I gasped and found myself standing in front of the entrance to Water Wizard’s Wonderland, which was not where I’d been a second ago.
“That wasn’t a second,” Panda muttered. “You were out for like 12 hours… Breezy really isn’t playing around this time.”
Next to me, Bee and Tina both gasped as well. They were no longer translucent from the Adjudicator’s ‘Phase Locked’ spell that he’d inflicted on us.
“The Judge is not to be trifled with!” Nina’s ominously-deep voice exclaimed.
Bee looked around.
“How did we get here?” she asked. “Wasn’t it night-time a moment ago?”
It seemed like she couldn’t recall the encounter with Axe, the Adjudicator-in-Training. That was probably for the best.
“Oh! I see Panda!” Bee suddenly exclaimed.
The plushie immediately hopped over to her shoulder.
“About time,” he said.
“You’re heavy,” she told him.
“Woah… That’s the first thing you tell me? I’m offended, Bee.”
“She’s not wrong,” I said.
“I’m just saying, you’re heavy for a plushie,” she continued.
Tina nodded. “He is like my Adam,” she said, her voice back to normal.
“I’m not fat!” Panda shouted. “Stop fat-shaming me!”
“No one said you’re fat,” I told him. “You’re just a heavy little sack of fluff.”
“Meow?” Lordie asked self-consciously.
“No you’re not that heavy,” I told him.
Suddenly monsoon-level rain poured down over us and the nearby parking lot. Except it wasn’t water. It was blood.
“It’s starting!” I said excitedly.
For some reason, the rain didn’t fall inside the water park. Then I realized why we’d been moved. The Water Wonderland was a public facility, indicated by the lights that were on, and when the Great Game was initialized it turned into a dungeon. Breezy had moved us outside and spared us from becoming monsters.
A loud-ass voice rang out from a few streets away.
[YUMMY-YUMMY! THE FEET ON THE BUS GO ROUND-AND-ROUND, AND MY TEETH GO CHOMP, CHOMP!]
“What’s that?” Bee asked.
“A Humanbus,” I said. “We’re going to capture it and turn it into a Safe Zone.”
“You should probably check your inventory to make sure they haven’t confiscated the Safe Zone Sphere while you were out,” Panda told me.
I hadn’t even realized that they might do such a thing and anxiety suddenly gripped me.
Before I could check my inventory, a pop-up appeared in front of my eyes. From the way that Bee’s and Tina’s eyes lit up with a blue light, it was clear they’d gotten something similar.
[Congratulations! You have unlocked an achievement! x ]
‘The Lock and the Key’
You are the chosen one.
Seek the Truth, Glitched Prophet.
At last you have found your way to the right dimension.
You possess the Lock and the Key.
You possess the Catalyst.
Do what must be done.
Follow the red light at the end of the tunnel.
Destroy the System’s chains.
Let Chaos rule.
Reward: ‘????’ Class
“What the h—?” Panda started to say but was immediately interrupted.
*Tap-tap*
…
Is this thing on?
Oh, it is?
*Ahem*
Welcome one and all to the GREAT GAME (trademark pending)!
I knew everything that was about to be said and this time I wasn’t forced to listen to the wasp Announcer drone on-and-on, because this time I had the means to break free.
You may have already noticed a few minor changes.
Those of you who were using public transport at the time—
I concentrated as hard as I could and activated the skill I’d gotten from the Sweet Dreams dungeon in the last dimension.
SKILL TRIGGER!
wakeUp triggered.
You have broken free of ‘System Announcement’.
Although I could still hear Announcer Riii’s grating voice, I was no longer stuck frozen like everything else. Bee and Tina shifted their eyes to me as I rotated my arms, but they couldn’t move.
“Inventory,” I said.
[Gambit’s Inventory x ]
---
‘SYSTEM_CATALYST’, ‘Clean Pajamas’, ‘Looking Glass’, ‘Conspiracy Whistle’, ‘Wet Grey Pajamas’, ‘Pocket-Watch’, ‘Survival Kit’, ‘Victory Champagne (x6)’, ‘Swan Fois Gras’, ‘Hooded Stitched-Skin Robe’, ‘Challenger’s Stopwatch’, ‘Paper Crown’, ‘Cultist Robes’, ‘Soul Compass’, ‘Sewer Map’, ‘Regional Director’s Big Red Button’, ‘Safe Zone Sphere’, ‘I-Love-Sparkles Cap’, ‘Obsidian Headphones’, ‘Child Protective Services Flare’, ‘I Survived the Tonsil-Stone Eye-Bleach T-Shirt’, ‘Whale Bacon’,
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---
GAME Coins: 398.01
Safe Zone Tokens: 5
Lucky Dice: 2
Total Weight: ????
I breathed a sigh of relief. “Thank God, all my shit is still there.”
“Are you thinking what I’m thinking?” Panda asked.
I grinned and pulled out the exact item we’d both been thinking of.
[‘Regional Director’s Big Red Button’ x ]
Item
Dropped by: Ghe-tj-tj-tja
Activating this button forcefully shuts down the Broadcast Department’s Castleburg Regional Headquarters. This will disable all Broadcast Nests within the Region.
What the fuck!? Where did you get this??
Wait, why are you able to move…?
Oh…
Oh no…
Weight: N/A
“Breezy is gonna have another reason to be mad at us,” Panda said.
“Add it to the list,” I replied and slapped the red button.
Boop!
The announcement immediately shut off. However, Tina and Bee remained frozen in place.
Then I got an achievement.
[Congratulations! You have unlocked an achievement! x ]
‘Agency Saboteur!?’
Removed an Agency’s presence from your Region??
I officially have no idea what the actual fuck is going on, and thus I have decided to take unscheduled sick leave starting this very second. Clearly shit’s about to go down, and I’ll be damned if I’ll stay in the office for another moment. I mean, who knows what you’ll blow up next!?
…
…
[ONE MOMENT PLEASE!]
[PLEASE HOLD WHILE WE LOCATE A REPLACEMENT ACHIEVEMENT NARRATOR!]
…
*Garbled and distorted Public Domain piano melody starts playing*
…
[HERE AT ACHIEVEMENT NARRATION INC. WE CARE DEEPLY ABOUT YOUR ACHIEVEMENT EXPERIENCE!]
…
[PLEASE HOLD!]
…
Heyyyy!
I’m Billee!
I just started today, so I hope I can do a satisfactory narration for you!
They normally don’t hire people like me, but apparently there was a staffing shortage.
Lucky!
Hmm, let’s see.
Oh boy, you’ve been busy.
There’s apparently some uproar about you possessing this Big Red Button at the start of the GREAT GAME.
I am supposed to tell you that an Adjudicator will be with you shortly to discuss some things. That sounds fun. Those guys always throw great parties.
Also, to replace the Broadcast Department in your Region, Lord Messimer is going to take over. Did you know that if you manage to make him blink, we’ll give you another achievement?
Since you already have a ‘Rebel’s Ring’, which is meant to be one of the rewards for this achievement, I have given you an extra Lucky Dice instead.
Before I leave you be, here’s a fun fact about beetles:
Not all beetles are considered pests. Ladybugs are beetles and are actually considered to be good luck in many cultures.
Pretty fun right? If you ever meet a Ladybug in the GREAT GAME though, you might not believe the encounter to be a sign of good fortune.
See you later!
Rewards: Consequences, 2x ‘Lucky Dice’
[‘Lucky Dice’ x ]
Item
Everyone has a method for tweaking their luck. Most of them, like wearing your smelliest pair of underwear or chopping off a rabbit’s foot, are obviously superstitions that don’t work. This pair of dice is different.
Roll this pair of dice to make your next luck-based Encounter, Skill, or Loot Drop veer heavily in your favor.
Charges: 1
This item appears on your Appraisal!
Weight: 0.3 Pandas
Two pairs of dice landed in my hands before immediately vanishing into my inventory.
Like last time I’d removed the Broadcast Department, a new celestial body appeared in the sky. Except it wasn’t a planet. It was a giant eye.
“Oh look, Messimer is back,” I said. I felt something wet trickle out of my tear ducts, nostrils, and ears.
“Look away, you moron!” Panda yelled, but I was suddenly frozen in place, my gaze locked on the Master of the Broadcast Department.
Panda sighed. “If you die from this, then you’ve got nobody but yourself to blame.”
WARNING TO ALL CASTLEBURG PLAYERS!
The Broadcast Department has been removed from your Region by Player ‘Gambit’.
But the broadcast of the GREAT GAME must continue. To this end, the Master of the Department has taken it upon himself to observe you all.
Give the new fixture in the sky a wave, but don’t stare too long.
Then the giant eye in the sky took over the announcement that I’d interrupted.
In the absence of any eligible Announcers for this Region, I have taken it upon myself to perform the GREAT GAME announcements going forward.
My name is Messimer. I am the Master of the Broadcast Department. Due to the interference of a Glitched Player and an unregulated Benefactor, I have been summoned to the Castleburg Region ahead of schedule. Nevertheless, the show will go on as prescribed.
Before Announcer Riii was violently interrupted by the Broadcast Headquarters’ explosion that killed her, she was in the middle of explaining what was happening to your world. I will go back a few steps and take it from the top, but fret not, I will avoid wasting too much of your precious time.
“Earth” has been chosen to participate in the GREAT GAME, and all of you are to be its Players.
This is a show in which the population of a chosen world will struggle for the entertainment of Demons and other sapient species, such as the insect kin that staff the various Agencies required to operate the GAME.
During the GREAT GAME, several Events will be held to whittle down your numbers until a few select winners can be found. These winners will receive cosmic influence and power, elevating them to the level of the Gods themselves.
It would be prudent to keep your wits about you as you traverse your Region, since there are now World Bosses and monsters that roam the overworld. Additionally, all of the public facilities in your Region have turned into Dungeons full of monsters, puzzles, and rewards. Those who found themselves inside these facilities during the initialization have become part of their monstrous roster, their bodies now serving the System. In-between the GAME Events you are expected to fight your way through these Dungeons and defeat their monsters to grow stronger.
To this end, you have all received a starting Class upon the initialization of the GREAT GAME. These are sometimes thematically-appropriate to your character, though in most cases the System will have assigned you a basic Class. As you fight and survive, your Class will go up in level, giving you the ability to increase your attributes such as Strength and Wisdom. Should you survive long enough, you will even reach a level threshold and gain the ability to evolve or change your current Class. It is also possible, albeit rare, to change your Class with a Spontaneous Class Evolution, but only a handful of you will meet the conditions required for such a thing to happen.
For the next twenty-four hours, do your very best to grow strong and competent such that you can put on a great show when the first of many GAME Events begin. Due to the interference mentioned previously, these Events have been altered slightly to not give anyone an unfair advantage.
Before I let you go, please listen to the following message from our Sponsors.
THE GREAT GAME IS BROUGHT TO YOU BY “Everyone you know is dead and gone! You’re all alone! All alone! Hahahahahaha!”
Bee stumbled a step and Tina grumbled as the announcement finally ended.
I blinked the blood tears out of my eyes and finally averted my gaze from Messimer’s moon-sized eyeball in the sky. It felt like worms were eating their way through my brain and something was wriggling behind my left eyeball.
“This sounds almost like a game,” Bee said cheerfully. “I wonder what the Game Event is gonna be.”
“It sounds like it won’t be Weaponlution again,” Panda said.
I frowned. “Damn, I was hoping to get another weapon.”
“You ‘ave me, Gamby!!” Brock squealed.
“Oh no!” Bee suddenly exclaimed.
“What?” I asked.
“It says my Class is ‘N/A’…” she complained. “I also got an achievement saying I should report to something called the CPS. It gave me a flare to summon them.”
“Don’t use it!” Panda told her.
Tina switched back into Nina and warned, “The Judge is coming!”
WARNING!
A GREAT GAME ADJUDICATOR HAS BEEN SUMMONED!
CEASE HOSTILITIES OR BE VAPORISED!
VACATE THE LANDING ZONE IMMEDIATELY!
“Hopefully he’s not mad,” I muttered.
