be done, then I’m you’re your dog. So what’s the plan? Do we need to go crack some skulls? Sort through Relics? Fill out corporate paperwork, now that you’re a big time Franchise owner? Maybe give Ponypuff a talk on boundaries and what constitutes a hostile work environment?”

I shook my head, a grin tugging at my cracked lips. “No. Something more important.”

“What could be more important than that stuff, Dan? Especially the bit about Ponypuff.”

I thought about the Franchisor. How he’d let the mission eat him alive, how he’d forgotten the point of surviving in the first place. Grinding was important. But so was living.

“I need you to raid the fridge,” I said solemnly. “Grab as much froyo as you can carry. Then meet me back down here.”

Croc blinked, confused. “Uh… why?”

“Because,” I said, grinning wider, “I promised to take you on those slides back in the Loot Arcade and I aim to make sure you have the best night of your life.”

The dog’s googly eyes went wide in delighted surprise. “Really, Dan? Do you really mean it?”

“Friends don’t lie to friends,” I said. “Now get moving, those slides aren’t gonna ride themselves.”

THE END - DISCOUNT DAN BOOK 3