[Steve Says Confirmation Required]

  Steve would like to be released from his slime prison. He has an itch on his lower back that he is unable to reach and it is driving him insane. Also, he can no longer feel his feet, and it is starting to worry him.

  Do you wish to proceed?

  YES — NO

  I clicked ‘No’ out of habit.

  “Should we really just have left him there?” Panda asked as I zoomed towards the wall of the Singing City on my longboard. The enormous figure of Miranda was visible above it, her head and horns rising higher than most of the bone towers. At any moment she would reach the wall and smash her way through. I was hoping to stop her before that could happen.

  [Superfluous!] the board exclaimed as I did a kickflip to build speed.

  “He’s not gonna hurt anybody,” I said. “He’s more of a liability when he can use his arms and legs.”

  “But he said he’d help fight Miranda,” Panda replied.

  “We don’t need no help!” Brock exclaimed.

  “That’s right,” I said, downing one of my Victory Champagnes from the Weaponlution event to reset all of my cooldowns. I still had four more remaining, and I was planning on exploiting the hell out of them while I still had the chance.

  Victory Champagne consumed!

  All Skill cooldowns have been reset!

  “I beg to differ,” Panda replied, eyeing the glass in my hand as it evaporated. “She will definitely kill you.”

  “I killed Gargalob with ease, this won’t be any different,” I said.

  “How many times do I have to tell you that she’s so much stronger than he was!?” Panda exclaimed exasperatedly.

  As we came up to the wall, I kicked off from the ashy ground and landed sideways on the strange organically-shaped bone structure, riding to the top without any fear of slipping, since my longboard didn’t follow the rules of gravity, nor logic for that matter.

  The moment I reached the top of the wall, a massive heart-shaped spell flew through where I stood, launched from Miranda’s giant palm.

  “GOT YOU!!” she screamed.

  WARNING!

  You have been afflicted with ‘Fatal Attraction’!

  Time remaining:

  0 seconds, because this kills you…

  Time stopped.

  SKILL TRIGGER!

  Reap This! triggered.

  In the space between Miranda and I, who were separated by about half a kilometer, a massive copper coin launched up into the air, flipping as it flew past the buildings and towers. Miranda’s enormous head tracked the coin as it continued up and up. Then a moment later it started to fall, striking an invisible surface in the air where we could both see it, and coming to an immediate stop.

  Strangely, it landed on its edge, showing neither heads nor tails pointing up.

  Uh… It’s a draw!

  “What the hell!” I exclaimed.

  “Just be glad it didn’t kill you…” Panda said.

  This tale has been pilfered from Royal Road. If found on Amazon, kindly file a report.

  “Rules of Anarchy(Fuck Gravity)!” I shouted as I triggered SPRING_HEEL and leapt from the top of the wall.

  Rules of Anarchy Activated!

  Passive Selected: Fuck Gravity

  Description:

  Gravity has no control over you.

  I immediately set my new gravity to be aimed at Miranda’s neck and then I accelerated to terminal velocity.

  At the same time, Miranda fired a beam of some pinkish-purple magic that turned the surface of all the bone buildings it touched into pink shag carpet sprouting weird plants and flowers.

  I activated Cooldown Claymore moments before reaching Miranda, slicing its crackling orange energy blade through her neck and leaving a scorched wound. But it immediately healed as I came back around from the boomerang effect of my Fuck Gravity tethered to her.

  “It won’t work!” Panda yelled from where he held on to my hair.

  But I didn’t let up and I flew past her again, adjusting my gravity on the fly and dragging the blade down from her neck and through the front of her torso, passing through her cleavage like it was a great canyon.

  But even as my energy sword crackled and spat from carving up her flesh and boiling her strangely-colored blood, I saw how the rend I left in my wake was zipped back up with no trouble at all.

  Then I reached the ground and she cackled as she tried to squish me under her bare feet.

  “This is not how I wanna die!” I exclaimed, swerving around to avoid being crushed.

  “Fly back up! Hurry!” Panda yelled.

  I ignored him and pointed ahead of me. “Skippy!”

  A black droplet fell a few meters from above the bone-white ground and caused waves to roll through the area, as though everything had turned liquid. Then a thrum shook the air and a black pond appeared. Skippy poked his head out cautiously, clearly worried about what would happen to him this time.

  I flew past him, just as he started to speak.

  “You have called for me again, Gambit,” he said in his bassy voice. “I did not appreciate last time when you—”

  SPLAT!

  Miranda’s giant foot crushed Skippy, flattening the part of his body outside the black pond while pushing the rest of him back inside.

  “ARGH!! COME BACK HERE YOU LITTLE TEASE!!” Miranda screamed as her foot sunk down into the bottomless dark water and she started to fall forward.

  I set my gravity back to normal and skidded a few meters across the ground while her enormous figure started to plummet.

  Then I started charging up Brock.

  “This cunt’s gon’ get it!!” he squealed excitedly.

  “Woah, that’s a bit harsh,” I told him.

  “Really, Gambit?” Panda asked.

  Miranda screamed in outrage and anger as her head fell down towards me.

  I activated SPRING_HEEL and fired myself up, yelling, “1-armed_Bandit.exe!”

  My balloon-covered fist barely poked Miranda’s forehead and time froze.

  “We really shouldn’t be relying on luck…” Panda muttered.

  The golden slot machine landed in the air next to Miranda’s enormous face and me, rattling as though it was full of coins. Since I’d triggered “moneySucker( )” last time I’d used it, unfortunately passing all of the Delightful Reaper’s wealth to my Fall Guy, a new option had appeared. At the top of the screen’s icons on the slot machine was a blue fist that read “My arm is an orbital laser!”, a green rain cloud with “Messimer staring contest”, a yellow treasure chest reading “Trust me, you don’t want to know what this does…”, and lastly a black skull that read “Demon Incursion”.

  “You know what to do,” I told Panda.

  He groaned before taking a running start and jumping from my shoulder to the lever, just barely managing to grab it and pulling it down.

  The three wheels started spinning, moving too fast to really distinguish the icons and blurring the colors into one smear. We all waited patiently for the 10 seconds it took for it to slow down, with Miranda’s eye switching between me and the slot machine while it played its little jingle.

  I was really hoping it wouldn’t land on three different colors this time, since that’d blown up my fist the first time, and while it might deal a good amount of damage to Miranda, I wasn’t keen on losing my hand again.

  Then the first symbol came to a stop, showing a green cloud. The second showed a blue fist, and then the last symbol continued slowly spinning for a while, really teasing us all before finally settling on a green cloud as well.

  “Uh oh,” Panda muttered from where he held on to the lever.

  Result: Green Pair!

  Messimer Staring Contest effect triggered.

  “First one to blink is a loser!”

  Miranda and I had our heads and necks violently bent back so that we stared straight up into the sky. The giant eye above that emanated the red light was pushed aside as the eye of Messimer appeared. Even though it was literally just an eye, it was immediately clear that the God-like creature didn’t take kindly to being summoned by my ability.

  When the Demon Duchess immediately started to scream, I knew I had the contest in the bag, even though I could feel something boiling inside my eyeballs and felt the wriggling worms of eldritch understanding dig around in my ear canals and nostrils.

  Miranda, Demon Duchess of Throbbing Excitement, blinked first!

  That means Player ‘Gambit’ wins the staring contest!

  Time resumed and as I plopped back down to the ground, Miranda quickly lost all of her size, shriveling and becoming as small as my forearm, looking like a dried pink worm with purple hair.

  I picked her up and was surprised by the pop-up that arrived, since she was definitely still alive.

  [‘Miranda Worm’ x ]

  Monstrosity Material

  +25 to Dexterity

  +12 to Athleticism

  +Charm Immunity passive

  +Lustful Aura passive

  +Lethal Attraction ability

  Weight: approximately two

  “This is really not how I expected this to go…” Panda muttered.

  The Miranda Worm grunted and sputtered.

  “We should have everything for the Lordie mech now,” I said. “Bee is gonna be so excited.”

  “You’d better hurry back then,” Panda said. “There’s not a lot of time until this phase comes to an end.”

  I brought out my longboard and headed back towards our base.

  As I skated across the Singing City, I realized that the eye of Messimer that I’d summoned wasn’t going anywhere.

  “I’m sure it’ll be fine,” I muttered to myself.