Alexa

“Alright. So Thomas is still back there in the tower, and we have no way of reaching him.” Ben said. “But he has Chain Lightning and Spider Climb, so he should be fine. As long as he just keeps going up and avoids combat, he should be able to make it to the top. Right?”

Elise was pacing back and forth in the tiny room, brimming with stressful energy to act even though she couldn’t do anything.

“And Azriel isn’t outright hostile. At least not to him, anyway. Maybe Thomas can join forces with the Elite to survive?” Ben continued to talk. “Oh, and I dropped the town guard before we left. That might change things drastically.

“I’m so, soooo sorry. I didn’t realise Thomas wasn’t going to come with us!” I said, tears in my eyes.

“That’s okay.” Miho tried to assure me. “If this could happen, the AI would’ve made it happen whether we wanted it to or not. Maybe. I’m just glad it happened with enough of a heads-up for me to get dressed first, thanks to you. I wouldn’t want to be naked on my first show.”

“That’s for sure.” Elise grunted, still pacing. “I can’t really do much about how I look right now, but he can’t do more with this than make a few shallow period jokes.”

“That immature?” Miho asked.

“Yep. If not moreso.” Ben said. “Strap in, this is going to be an immature shit-throwing fest.”

“Oh, joy.” Miho said.

I continued to sob.

This was my first show for the big public! I was supposed to be hyped and excited right now! Instead I felt like crying, and not because of stage fright.

I wiped away the tears and tried to regain myself. Fuss about other things, Alexa!

Stupid sudden and tense teleportation! I completely forgot to change outfits before we left, and now I couldn’t swap out of my magic schoolgirl uniform. And that while I decided I was going to go on this show in my Quickling outfit! The outfit with proper pants that didn’t made me look like a fat knight.

Stupid lack of an electric guitar! The songs I sang until now were classics, but I bet there were a dozen other people also singing them! And they all had some stupid instrument solo I had to hum, I would look so stupid if they’d show my singing and pick only those parts! Which they totally would!

Stupid Azriel, forcing us to do the tower quest and not leave in time. Sure, Maestro’s show wasn’t supposed to air for another two hours or something and we probably would’ve made our way out of there normally, but still! That asshole Elite completely forced our hand and then dropped a lock-in event on us!

“Please take your seats immediately, the show will start in 30 seconds.” The Roomba floating on the ceiling said.

“I thought it was another two hours?” Ben asked.

“Maestro rescheduled.” The Roomba answered flatly, somehow vocalising a shrug of the shoulders that his armless body couldn’t do.

“Oh, that’s thoughtful of him.” Miho said.

“It’s not. There’s no way.” Ben said. “Maybe it’s just too expensive to rent this boat for two whole hours plus the show?”

“Let’s hope that’s it.” Elise growled, sitting down aggressively.

“You take that side, Miho. You’ll be the furthest away from Maestro there.” Ben said, reluctantly taking the seat right next to Maestro.

“Want me to sit in that seat?” I asked. “I don’t mind being up close to some jerkwad.”

“Well, if you w- No, I’ll sit here. It’s for the best.” Ben said. “I’ve got some experience in this.”

I landed on the table in front of the last empty chair, which was way too big for me to sit on. Well, without being obscured by the table, that is.

The studio appeared around us, and Ben cursed as he saw he was sitting as far away from Maestro as possible. Seems like we were sitting on the Maestro’s left side this time. He quickly got up to switch seats with Miho, but she said it was fine at the same time some gravelly commanding voice told him to stay seated.

“And we’ve got some returning guests today, my little piglets! Well, some of them, while others are new additions to the team! They managed to win a Skull Empire demigriff last time they were here, and since managed to get it killed! How pathetic are you, if you can’t even keep a pet alive on the first three floors!?” A big muscular orc dressed to overcompensate said.

There were some glurps, some pretty loud and excited ones here and there, but half of the audience didn’t seem that into it.

The audience turned their attention to us, meaning we were now visible. Darryl already told me we wouldn’t appear right away, that we would get some time to adjust to the location.

“You may remember these guys as the arseholes that cost you a lot of money by not dying in a fight with a Big Bad Woolf!” Maestro said. “Let’s have a quick recap, shall we?”

Maestro turned his attention to the screen, and a compilation of our actions started to play. It started with Elise, depicting her as a dumb brute with impulsive rage and a huge bitch complex. Then it showed Ben as an impulsive sneak and his three Neighbourhood Boss kills, before briefly showing an unarmed Darryl cowardly running away from an office lady gecko.

It showed Thomas, both before and after his transformation, highlighting both positives like when he dominated with his Chain Lightning spell against the Vespa and negatives of him cowering in the back watching the others fight doing nothing himself.

There was a quick clip of the group being awesome as they fought the Woolf, and I a little jealous that I hadn’t been part of the group at that point yet. It looked amazing how they took her down!

Miho looked down at the table covering her flushed face as her video reel was almost exclusively of the times she was naked after a transformation. The audience jeered and cheered, and several of them whistled at her.

And then it was my turn. I braced myself to hear those awful piano and violin solos I mimicked, only to freeze in shock as Maestro showed the time right after my transformation that I was butt naked gathering leaves to fashion into a dress. How the hell did he even have that footage!? The Syndicate didn’t allow this kind of stuff, right!? Right?!

I barely even heard the jeers and whistling from the audience as my reel continued to show my low points. Ending up in a cooking pot, my charged Mana Bubble misses, me sulking in the corner after the centipede incident, everything. The jeers turned to laughter, and my cheeks went redder than Miho’s.

“I do say, I think these two new additions are better than those two sticks in the mud they’re replacing!” Maestro said. “Now you may wonder, my little piglets, why we are starting so much earlier today! Well, that’s because our guests today happened to hit a little snag, and it’s happening as we speak. So, without further ado, we are going to switch up our schedule and go straight to your favourite part of the show!”

Part of the audience chanted along as the screen turned to show the metallic words ‘Death Watch’, followed by an explosion as massive burning rock letters spelling ‘EXTREME!!!’ appeared underneath them.

The quest description quickly scrolled over the screen, along with a 3D rendering of the tower and bright red and blue dots moving at enhanced speed to show what happened thus far. I briefly saw the portraits of the four people that died because of this quest. Oddly enough Azriel’s dot was unlabelled, a regular red dot.

“And then we teleported these four out, leaving poor lonely Thomas to fend for herself!” The Maestro said in a mock sad tone. “And I wonder, will the spider witch be able to survive a horde of ghouls, a worg Neighbourhood Boss and a swarm of harpies all by herself? Or will she get squashed like a bug!?”

The screen switched to a Thomas-cam, showing Thomas climbing to the next floor from an angle that showed Shalander but obscured Azriel. The ghoul appeared to be fighting the town guard instead, though I wasn’t sure if they photoshopped it over the Elite or if the guard was truly moving so much faster. The camera moved along automatically as Thomas immediately moved to a hole in the ceiling leading to the next floor.

“Our Artillery Mage is the big star today, but we’ve got four contestants in total!” Maestro said, as a second screen appeared showing Darryl lying on a pile of junk, Hiu hiding in a corner and some black swan lady running away as she swatted a torch at some vines.

I stared at Darryl. The health bar on the side of the screen told us he was alive and unharmed, but he wasn’t moving and looked like he wasn’t even conscious. What happened? I was sure that he answered Thomas every five minutes, did some kind of mob perhaps highjack his chat and impersonate him?

Were two of my friends going to die while I could do nothing but watch?

“Now, my guests. You’ve been here before and you know the drill. Will they live?” Maestro said.

“Or die!” Part of the audience cheered.

“Before you answer, I should tell you what your rewards will be.” The Maestro said, holding up his hand to silence us even though no one was about to speak up. “For every answer you get right, we’ll send one of you back right away. I’ll even be nice and send you right to the location of your surviving party members! If you answer wrong, then all of you are going to stay for the whole show. Lucky you, you’ll win either way.”

“Darryl and Thomas will survive.” Elise said without hesitation.

Miho hesitated a bit longer, looked at the rest of us for confirmation without getting and answer, and then spoke up. “Tatiana will die. A-And so will Hiu.”

I looked at her, and she bent over a bit to whisper. “If we say they live, we get no teleports until it’s too late for it to matter. If someone dies, we don’t have to wait until this is over. We should’ve said they were all going to die, but…”

I nodded, as did Ben. Good thing that one of us was still thinking clearly, especially now that Thomas was absent.

“We’ve got our answer. Now, let’s see if you’re correct!” Maestro said.

The audience grew hazy as the Thomas cam went full-screen, us and Darryl being small side screens as we watched Thomas run away. It seems like Maestro rushed to this point for no reason, as nothing happened for a few minutes. The hologram of the tower showed that the ghouls were gradually gaining on him, but they were still several floors away. He might be able to make it.

“Damn it, Darryl. Why aren’t you moving?” Elise muttered under her breath as she stared intently at the screen.

The Maestro turned to her, and a big shit-eating grin slowly formed on his lips.

“Ha! Seems like our guests don’t even know their own races and limitations!” The Maestro said, returning to the main screen while Thomas kept running on the side. “Your friend Darryl is a Cobalt Talossian, girl! The pack ones, who should never be left alone!

“It’s very simple! Unlike other Talossi, who are all loners more often than not, Cobalt Talossi tend to stick together and can socialise well with other species! But this is not just a matter of being nice! If a Cobalt Talossian is ever left all alone, they freeze up and wait until some friends show up while they cry on the inside! They go inert until they’re no longer alone, or die of starvation!

“Your friend must’ve been so distraught, abandoned by you guys! Standing there in the dark, unable to move! And if I hadn’t told you, you might’ve forgotten about him and left him there indefinitely!”

The Maestro laughed obnoxiously loud, and some of the audience laughed along. Most didn’t seem to be that interested in this topic.

The screen went back to Thomas, and Maestro’s punch-able smirk melted into an annoyed scowl the moment the camera wasn’t on him anymore. “This damn better end up entertaining.”

Two of the smaller screens converged and went onto the main screen, as Darryl suddenly jumped up and came to Tatiana’s rescue. The audience laughed as he considered getting grappled and rolling in fire to be the best solution to defeat some plants.

“Oh yeah, destroy the altar. That’s always a good plan.” Maestro joked, and the audience chuckled knowingly. Darryl couldn’t hear him, and kept throwing junk at the burning sacrificial slab.

“When did you guys get your hands on a cushioned rocking chair?” I asked.

“Sheaman Neighbourhood Boss room. We take everything we can loot.” Ben said, only half paying attention as he instead kept staring at Darryl’s and Thomas’s feeds.

“And you never considered using it for sitting on? Or giving it away?” I asked. “There were a lot of people sitting on the ground for days, back on the second floor when there were too many people to fit in the Safe Rooms.”

“Huh. Never thought about that.” Ben said.

“Doesn’t matter.” I said. “I just hope that nothing bad happens when Darryl destroys that shrine.”

The audience held their breath as Darryl took out his crude hammer and brought it down on the stone slab, shattering it. They then sighed in disappointment as nothing happened.

“Well, I suppose a 90% chance to Smite means that every once in a while there won’t be one.” The Maestro said, trying to cheer up the audience while laying it on thick that he too wanted to see some smiting. “Don’t worry, there will be plenty more opportunities for these two to get themselves killed!”

Darryl then handed Tatiana a bottle of some chemical, and started to splash the contents of another bottle onto the pillar. The audience whispered confused, until someone behind the scenes grasped what was going on and added a description of what happened when the two chemicals were combined onto the screen. That seemed to draw their interest.

“Seems like someone realised that he’s going to die, and decided to take everyone else with him!” Maestro said, getting hyped. “Now that’s the kind of crawler behaviour we like to see!”