The Sorcerer's Gameshow Round 1-1 (Patreon)

Lights come on in the Studio, revealing a broad bearded man with a confident smile standing on stage in front of a large display. He raises his hands theatrically, prompting the audience present to cheer and applaud. After a few moments, the crowd starts to quiet down, and the man introduces himself with a voice that booms throughout the whole studio, despite him seemingly wearing no microphones.

“Hello everyone, and welcome to The Sorcerer’s Gameshow, where a lucky contestant will have chance to win one million dollars! I, Norman Grayson, will be your host for the evening! Tonight, we have our very first contestant for this season, as voted by you, the viewers, please come on stage, mister Keith Patterson!”

The crowd applauds as a man walks on stage, large spotlights following him the whole time. The man is obviously very uncomfortable under the spotlight, squinting at the audience and waving awkwardly as he takes his place center stage. It is evidently his first time on TV, but he is still doing his best to look his best. The applause dies down much faster this time, the audience evidently eager to get to the good part. Norman speaks up once more, prompting the man to introduce himself.

“We already gave you a quick description of Keith here… can I call you Keith? Great! So yes, the audience already knows a few things about you, but it would be great if you could go into details and introduce yourself!”

Keith coughs a few times, before speaking up.

Hi everyone, my name is Keith Patterson, and there isn’t much to say honestly… I am a thirty-five-year-old man, and I was laid off from my job as a Financial Advisor for a big firm a few months back, right before Christmas, and times have been rough, with mortgage payments, credit card bills and all... I am married to an amazing woman, my wife Selina, who I love more than anything in the world. She was instructed not to be here today, considering the audience have some part to play from what I understand, but she is waiting for me right outside, and I am certain she will be proud of me whether I win big or lose out!”

The audience cheers at that, and Norman chuckles a bit. Evidently the willing participant is not fully aware of the risks he is facing tonight, which suits the host just fine.

“Alright Keith! And what makes you think you will be able to answer the questions correctly and avoid any punishments?”

Keith shrugs at this before responding.

“I don’t know, I’ve always been pretty good at Trivia! I am quite knowledgeable in history, pop culture and science stuff. I guess I will have to wing it for the other categories, but I am confident I will make it out with at least a decent amount of money, and hopefully the punishments aren’t too bad!”

Norman laughs, and the audience follows suit, Keith laughing along with them, although a bit more hesitantly. He isn’t sure how the punishments work, or even what is possible to get with them. This is the first edition of the show after all, and so there was nothing he could have watched to gauge the severity of wrong answers, or even of what difficulty of questions he should be expecting. But with a million dollars on the line, he knew he should expect questions that were not too easy.

“Sounds great Keith! And now to give everyone a quick rundown of what to expect! Keith here will be answering various questions. There will be three rounds, each with five questions, meaning a total of fifteen questions. Each right answer will bring Keith one step closer to winning a million dollars! Each wrong answer, however, will force a change on Keith. What change you may ask? Depends on the round, and on The Sorcerer himself! The Sorcerer is the one who chooses the questions, and in case of a wrong answer, which four options the audience will have when changing poor little Keith here! The changes can affect one of three things about Keith, depending on which round he is on. In the first round, his body will be subject to change. In the second round, it will be his mind which is going to be altered. And finally in the third round, it will be various aspects of his life in general which are going to be modified. Of course, changes can have some ripple effects, but we will get to those when and if they happen. But this also means that the game continues regardless of the number of wrong answers, which also means that our contestant here is guaranteed the money he earns for every good answer! Any questions? No? All right then, we can get started!”

Loud dramatic sounds resound as the spotlights whirl around the stage, signifying the start of the show. Keith gulps nervously as the first question appears on screen, with Norman reading it out loud at the same time. 

"What was New York’s original name? A: New Liverpool? B: New Amsterdam? C: New Brussels? Or D: New London?”

Instantly Keith feels relieved. This isn’t so hard a question, and he knows the answer. Yet he still takes a few moments before answering, simply to make sure he isn’t falling into any obvious traps. But after a few moments he is confident enough in his answer and responds.

“I will go with B: New Amsterdam Norman!”

A loud ding resounds, and the option highlights in green, signifying a good answer. The crowd claps politely, evidently hoping for a slip up, and the occasion to mess with Keith’s body.

"Congratulations! Off to a strong start with a good answer, which brings your winning up to a hundred dollars! Let us see if you can get the next answer right!

“Which author is the bestselling female author of all time, having sold two billion books? Is it A: JK Rowling, B: Agatha Christie, C: Enid Blyton or D: Margaret Atwood?”

This question has Keith more nervous. His inner geek wants to say JK Rowling, but he feels that two billion books was stretching it a bit, even with the success of Harry Potter. He knows both Agatha Christie and Margaret Atwood were quite prolific as well, but he has no clue who Enid Blyton was… In the end he opts to follow his gut feeling.

“I will choose A: JK Rowling!” Keith exclaims, hoping that his instinct had been right.

It had not.

The answer turns red as a loud buzzer resounds through the studio. The crowd cheers, as Norman makes an exaggerated sad face.

“It seems like the right answer was in fact B: Agatha Christie, which means that you unfortunately do not get any money for this answer but are also going to be subject to your first change of the night, which is going to be in the physical category! Alright, let us see what options The Sorcerer has for us now!”

He gestures towards the screen, which lights up once more, this time with four potential changes for Keith.

“Alright, so tonight our first choices are A: Gender Change, which would leave Keith here as a girl, B: Enhanced Musculature, which would give him a much better physique than his current dadbod, C: Age Regression, which would make Keith here much younger, but older than eighteen for legal purposes, and D: Size Shrink, which would make him a much smaller man than he is now. I see that The Sorcerer wanted to give a wide array of options to our audience tonight and let them choose what direction the evening will take here for Keith! So, everyone, make your choices!”

Little pads light up at each of the studio audience’s seats, letting them select which of the four options they prefer. Keith gulps nervously. He hadn’t imagined the changes would be so… drastic. Some of them seem not so bad. He would quite enjoy being in better shape and going back to his twenties sounds great as well, but size shrink isn’t too appealing. But what scares him most was the gender change one. He was fine being a man and didn’t like the fact that he may end the night as a woman, but he had nothing to do about it now but wait, and hope that the audience would be merciful group, and not a bunch of twisted perverts…