The entire Madeville Metro Station platform was immediately flooded, as enough water to fill an Olympic swimming pool rushed towards us. Except, it wasn’t water. It was blood that, despite its viscosity, came like one massive tsunami.
Behind his Birthday Table, Steve was immediately swept away, Nina and Chris quickly followed suit. The Venomancer had clearly prepared for shrapnel similar to when a Taxi creature died, but, despite the Metro Train having a body that was at least half metal, it was only blood that came at us.
Steve flew past me aboard a crimson wave shouting for help, then the blood swept me off my feet as well. All the while, the water level rose and pushed us all towards the ceiling.
“Swim towards the stairs!” Chris yelled to everyone.
I tumbled around while quickly being pushed towards the back wall opposite the track, where the Monstrosity had died. Its body was blocking the tunnel almost perfectly, meaning that the blood couldn’t escape that way, which added a lot more pressure behind it.
“Aim your feet towards the wall and use Spring Heel to launch yourself to the right,” Panda told me, his voice clear in my ears, even though he had vanished from my shoulder.
I curled up my legs and tried to orient myself properly. Then I felt the soles of my Schmonic Boots touch something solid and immediately kicked off, triggering my passive.
But the current and pressure from the blood, which seemed to still shoot gleefully out of the large Metro Train’s corpse, had other ideas for where I was going. I wasn’t planning on drowning though.
I swung Brock behind me and punched against the water. The boost from SPRING_HEEL, as well as his innate boost to impact, created a massive bubble that exploded and flung me towards the staircase.
My knees and palms hit solid ground, and I quickly pulled myself from the water’s grasp and moved up the stairs, while it bubbled up the steps behind me.
Nina and Chris arrived shortly after me, with the Venomancer dragging a neon-green rope tied around the Birthday Brat’s waist.
As soon as she was out of the insidious blood, Nina’s hair evaporated and she turned back into Tina.
Chris helped Steve to his feet, and the four of us hurried up towards fresh air, while more and more blood followed behind us.
“So much for going back that way,” Chris muttered.
“It was designed for just one-way travel,” Panda remarked, even though the Backstabber couldn’t hear him. He was back on my shoulder, though I had no idea where he’d gone earlier. Unsurprisingly, he was spotless.
We emerged out onto the street at the top of the stairwell, but none of us stopped, as the rush of the crimson flood was right on our heels.
Tina pointed straight across the street. “Nina said the Lost Child is in there.”
On the other side, set into a four-story red brick building, was a furniture store, which specialized in bedroom interior, called ‘Sweet Dreams’. Its windows were frosted and impossible to see through, and it had an old-timey white wooden door with a curled metal handle.
Chris immediately ran out in front of us, obviously eager to find his brother. The rest of us weren’t far behind. The street itself was crowded with abandoned cars and scooters, those infernal things that a lot of Madeville people used. To my excitement, there was a deep furrow in the asphalt, left behind by something heavy pulling itself around, and the vehicles were pushed aside where they’d been blocking its route.
Behind us, the Metro Train’s blood had reached the top of the stairwell and was spreading out onto the sidewalk. It probably wasn’t good that the Human-Eater was defeated, since the Great Game had a tendency to fill any vacuums left behind by strong monsters or entities perishing, but holding back from killing things because I was scared of the consequences was not something I did.
We reached the door to Sweet Dreams, just as the reward achievement hit.
Congratulations! You have unlocked an achievement! x
‘Destination or Death!’
Completed a Metro Trains’ Mini GAME.
The Dungeon Architects who designed that Mini GAME are overjoyed at how thrilling you made it look. They had a bit of a self-esteem issue about it, since everyone else said it was dumb.
Thank you for finally giving us footage that we can use to display the exciting nature of the GREAT GAME to our audience.
You have now defeated the top of the Apex Predator of the Public Transportation in your Region, but, as you know from experience, this leaves the door open for something else to take its place. Normally, we’d have rerouted one of the railway lines to travel through Castleburg and Madeville, but a Lust Duchess was kind enough to lend us one of her servants instead, which really helps our budget.
This story has been stolen from Royal Road. If you read it on Amazon, please report it
Enjoy your rewards and consequences.
Rewards: ‘Metro Train Brain’ & 150x ‘GAME Coins’
image [https://i.imgur.com/61W7RWJ.png]
A brain cube landed in front of all four of us. Steve and Chris both looked horrified by the thing, the latter a bit more, probably because he thought he’d have to eat it, like with the Unicorn Liver.
“Did everyone else get a message about a Lust Duchess lending a servant to replace the Metro Train?” I asked.
They all looked at me and it was immediately obvious that they hadn’t.
“Nevermind then…” I muttered, before inspecting the cube.
‘Metro Train Brain’ x
The brain of a Metro Train that you defeated by completing its Puzzle Game. A flame of sentience still burns at its core.
In order to access the power trapped within, you have to kick it as far as you can, using your bare feet.
Yes. This is a fetish thing again. We’re being upfront with it now for transparency’s sake.
Weight: 1 Panda
image [https://i.imgur.com/j3IawCX.png]
Without hesitation, I took a step back, pulled my right Schmonic Boot off, and then punted the brain as hard as I could towards the top of the Metro Station’s flooded stairwell. It went right into the blood still bubbling up from below and disappeared from sight a second later.
“Goal!!” Brock squealed excitedly.
Choose your reward! x
You can’t even imagine how much this footage sells for.
On a related note, the whole world of Soccer is basically hardcore fetish material for the freaks in our audience. We did a deep-dive on your ridiculous sports culture just before the GREAT GAME began and basically funded half of the GAME Events from the reruns we sold just about that one sport.
Pick one of the options:
‘Damage.sleep(3000)’ | ‘Lil Metro’ | ‘WereTukTuk’
‘Damage.sleep(3000)’ x
Passive
What does this have to do with trains? Well, you can’t spell Public Transportation without ‘d-e-l-a-y-s’!
All damage is delayed by 3000 milliseconds, but multiplied by 3.
‘Lil Metro’ x
Passive
On the list of bizarre pets, this one is still below some of the ones humans were known to keep.
Receive a tiny Metro Train snake as a personal companion, which will temporarily become full-sized whenever it is placed on train tracks. Becoming full-sized makes it operate as normal transportation, while giving you control over who can use it and where it goes.
‘WereTukTuk’ x
Passive
Half man, half Tuk Tuk, 100% nightmare fuel.
When moving along a street, you transform into a Tuk Tuk that can seat up to five people.
While transformed you move three times as fast as normal.
Anyone using you as a vehicle automatically pays you 10x GAME Coins every minute.
image [https://i.imgur.com/Wp2Muqo.png]
image [https://i.imgur.com/81ANR33.png]
image [https://i.imgur.com/R75agWp.png]
image [https://i.imgur.com/zrbD93C.png]
“I’m picking the delayed damage one,” I immediately said and clicked it.
I already had enough in the way of transportation, so I didn’t need the other two. Not to mention, if I got a hold of the Humanbus in Madeville, then I could use my Safe Zone Sphere to turn it into my own personal transport. Or well, that was the idea anyway.
“Breezy won’t like this,” Panda muttered to himself.
“Why not?”
“The damage potential for Pow Punch will skyrocket.”
“Why are you upset about that?”
“Breezy will definitely take it away if he has to come correct it again.”
“How bad can it be? Like, what’s the maximum potential damage if I have 30 punches stored up?”
“I’m not 100% sure, but I think it would be like 150 trillion damage…”
I blinked. “Woah.”
“Still, that’s not even close to what you already pulled off, but it’s more than enough to kill anything in front of you. I’ve also been wondering what’d have happened if you’d used the original version of Pow outside of the Broadcast HQ. Pretty sure you’d have destroyed all of Castleburg in the direction you punched.”
“So, what’s my safe range of punches when I’m at max potential?”
“4 or 5…”
“Seriously?”
“Yeah. 4 punches would be 600 thousand damage. 5 would be 5.1 million.”
Chris and Steve both suddenly punted their brain cubes. Tina was hugging hers for some reason.
“Guess I won’t use Pow with these guys around,” I whispered so only Panda could hear.
Nonetheless, I was excited about using my full potential against the Queen of the assholes that’d taken Bee from me.