In the end, instead of borrowing some from Steve, we killed the Minor Warden next to the blast door and used its blood to fill up our Glitch Hunter Hearts. The Birthday Brat had commanded his army of mind-slaved ants to defend him and they weren’t letting us get close.

“It was just a joke,” I told him. “You can come out now.”

“I refuse!” he yelled from within the clump of ants.

Tina lifted up the black squishy tube which sloshed with the foul-smelling blood of the Warden. I mimicked her.

As one, we both blew into the ends of the hearts as though they were alien instruments.

The resultant sound was very strange, almost like a giant’s sneeze, but melodic somehow. The white blood exited the tube hearts as rings of smoke, which flew through the air until they hit a wall and popped like water balloons.

Choose your reward! x

Hah! Sucker! You’ve triggered my trap card!

That sound you just made actually created a portal nearby. Agents of the REPD will be flooding to your location in moments. It’s impossible for you to get away now!

Better choose quickly!

Pick one of the options:

‘Kick’ | ‘Blink’ | ‘Nine Lives’

‘Kick’ x

Ability

When someone is griefing in your private server, it’s nice to be able to kick them. This is kind of like that, except you have to physically kick to trigger it.

Kick someone to eject them from a Dungeon, Safe Zone, or other special zone.

Cooldown: 2 minutes

‘Blink’ x

Ability

This ability used to be triggered by literally blinking, but people kept teleporting inside objects and killing themselves, so it was hotfixed.

Not the teleporting inside objects part, the trigger on blinking part. You can still kill yourself with this ability, but, don’t worry, it’s by design now.

Teleport to anywhere that you can see within 100 yards.

Cooldown: 20 seconds

‘Nine Lives’ x

Passive

They say curiosity killed the cat, but they also never say the second half of the quote.

Gain the ability to return from death 9 times.

This ability counts retroactively, meaning you have 7/9 lives remaining.

Once all 9 lives are used, you die permanently, regardless of other death-preventing passives, abilities, or consumables.

image [https://i.imgur.com/chkDQGH.png]

The story has been taken without consent; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.

image [https://i.imgur.com/ZBN6YST.png]

image [https://i.imgur.com/esgv4VY.png]

image [https://i.imgur.com/5VVFr7l.png]

“Motherfuckers!” I exclaimed as I read the first part. Then I hurriedly went through the options, before deciding on ‘Blink’. ‘Nine Lives’ would’ve been a good passive if not for that last part. As it stood, I was better served with my Respawn passive, though I hoped to never need it again.

“Steve, get the fuck out of there! We’ve gotta go!” I called. “Agents are coming!”

Steve peeked his head out from the pile of ants. “Huh!?”

The banshee wailing I’d heard earlier when the Glitch Hunters had appeared sounded throughout the Hive Ship again. The papery floor trembled slightly as the blast door behind us burst open and a horde of ants came out. All of them had deflated gasters, but there was a crazed look about them, as though the wailing had altered their minds in some way. They moved past us without even seeming to register our presence.

“Where are you going!” Steve yelled to his enslaved ants as they all followed after the horde.

Tina went through the blast door first and I was right behind her.

“Get your ass in gear!” Panda called to Steve from my shoulder.

Moments later he caught up to me as we moved into a different part of the Hive Ship. The blast door we’d used shut behind us and sealed us in. Immediately beyond the door was a massive room that, although still made of the papery material, had tall pillars holding up the ceiling. Pathways snaked up the pillars and led to balconies higher up, though I couldn’t tell for what purpose. There were also pod-like huts clustered around along the walls, almost like the rooms of a capsule hotel, and I guessed the ants used these for sleeping.

Steve moved up front, since he had a mapping ability, but before he could point us in a direction, Lordie sprang out from the transport cage. Tina stopped and tried to pet him when he appeared, but the little bastard had other plans as he quickly scuttled off.

“Come back here doggie, I just wanna pet you!” she yelled, running after it.

“For fuck’s sake, Lordie! Where are you going!?” I exclaimed as I followed them. Steve started falling behind as Tina and I pushed our speed to the limit.

“Meow!”

“What did he say?” Panda asked.

“He said he smells something? I don’t know what he’s talking about.”

“Well, you’d better catch him. If he dies, you die too, remember?”

“You don’t need to remind me!”

We followed the hand-spider through a doorway that led us left in relation to the door we’d entered through. Steve was yelling about us going the wrong way and pointing towards the far end of the pillar room, but I wasn’t paying attention.

From the pillar chamber we ran through a wide hallway that led to another blast door that was open. In the threshold of the doorway lay a dead Queenguard with a powered-down shield and next to him were several dead soldiers. The door itself had a strange Rubik’s Cube attached to it.

“That’s from Bee’s Puzzle Lock ability!” Panda exclaimed.

“She isn’t this way,” I said. The tug was pointing in the same direction Steve had wanted us to go.

“But we know she came through here!” the plushie insisted.

Tina nearly caught the hand-spider since she was somehow faster than me, but then she suddenly just dropped to her knees and covered her face while screaming.

Lordie didn’t stop and went through the doorway, climbing over the corpses to get in.

I came up next to her, but before I could ask what was wrong, it hit me.

WARNING!

You have been infected with ‘Eau de Tonsil-Stone Eye-Bleach’!

Time remaining:

N/A

“My eyes!” I screamed, while trying to blindly crawl out of the range of the smell.

“Not again!” Panda exclaimed and hopped from my shoulder to safety.

Steve caught up to us and was laughing at our display from a few feet away.

Then he paused as the sounds from Tina morphed into genuine despair, probably realizing that it was quite serious.

My vision had gone completely white and there was a ringing in my ears. I was pretty sure my gums were bleeding and my brain was starting to swell. It felt like acid and fire were melting the skin off my face, while a hundred bees stung the inside of my mouth.

From the sound of his footsteps, I heard as Steve hurried over to help Tina, but he only managed to fall into reach of the foul stench as well.

“What is tha—? Oh my fucking fuck!!”

A thud came from the Birthday Brat as he collapsed to the floor, while other sounds seemed to indicate that Tina was having a seizure.

“Somebody pop me, I want to die on my own terms!!” Brock squealed in desperation.

“Blink!” I yelled, trying to use my new ability to escape.

ERROR!

No target.

It didn’t work since I couldn’t see.

I also tried to use my Fuck Gravity to pull me back the way we’d come, but it was impossible to concentrate enough to use it.

Nina’s ominous voice rang out briefly, “The Monstrosity of Joy…!” she warned.

Then I blacked out.

I came to what might have been hours later or maybe just a couple seconds. The stench was gone and my vision was back, albeit blurry and miscolored.

“Holy fuck, I can’t believe I survived,” I muttered.

“Bee must’ve been desperate to use that against them,” Panda commented.

“What happened?” I asked, as I pushed myself to my knees.

Tina lay unconscious nearby, while Steve was writhing in obvious pain, which was unlikely to be a good sign.

Congratulations! You have unlocked an achievement! x

‘The Worst Smell Imaginable: Round 2’

Survived Eau de Tonsil-Stone Eye-Bleach a 2nd time.

Aside from Lady Kalameytas of the Ruinous Path who designed this vile perfume, there are only a handful of individuals who have survived exposure to it twice.

Since you’ve probably experienced traumatic brain damage by now, we figured you at least deserved a commemorative T-Shirt to mark your achievement.

Reward: ‘I Survived the Tonsil-Stone Eye-Bleach T-Shirt’

image [https://i.imgur.com/RO3HsJ6.png]

A white t-shirt landed in my hands, just as Lordie sauntered back into the wide hallway. Half of a familiar puzzle box was sticking out of the mouth that sat in the middle of his palm.

“Lordie, did you eat the box?”

“Me-ow!” he answered in his Morgan Freeman voice. Then, with a loud slurp, the rest of it vanished inside his ‘mouth’.

I brought up his stats to see if something had changed.

‘Lordie’

MATURITY

32%

HUNGER

Pleased

FAVORITE FOODS

‘Eau de Tonsil-Stone Eye-Bleach’

‘Twizzlers’

‘Canned Cat Food’

image [https://i.imgur.com/FaVOftD.png]

“He’s ‘pleased’,” Panda remarked, worried.

“Holy crap, eating that box gave him at least 20% extra maturity!” I muttered.

With a gasp, Tina woke up. “Where am I? Where’s Irene and Adam!?”

Then her eyes realized where she was and she seemed to calm down.

But only for a second, as Steve started to buck and writhe aggressively on the floor next to her.

She ran over and grabbed a hold of my right arm, pulling me to my feet.

“The Monstrosity is coming!”

I blinked, momentarily confused, until a sinking realization hit me.

Steve had reached 100% Insanity and was turning into a Boss Monstrosity.