Chapter 42 (Patreon)

“I’m going to vomit,” Donut said as the floor heaved. “I’m going to puke on television, Carl.” 

“You’ll get used to it,” I said. “I think when the holo starts, it stabilizes. Just breathe.” 

“I don’t like puking. I don’t want to puke!”

I laughed. “Really? I seem to recall you had a thing for vomiting on my pillow.” 

“That was different. I did that on purpose.” 

“I knew it. I fucking knew it.”  

Donut made a gagging noise. “The last place didn’t bounce around this much.” 

“The seas were calmer, and it was a bigger boat,” I said. 

The dark, heaving room flickered, and the lights turned on, revealing an audience. They had no reaction to our sudden appearance, and I suspected we weren’t yet visible to them. Sure enough, the sensation of movement was suddenly much more muted. It was still there, but the holo had some sort of compensation effect. 

I looked about the suddenly-bigger room. A table floated before us, much larger than the actual table in the trailer. This table curved, shaped like a smile. We sat in the second and third seat. To our left was a larger, more ornate chair. It was made of a dark wood with what appeared to be red velvet cushions. The armrests were made of pig skulls. Four more plain, empty chairs appeared to our right, curving along the table. 

I looked over my shoulder, and the backdrop was an elephant-like monster with three spike-covered trunks. The animation swung its head back and forth in a loop with the word “Extreme” exploding over and over in the midst of the image.

The crowd suddenly started screaming and cheering. I snapped my attention forward, but I couldn’t see what they were hollering at. Their attention was to my left. I realized the show had started, and the host had appeared, but for whatever reason, we couldn’t see him or her yet. This was a different setup to Odette’s show. I suspected we’d just magically appear when it was our turn. 

This went on for several minutes. The crowd started chanting something. It took me a moment to understand what they were saying. “Die, die, die,” they seemed to be repeating. They were watching a video, I realized, their attention focused on the main screen, which for me, still showed the elephant graphic. They burst into screams of pleasure as whatever it was they were watching, died. “Glurp, glurp!” they screamed. “Glurp, glurp!” 

I spent a few moments examining the crowd, who continued to laugh and cheer. The audience’s makeup was fairly similar to Odette’s crowd, with a glaring difference that made my stomach sink. 

“Oh fuck,” I grumbled when I finally saw it. 

I focused on a group of humans sitting in the second row, hooting and screaming and laughing boisterously. There was a cruel air to their laughter. It was almost a tangible thing, like a black, malevolent cloud that embraced the presence of the entire audience. I was reminded of that day when my dad and his friends broke my slingshot. They’d been firing rocks at squirrels, laughing in a similar way. 

These humans in the second row were all male, and they were all about twelve or thirteen years old. It seemed the entire audience consisted of young, pre-and early teen males. One of them was wearing a red shirt that said “GLURP!” on it.

“Glurp, glurp!” the audience yelled. “Glurp, glurp!” 

“Donut,” I said, talking quickly. “This crowd is going to be a lot different than the last one. They’re all kids. I don’t think they’re the happy, cartoon-watching kind, either.”

“Carl, we’ve gone over this,” Donut said. “You sit there and look angry, and I do the talking. Remember?” 

To our left, the host suddenly appeared. There was no warning. He showed up in mid-sentence. A floating note appeared in front of me. ON AIR SOON. BE READY. 

“… know you little cunts are gonna love today’s surprise panelists! Your Maestro had to bang some slimy mudskipper tail to pull this one off. But nothing is too good for Maestro’s piglets! Suck it! Suck it good, piglets!” 

“Glurp, glurp!” the audience screamed. “Glurp, glurp!” 

The host—the Maestro—was an orc. A huge, muscular orc. 

He looked a lot like a tuskling, but it was clear this was a different type of the same species. The tusklings were dwarf versions of these guys. Tuskling skin was bright pink, pig-like. The Maestro’s flesh was darker, covered in black, bristly hair. He reminded me of a wild boar. His left tusk was completely gold. He stood about six and a half feet tall, built like a tank. A line of earrings circled his left ear. He wore a hot pink, silken shirt, buttoned halfway up, revealing a hairy, well-muscled chest covered in gold chains. I couldn’t tell for certain, but I had the distinct impression he was only in his early twenties.

I hated him instantly. 

To my right, now sat two humans, two men about my age. Both of them were Asian. Their ragged, bewildered look pegged them as fellow crawlers. One of them noticed us and pointed, talking quickly to his companion. I couldn’t hear what they were saying, but it seemed like they recognized us. I waved, and they waved back, both of them bowing rapidly. 

They turned and also waved at the empty chairs to their right. There was someone there, but we couldn’t see who it was. 

“So we have six guests today. Two stupid, lame guests. Two VIP surprise guests, and then two more surprise guests for our VIPs. We’ll start with the lame guests. Watch this shit, piglets.” 

A screen appeared in front of us. It showed a party of four crawlers running from a group of ten troglodyte bashers. The lizard monsters were armed with spiked clubs. The crawler group consisted of the two guys sitting next to us, a woman, and a third male. Only the male who wasn’t here appeared to be armed. He held a long, odd sword with teeth on it like a saw. None of them wore any sort of armor. They turned the corner and stopped dead. 

I felt sick to my stomach, seeing what they faced. Just around the bend was a familiar sight. Five grub pupae sat, blocking their retreat. The middle sac was in the midst of ripping open. A humanoid hornet burst forth and buzzed into the air. The only resemblance it bore to the brindle grub was its bug face. The monster consisted of a huge, hornet-like body with human arms. It looked at the four crawlers and spit. A glob of white goo shot out and hit the male with the sword. It splattered directly on the man’s face. He screamed, falling to the ground, dropping the sword. The glob was like acid. It sizzled and crackled. His pain-filled screeches continued as the troglodytes stopped at the corner, boxing them all in. The other pupae started to pulsate and tear as four more hornets appeared. The woman reached down to pick up the sword. The world on the screen froze. 

At first I thought they’d simply paused the scene, but then the two men disappeared. When they vanished, there was a puff of air, and the sword blew a foot away, clattering loudly. Everything else, including the mobs remained frozen.  

The crowd burst into a mix of applause and jeers. The two men next us were now visible to the audience.

“You know what time it is, piglets?” the Maestro shouted. 

“Death watch! Death watch!” the crowd screamed. 

“Okay, so we got two crawlers here. Their full names are quite the snout full, and does it really matter?” Laughter followed. “The fellow with the acne scars is Li Jun and the bald fucker we’ll just call Zhang. Say hello, meat.”

It took the two men a moment to realize the Maestro was talking to them. 

“Hello,” Li Jun said. “I don’t understand what is happening.”      

“Okay, so let me catch you up since you’re too stupid to figure it out. You’re on Death Watch, a segment of my show. That means we just plucked you away from certain death. You’re welcome. Before, your plight was hopeless. Now you have a chance to survive. But we’ll get to that in a second.” 

The Maestro waved up at the screen. “You all have been hit with a Time Freeze spell, and it will run out just as this episode ends. We have a little game we’d like you to play, to give you the opportunity to live past the next few seconds. Yeah?”

“Okay,” Li Jun said, exchanging a look with his companion. “What do we need to do?” 

“Death watch! Death watch!” the crowd chanted.  

“We’re going to show you a series of scenes, and you have to guess if the crawler survives or not. But before we begin, I want to know a little about you guys.” The Maestro waved his hand, the stats of the two men appeared floating over both them. Both were level 7. They each had a single bronze star over their heads. Both had a strength of 8, meaning they’d received some sort of enhancement. Also of note was Zhang’s constitution, which was at 15, making it one point higher than my own. 

“Li Jun,” the Maestro said. “Did you know your three companions before the game started?” 

The poor man seemed terrified and bewildered. “Yes. Yes, sir. We all work together in a warehouse. All except my sister, Li Na.” 

“So that doll up on the screen there, the one reaching for the sword. She’s your sister?” 

“Yes, sir.” 

The orc nodded thoughtfully. “Would you do anything to save her?” 

“Death watch! Death watch!” the crowd screamed. 

“What do you mean?” the man asked. 

The Maestro ignored him. Her turned to Zhang. “And you, Zhang. What do you think about Li Na?” 

“What do I think about her? She’s my best friend’s sister. She’s like my own sister.” 

“And what about your fourth companion. The guy who just got his face spooged on by that Brindled Vespa? He’s your friend too?” 

“Yes,” Zhang said after a moment. The bald man’s eyes were fixed on the frozen scene. “He’s our manager.” 

“The big boss man, huh?” the Maestro said. “So if you were forced to choose between saving him and saving Li Na, you’d pick the girl, right?” 

Zhang just looked the orc, refusing to answer. 

“That’s okay buddy, you might not have to choose. We’re going to play a game. This is how it works. We’re going to show you four scenes, and we want you to guess if the crawler is going to live or die through the encounter. If you guess correctly, you will receive a teleport point. When we’re done, for every point you have, you can spend it to save yourselves or one of your companions. The recipient of each teleport point will be immediately transferred to the closest safe room. If you decide to throw a point at ol’ spooge-face, he will be healed. So don’t worry about that. Ready? Good, let’s go.” 

The scene showed a woman running from a giant beaver thing holding a battleaxe. 

“Fuck this,” I said, and I stood from my chair. 

“Carl, where are you going?” Donut asked. 

“Come on, Donut. This is beyond the pale. Fuck this guy.” The table was blocking my exit. I climbed up on it, feeling forward for where the real table ended. I reached it, and hopped down, my legs piercing through the illusion. 

A moment later the lights of the chamber snapped back on, and the holo dispersed. Mexx-55 emerged, floating down from her spot on the ceiling. But when she spoke, the voice was different. This was a gruff, male voice. Also an orc if I had to guess. 

“Get back in your seat, Crawler,” the voice said. “You’re scheduled to be on screen after this segment.” 

“Go fuck yourself,” I said. 

“Carl, you’re going to get us in trouble,” Donut said. 

“You are ordered to sit,” the voice said. “We have paid the appearance fee, and you will participate in the program. If you refuse, we are authorized to drop you into this ocean, drowning you both.” 

“Bullshit,” I said. “You’re not Borant, and you’re not the Syndicate. There’s no way they’d authorize that. We are not participating in this cruelty.” 

Nothing happened for several moments. Donut jumped up to my shoulder. “You’re gonna get us in trouble,” she said again, this time more quietly. 

“Crawler Carl, this is Administrator Mukta,” a new voice said. “You are required to take your seat, or there will be consequences.” 

“I’ll go on as many shows as you want, but we’re not doing this one,” I said. 

“Carl, we will discuss this when you are done. If you do not participate, we will accelerate you. There are plenty of other crawlers to show on our program. This is not a bluff.” 

Deep breath, I thought. You will not break me. You will not fucking break me. 

“Can that other guy hear me right now?” I asked. 

“The program producer? No, but he is quite angry,” Mukta said. 

“As long as I don’t talk shit about you guys, will there be consequences for what I say? As long as I participate, I mean?” 

A pause. “They have paid for your appearance. Nothing else.” 

“All right,” I said, “Tell him we want on the show. Now. Before this Death Watch segment ends.” Without waiting for an answer, I returned to my seat. The table once again pushed itself out, and the holo resumed. 

“Carl, what are you doing?” Donut asked as she settled back in place. 

“I’m the one who talks this time,” I said. 

The studio reformed. The crowd was screaming and laughing. On the screen, a dead man convulsed on the ground as a group of baby-faced winged fairies splashed about in his corpse like it was a kiddie pool.  

“Sorry, it looks like you got that one wrong, too. You have two teleport points,” the Maestro said. “I need a decision.” 

Neither of the men said anything.

The Maestro leaned forward in his ornate chain. He smiled wickedly. “I need a decision or nobody gets saved.” 

“Then nobody gets saved,” Li Jun said. He looked at Zhang. “We die together.” 

“Aw, isn’t that fucking sweet?” the Maestro said. “Very well, if that’s what you want. Piglets, should we give them what they want?” 

“Death Watch! Death Watch!” 

“No, wait,” Zhang said. “Save Li Jun and Li Na.” 

“No,” Li Jun said. He reached out and put his hand on his friend’s shoulder. “We stand together.”  

A sour look passed across the Maestro’s face. He said something, but it was muted. He paused, then nodded. A moment passed, and the cruel smile reappeared on his face. 

“We’re going to do something a little different, piglets. Our VIP guests have been watching backstage, and it seems like they have something to say.” 

The crowd screamed its approval. 

ON AIR IN TEN SECONDS.

The Maestro was playing this off like this was his idea. “Okay piglets, my next two guests do not need any introduction. The last you probably saw of these two, they were stuck in a room with a bunch of old fucks. Are they going to escape? Spoiler alert, they just got out. We were going to show what these crazy assholes did to get free, but since they want to suck on it so bad, we’re going to bring them on early.” 

“Glurp, glurp! Glurp, glurp!” 

YOU ARE NOW ON AIR. 

The studio became brighter, and the crowd went berserk. Donut made a show of licking her paw, looking aloof.  

“Crawler Carl and Princess Donut,” the Maestro said. He drew out the word “Princess,” and it dripped with sarcasm. “Piglets, you probably don’t know this. These two just broke a record for the most-watched second floor battle in the history of Dungeon Crawler World. If it were me, I would’ve killed every last one of those geriatric sandbags and reaped the experience, but you know how it is with humans.” He looked down at Donut. “And cats, apparently. All that effort, and what did they get? No experience, no real loot.” He shrugged. “But you can’t argue with results. Carl and Donut, say hello to my piglets.” 

“We want in on the game,” I said, not bothering to greet the crowd. “We want to play Death Watch, too.” 

The Maestro laughed, an uncertain timbre to it. “That’s not how it works, Carl. I knew you were a crazy mother…” 

“They have two points. Let’s use them to transfer me and Donut to that spot.” I looked at the crowd. “Wouldn’t that be cool?” 

The crowd roared. “Death watch! Death watch!” 

It took a moment for the large orc to recover. “People talk about how stupid you are, Carl. But I never realized you were this stupid. If you’re feeling suicidal, then…” 

I leaned in, pointing my finger. “No, you listen to me, pork boy. If you’re going to fuck with people like this, then at least make it fair. They played your game, and they won two points. You said they can use those two points to transfer people away. I don’t see why it can’t be used to transfer people in, either.” 

The crowd seemed to love this idea. 

“It doesn’t work that way,” the Maestro repeated. “You’re not part of the game. It’s against the rules.” 

“Yeah, fuck the rules.” I looked at the crowd. “I think we should tell the rules to suck it. What do you think?” 

“Glurp, glurp! Glurp, glurp!” 

The Maestro did not like his audience glurping for someone else. I recognized that look on his face, of fulminating, under-the-surface rage. I felt a deep satisfaction at that. I didn’t know if this was a good idea or an incredibly dumb one, but I felt the urge to keep poking at him. 

The truth was, I didn’t really want to be transferred to this battle, likely halfway across the world. I felt for these guys, and I wanted to help them. But if helping Brandon and crew taught me anything, it was that I needed to balance it out. There was a difference between giving aid and sacrificing yourself for people you didn’t even know. Still, this felt like the right thing. I knew my argument was nonsensical. I also knew how this sort of crowd thought. This Maestro guy was the worst kind of a bully. A bully with an audience. I had to do something. For the moment I didn’t have a plan other than pissing him off as much as I could. 

I looked over at the two empty chairs to the right of Zheng and Li Jun. A thought struck me. What had he said? Two more surprise guests for our VIPs. So it was somebody we knew. I had a sudden, strong suspicion who it was. If I was right, then I knew I could push the Maestro even further. He had a plan. A cruel plan, and going down this path was doing nothing but detracting from the narrative he was attempting to build. That meant the more I pushed, the more it would piss him off, and the more desperate he’d get to get to steer the conversation back on track.  

On television shows and in kids’ books, they always repeated the “Bullies will back down when stood up to” mantra. That was utter horseshit. It always has been. That only worked when the one standing up to the bully was stronger than them. The Maestro and I were not on equal footing. But my short confrontation in the production trailer taught me something important. I didn’t need to be stronger than him. Donut and I were something better. We were expensive.  

I had a hunch that they’d spent a lot of money to get me and Donut on this show. The fact they were using a shitty rental trailer and didn’t have their own suggested this production ran on the same sort of shoestring budget most YouTube shows had. 

The Maestro, seething, said, “You dumb shit. These guys were dead! I saved them. I’m giving them a second chance. Maybe I will transfer you into that fight. How would you like that? And we’ll transfer the other four out, so you have no backup at all. Your ridiculous luck wouldn’t save you then. I don’t think you’ve fought a Brindled Vespa yet. In a second, there’ll be five of them in that hallway. You’d be utterly fucked.”

I smiled. “You’re too much of a pussy to do it. I dare you.” 

“Death watch! Death watch!” 

The Maestro looked so angry I thought he might actually cry. I suspected—and hoped—he couldn’t do it. If I knew one thing about Borant, it was that they nickel and dimed everything. This Death Watch segment probably cost a lot of money, and that was with regular, low-view crawlers. There was no way they’d be able to send one of the game’s highest-value streams into danger like that. 

When people became red-zone angry, they were, in general, unpredictable. That wasn’t true with bullies. I knew this from experience. It was the opposite with bullies. I knew exactly what was about to happen. 

I turned to Li Jun and Zheng who sat next to me, mouths agape. I quickly whispered, “Grab your sister and the other guy and run toward the troglodytes and through them. Leave the sword. The lizards are really dumb and slow, and their attention is on the hornets. You’ll only have a few seconds.”

“But,” Li Jun said. “You wanted to trade places…”   

The Maestro growled, “You don’t tell me what to do on my own show, meat.” He slammed down on a button on his table, and the two men to my right vanished. 

The words “Death Watch Extreme!” appeared on the giant display. The two men appeared back in the scene in the hallway, caught between the hornets and the troglodytes. For a moment, everything remained frozen except the two men. 

Zheng reacted first, shouting, “grab your sister!” as he reached down to pick up the fallen third man. 

Just as he moved to pick him up, the scene unfroze. The sister stumbled as the sword she was grabbing for was suddenly several feet away. Li Jun grasped her wrist and pointed. “Run!” he cried. The three of them scrambled directly at the crowd of troglodytes, who stood like turkeys, watching the hornets. 

The monsters—Brindled Vespas he’d called them—didn’t care who their victims were. Multiple globs of white spit shot out, splashing into the lizards, who in turn raised their clubs and charged at the bugs. 

Both groups of monsters ignored the four humans, who managed to slip away and out into the hall. The scene ended with Zheng forcing a healing potion into the mouth of their companion. The video snapped off to a mix of jeers and scattered applause. The audience’s reaction was muted, however, as if they weren’t sure how to respond. 

I looked up at the Maestro, a huge smile on my face. 

“Glurp on that, motherfucker,” I said.