Ten hours later, fully refreshed and with a stomach full of delicious breakfast pizza, we made our way back to the Jungle Gym Jamboree. Thanks to my VIP doorway anchor, getting into the Arcade was as simple as the press of an elevator button. Although I knew we were walking into trouble, I felt optimistic about our chances. I had no illusions that this was safe. Funtime Frank was level 25, infected with Blight, and had four other high-level Dwellers in his corner.
There was every possibility that at least one of our team members wouldn’t be walking away from the fight.
Still, we were as ready as we were ever going to be. Everyone was rested. We’d topped off our supply of medical-grade elixirs. My Slammer of Shielding had a full charge. And, after a decent night’s sleep, my new Mental Micromanagement spell was working better than ever. Turned out physical and mental exhaustion made it substantially more difficult to use your mind to move shit.
Who would’ve guessed?
We made our way through the labyrinth of plastic tubes that zigzagged through the Arcade. Those tubes spanned the entirety of the enormous Loot Arcade and were the only way to access the funhouse tent that waited at the heart of the Arcade like a fat spider sitting at the center of its web. Unlike the plastic play tubes that graced most kids’ play places, these were the size of sewer pipes and were easily large enough to walk in.
Even with the extra headroom, they were still claustrophobically cramped, swelteringly hot, and oddly echoing—amplifying sounds in strange ways that fooled the ear.
Because the spaces were so tight, we had to move in single file and engaging in physical combat would be difficult, if not impossible. There was no room to swing your arms, much less a baseball bat or giant shield. Thankfully, Temperance wasn’t limited to strictly stabbing and smashing things. Although she focused on agility and dealing damage, she had a handful of useful Mana-based Relics that could pack a nasty punch even in close quarters.
Her most disgusting spell, by far, was Ball of Spiders.
It was exactly what it sounded like. Instead of hurling a ball of magic, she hurled a ball of magical spiders. The spiders all dealt a fractional point of poison damage with each bite, but there were hundreds of the long-legged critters. They served as a great distraction. Turned out, trying to concentrate on anything while being simultaneously swarmed by a couple hundred spiders was no easy task.
Hell, walking through a single strand of spiderwebbing was enough to send me into a fit of panic for a few seconds. I couldn’t even begin to imagine what I would do against a spell like that.
Probably try to set myself on fire.
She also had a DPS ability called Smallpox Blanket that afflicted anyone she cut with Super Smallpox. Lesions would erupt across the victim’s body, dealing disease damage for five minutes or until they were healed. And healing was almost always necessary, because every time one of the pus-filled lesions burst, the effect duration would reset. Much like Temperance herself, the skill was super messed up on every conceivable level. But—also like Temperance—it was very, very effective.
She also had two crowd control abilities.
Puritanical Chains conjured ghostly chains that would root a single target in place for twenty seconds. Her second crowd control spell was Witch Hunt Hysteria. If the target’s Grit was low enough, relative to the caster, Witch Hunt Hysteria had a fifty percent chance of inducing a state of hysteria, causing enemies to turn against one another. The pair of spells made for an excellent, and devastating, combo.
She took point, with me right behind her serving as the trap finder and navigator. Croc came next. The dog constantly tried to wedge itself between me and the wall so we could walk beside each other. There wasn’t enough room for that, but Croc’s attempts were both endearing and oddly reassuring. Jakob brought up the rear, ready to deploy his shields in case anything tried to flank us from behind.
The tubes themselves were more disorienting than dangerous.
There were hundreds of different branching pathways, and without Unerring Arrow to guide us, I had no idea how we ever would’ve found our way through the warren of plastic.
There was a smattering of traps along with a handful of different Dwellers, who all called the tube city home. The most prevalent were the packs of Feral Crotch Goblins. Two feet tall with pudgy legs and plump cherubic faces, they almost would’ve been cute if not for the bloodred eyes, the jagged needle-like teeth, and a wailing cry both loud and persistent enough to drive anyone to madness. On top of all that, the crotch goblins were Blighted—cancerous growths littered their tiny bodies—which made them nightmares to handle.
The worst residents by far, however, were the Ball Pit Barrys.
We had to take several long, twisting slides on our way to the big top.
Initially Croc was excited, but most of them were filled with traps of one kind or another. Nails embedded into the plastic. Or saw blades that popped up from the floor. Or razor wire, stretched tight across the tunnel, meant to decapitate riders as they flew past. Using my telekinesis and my new Trapsmith’s Pry Bar, I managed to disarm the whole lot of ’em with relative ease. But if slides were involved, there was simply no getting around the Ball Pit Barrys.
Each slide dumped us into knee-deep pits filled with colorful plastic balls. Ball pits like that were a staple at every play place I’d ever seen. Kids loved ’em despite the pits being disgustingly unsanitary and cesspools of disease.
Naturally, all of the balls were sentient.
They were also all named Barry for reasons I couldn’t fathom.
The little shits spit acid and hurled the nastiest playground insults I’d ever heard. One called me fat and another said, and I quote, “You’re what happens when a mommy drinks during pregnancy.” One of the Barrys told Temperance that she was the reason “God didn’t talk to humanity anymore,” and Croc had to endure a host of Twilight-themed insults.
“Edward should have cured cancer instead of going to high school!”
Stolen from its rightful author, this tale is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.
“Jacob imprinting on Renesmee was the dumbest plot device in modern literature!”
“The writing in the Twilight series is only okay!”
Croc was nearly reduced to tears.
And killing the Barrys only made things worse, not better. For every Barry killed, two more would spawn, both even louder and more vicious than the original.
They were like Hydras. Except plastic. And meaner.
Thankfully, the Barrys wouldn’t abandon their ball pits, so all we had to do was endure the weak acid spray and insult torrents long enough to clamber back into the tubes.
It took us the better part of two hours, but finally we arrived at an enormous slide that reminded me of a yawning gullet. Hanging above the cavernous maw was a brightly lit sign that read Funtime Frank’s Funhouse, This Way!!! When I cast Unerring Arrow, the ghostly blue line erupted from my chest and disappeared down the slide, quickly vanishing out of sight.
“Whelp, here goes nothing,” I muttered, sitting down on the platform then pushing my body into the darkness beyond.
I braced my hands and feet against the slide walls to slow my downward descent. At the same time, I used my new telekinetic ability to keep my Maglite hovering in the air, its beam illuminating the darkened tube ahead of me. I went slowly, searching for traps. For the first time since entering the labyrinth, I found none. When I got to the bottom, I hollered back up the curving slide, giving the all clear for the others to follow.
Once everyone had safely made it down, we pushed our way through a red-and-white-striped canvas flap and into what looked like the interior of a traveling circus tent.
Old-timey light bulbs dangled from the peaked canopy, radiating outward, reminding me once more of a spider’s web. The air was heavy with the sickly-sweet scent of cotton candy intermingling with stale popcorn and a musky scent that reminded me of the zoo. The floor was covered with hay and peanut shells, which cracked and crunched with each footstep. Temperance could move like a ghost when she had a mind to, and even she made a racket loud enough to wake the dead.
Trying to be stealthy here would be next to impossible.
Ahead, there were four raised platforms, each about five feet tall. Two on the left, two more off to the right.
Resting atop each platform was a circus wagon. Garish red and gold things with huge wheels and open sides. The four wagons were empty, but I imagined they wouldn’t stay that way for long. The far side of the tent was shrouded in a cloak of darkness so thick I couldn’t see shit even when I turned on the Maglite. The beam simply hit the darkness and stopped as though the gloom were actually a solid wall, forged from pure shadow.
I looked a question at Temperance and Jakob, hoping either might have some answers.
Jakob frowned and shook his head, while the murder bunny simply shrugged and pulled her cleaver free with one hand.
“Any idea what we should do here, Croc?” I asked.
“Turn around and go get Froyo?” the dog offered, sounding both scared and apologetic.
“Sorry, buddy,” I replied with a sigh, “we’ve come too far for that.”
“Oh, fiddlesticks,” Croc replied, tail drooping in defeat. “I was afraid you were going to say that.”
“Everyone stay close,” I said softly, “and keep an eye on those platforms.”
I kept my hands free, while my demolition screwdriver floated just above my left shoulder. I could send the thing flying forward like a spear with a thought.
With Croc to my left, Temperance to the right, and Jakob once more bringing up the rear, I edged forward, using Spelunker’s Sixth Sense to scan for traps, mimics, or any other nasty surprises looking to send us all to an early grave.
I didn’t see anything.
No pit falls, pressure plates, or Mana snares.
The peanuts and hay continued to crunch underfoot, not that it mattered much. There was still no sign of Frank or his animatronic jamboree. At least, not until we made it to the center of the room. Although I couldn’t see any sort of pressure plate or mechanical switch, I distinctly heard an audible click, followed by the rumble of an unseen motor and the metallic clanking of great gears groaning into motion.
“It’s a trap!” Jakob hollered, though it was already too late for the warning.
A huge metal cage erupted from the hay-covered floor, shooting upward to form a dome that encompassed the entirety of the tent’s interior. In a heartbeat, we found ourselves trapped inside a carnival version of the Thunderdome. The purpose of the cage was immediately obvious: it was there to cut off any attempt at retreat. We were trapped, and I had a sinking suspicion the walls wouldn’t drop until either Frank was dead or we were.
I winced as a terrible mechanical grinding noise filled the air and overhead spotlights kicked on. Buttery yellow beams of illumination fell on each of the circus wagons. Four animatronic figures rose from the pillar-like platforms in a hiss of multicolored steam, as though they’d been hidden away in elevator shafts below, just waiting for a group of morons to blunder into their lair.
Colorful neon signs flashed above the four wagons, proclaiming each of their names.
On the left was Synthia Lynx, the Keytar Synthesizer, and Drumbo Chumbo, the Pachyderm Percussionist. Off to the right were Vex Vixen, the Foxy Violinist, and Bellatrix Black, the Bassist Bear. They were all level 20, which I’d been expecting.
Their appearance, on the other hand, was wholly unexpected. In my head, I’d envisioned these things as sleek robots, meticulously crafted from chrome, rivets, and neon. Like something ripped out of Blade Runner.
I couldn’t have been more wrong.
These horror shows looked like they’d crawled out of a bad taxidermy shop. Synthia was the unholy bastard child of a human and a cyborg, all wrapped in the mangy fur of a lynx.
Her fur had been dyed electric blue and was crisscrossed with splotchy green stripes, but even at a distance it was easy to spot the mangled seams and crude stitches crisscrossing her body and limbs. Her eyes—which were strangely human—burned with an unnatural blue fire, like bottled lightning. Her hands, a crude merging of human fingers and furry paws, danced effortlessly over a hot pink keytar—half guitar, half piano—which appeared to be a direct extension of her body. A mangy tail swayed rhythmically behind her.
I’d more or less made peace with the fact that Temperance was a furry. I wasn’t comfortable with it exactly, but it didn’t bother me either.
But these things were the stuff of living nightmares personified.
And it wasn’t just Synthia the lynx. They were all like that.
Horrible amalgamations of humanity, machine, and zoo creature.
Drumbo Chumbo was an enormous gray elephant with pebbled hide tightly stretched over a metallic frame. A series of drumheads, each covered with pale tan skin, was embedded directly into the creature’s gargantuan stomach, while a pair of brassy cymbals dangled from both tusks. He wielded a pair of heavy mallets in weirdly human-shaped hands. His eyes, like Synthia’s, were oddly human and seemed to be crying out for help.
Crying for a release from this cruel existence.
Vex Vixen was bright crimson fox, much smaller than the others, and covered in uneven patches of fur and shiny copper plates. Her tail swished back and forth in time with the pounding beat of Drumbo’s percussion work while a purple bow zipped and weaved over a zebra-striped violin.
The last of the four was arguably the most disturbing of all. Bellatrix had the hulking form of a black bear—red muscle and gleaming chrome peeking out from beneath her butchered fur—but the face of a human woman. This woman, whoever she’d been, was beautiful. Her nose straight and refined, her jaw strong with high cheekbones. Unlike the rest, her eyes had been plucked out and replaced by gleaming yellow orbs that pulsed in time with the music. Her claws picked and thumbed at the thick strings of her bass guitar, driving the frantic rhythm of their song.
Naturally, they were playing a synthwave remix of “The Final Countdown,” because of course they fucking were. This whole place was like an ’80s LSD fever dream.
As the music crashed through the circus ring, another overhead spotlight, even larger than the others, burst to life, illuminating the far section of circus tent, previously cloaked in darkness.
And there, standing at the precipice of a series of stadium-style seats, waiting for his grand reveal, was Funtime Frank.
“You’ve got to be fucking shitting me,” I grumbled, running one hand through my hair.