We climbed the fifty steps that led out of our base, the red-tinted light from above growing stronger the higher we climbed, until we reached the top which emerged out from a hill in an ash-covered landscape.
Hills like ours ringed around a gigantic city. The sky above was a mix of bruise colors, and there was a single large eye emanating the red light that covered everything. For some reason, I was completely certain this eye didn’t belong to Messimer.
The city was surrounded by a towering wall, but it was like a large mesh of off-white bone, full of meters-wide diamond-shaped holes that we could easily pass through. The buildings within its border were skyscrapers and spiraling towers of the same material, and even from here it was possible to see some of the things roaming its streets.
They were colossal in stature, heads reaching up over the buildings. One of them looked humanoid, except its blue-skinned body was covered in holes that went all the way through it, within which crawled enormous parasites. Another was just a knot of beige arms, swinging between the buildings to smash into a different giant, a silver-scaled snake with three eyes and horns.
It looked like a chaotic mess, and I wasn’t really sure how we were meant to collect anything from those entities, since they made the Lord of Sinners look like a small child by comparison.
“James!” Chris exclaimed and we all looked back down at the stairwell where his brother was trapped.
“He can’t leave,” Panda realized.
James was trying to push against an invisible barrier that the rest of us had passed through without noticing.
“Gambit, I need to stay here with him,” Chris told me.
I nodded, understanding that we couldn’t just leave his brother alone here.
“Tell him that Mammon can give them a screen to spectate us through the drones the broadcast department is using,” Panda said.
“They can do that?” Bee asked, surprised.
“Yeah. They just don’t tell you,” Panda replied.
I passed on the words and Chris had the same reaction as Bee.
“Do you want to stay here too?” I asked Cooper.
“I have to find my friends,” he said resolutely.
I finally decided to appraise him, since I actually had no clue what he could do.
[Appraisal x ]
Level 3 — ‘Cooper’ — Player
“Friendship is magic.”
Class: Care Bear
Main Attribute(s): Strength & Intelligence
Before the GREAT GAME, Cooper worked at a Dairy Queen as a manager of a small team. He has often been viewed as a leader amongst his friends and coworkers, thanks to his calm demeanor and excellent conflict resolution skills.
When he wasn’t working, he spent much of his free time moderating a forum for a children’s show that was uncomfortably popular amongst a large group of adults with a variety of behavioral disorders and stunted mental growths. He easily became a local leader for members of this forum in the Castleburg and Madeville region, since he was the only one who had a steady job and had ever been in a relationship with a real woman.
If not for your interference, he and his gang of cloppers would have been transformed into monsters by the Sweet Dreams Dungeon.
His Class is actually quite powerful, since it has access to healing abilities and gives him a strong resistance towards insanity. It is also one of the fun Classes that turn into something truly special if they hit 100% insanity.
Stolen novel; please report.
For some reason, he respects you.
A group of frightened-looking people emerged from the stairwell to the right of ours, but the moment they saw us they dove back down into their stairwell.
“Let’s get going,” I told the others. “We should put some distance between our base before more people see us.”
“Brock wants to punch that big-ass snake!” my balloon arm exclaimed.
“Please don’t do that,” Panda told me. “I’m pretty sure that’s one of Septen’s children. Which means it can probably turn you to stone, or crystals, or some other form of solid…”
“I wasn’t really planning to,” I replied. “Even I know how foolish it’d be to fight one of those giants.”
“Oh, thank the Gods,” Panda muttered.
Bee lifted into the air, and I summoned my longboard.
Cooper looked between us. “I don’t think I can keep up with you on foot,” he said.
“Don’t worry about it,” I replied and picked him up, setting him on my shoulders.
“This is deeply humiliating,” Cooper remarked, putting his meaty hands on top of my head.
“No time to complain!” I said and took off down the hill.
The ground around the Singing City was covered with at least a meter of ash, if not more, but thanks to my physics-defying longboard, I was able to just skim across it without sinking in.
[‘Skater Boy’ x ]
Ability
Admit it, you’ve always wanted to be that guy. Well, now you can be! Skate! Do a flip! Grind a railing! Sustain eighteen compound fractures to your skull! Wooh!
Summon a semi-sentient Skateboard that works like normal but picks up speed if you perform tricks. It has a slight disregard for the laws of physics so long as one of your feet is on it.
Cooldown: 20 minutes
Duration: 10 minutes
I felt as Cooper turned around to look behind us. “There are only a few other teams going towards the city,” he said. “Wait, I see someone who is flying!”
“Flying?” Panda asked. “Could it be…?”
“Does he have a red mask?” I asked, realizing what Panda was suggesting.
“Yeah. How did you know?” Cooper replied.
“Shit,” I muttered. “That’s gotta be Matthew Twine.”
“How?” Bee asked, floating down besides us, putting a hand on Cooper’s shoulder to borrow our speed.
“He got that Red Pawn mask in the last dimension,” Panda said. “Since the Flayed Lady has shown she disregards the rules of the Great Game, and really wants to kill you two, it’s little surprise she’d pull something like this.”
“If he tries anything, I’ll tear his wings off,” I said.
“You should just try to destroy the mask,” Panda advised. “All of his borrowed power is sealed within that thing.”
“I also see someone riding a golden balloon giraffe in the distance,” Cooper announced.
“That’s gotta be John Ritter, the looner guy,” I said.
“Looner?” Cooper asked.
“I know I shouldn’t be judgmental here,” Panda started, “but how does the weird pony guy not know what a looner is?”
“He really likes balloons,” I just replied.
“He tried to molest Gambit’s balloon,” Bee added.
“It was really traumatizing!!” Brock squealed.
“Is he coming this way?” I asked.
“He is,” Cooper said. “I think he’s waving at us, but it’s a bit hard to tell. His clothes look really strange.”
I chained a few tricks to speed up the longboard. It would be too awkward to deal with the guy right now, and we had to focus on the event objective, at least until I found a way to break the rules.
“I don’t think Breezy will let you,” Panda remarked as we passed through one of the countless openings in the wall.
On the other side, the ground was made of polished white bone that looked like porcelain. There were no breaks anywhere, as though all of it was formed of one solid piece, which was unthinkable. There were also features like fountains, benches, pillars, and humanoid sculptures scattered around the street that we sped through. Huddled between the large towers and skyscrapers were smaller organically-shaped buildings that looked like parasitic growths, though they were also made from bone.
I grinded along a bench and did a 180 heelflip to dismount, getting a lot more air than was normally possible, enabling me to hook a front wheel on the nose of a statue to spin the board 360 degrees before I landed. The longboard kicked hard from the sudden burst of speed and Cooper yelped where he sat on my shoulders.
An achievement appeared when we rounded a corner onto a large boulevard.
[Congratulations! You have unlocked an achievement! x ]
‘Playground of Monsters’
Entered the Singing City.
Mortals really do not belong in this place.
It is clear that the organizers of the GREAT GAME really want to cut down the number of Players left so they can more easily control the outcome going forward.
Although this was scheduled to be the Second Event, it was shifted to be the first, since you were deemed to have too big of an advantage if they did Weaponlution again. Plus, I think they’re scared of you and Bee getting unique weapons, since neither of you follow the rules in the slightest.
However, this screws things up a bit, and means that the Regions will be opened up a lot sooner than intended, since the Third Event, which will be your Second, pits Regions against one another.
Anyway, the end result of all this is that the Castleburg Region will be the only one that gets to experience this Event.
If I were you, I would use this fact to my advantage.
Because, although the Singing City is a dangerous place, it is also full of buried power.
I will be hanging out in the central tower, commentating from there.
They are short on Announcers for this Region, so they are calling in all the favors they can.
If you stop by, I’d really like to try what one of those giant creatures taste like.
Happy hunting!
Reward: ‘Singing City Commemorative Poster’
