MADMAN APOCALYPSE - Chapter -35 (Patreon)

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Bonus chapter! I should have another one up tomorrow and Sunday! Also, Madman is now past 2100 followers on RoyalRoad. Absolutely crazy! Thanks for the support everyone!

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Chapter -35

“What now?” Bee asked.

“I actually hadn’t planned that far,” I told her.

Panda sighed. “I told you that killing the Announcer might not end the Event.”

“There’s still the Production Control Room nearby,” the Beetle Girl told me.

“You’re a genius!” Panda exclaimed.

“I guess we should go destroy it, maybe that’ll do the trick.”

“Worst case, it doesn’t and we can just wait for the cooldown of Dungeon-Break to eject all the Players from the Event.”

“Dungeon-Break?” Bee asked. “What’s that?”

While Panda recounted the events of what’d happened since we entered, a lot of which Bee already seemed to know, thanks to having watched me on the screens in Announcer Riii’s Commentary Booth, I pulled open my inventory again and inspected the three rewards I’d gotten.

“Ugh,” I groaned.

Panda stopped his recounting for a moment, but when I didn’t elaborate, he continued from where he’d left off, with Bee paying rapt attention.

I pulled it out of my inventory and found that it did indeed not have a weight to it, as though the bulky metallic trophy was just spraypainted Styrofoam.

“Woah, what’s that??” Bee asked, then inspected it.

Panda was giving me a look like, “Dude… you’re interrupting me again?”

Then I smashed the trophy into my forehead. It immediately began a swarm of flies that in turn began to glow red, before imploding in tiny explosions.

“Uhhh…” I got out, before the next screen appeared.

            “Oh boy!” Panda said excitedly, suddenly not upset about my interruption of his story.

            “I think I’ll pick L4GSW1TCH,” I said.

            “Don’t be an idiot, Gambit!” Panda said. “Giant-Slayer is 100% the right choice here!”

            “What do they do?” Bee asked.

            “I really wish I could show you, but I guess I’ll just read them out loud.”

            After she’d heard what the three options were, she agreed with Panda’s choice.

            “Also, think about it,” she said, “If it has the potential to make you get stuck in walls and such, it will definitely happen.”

            I thought about it and realized she was right. “They want me to pick it so they can conveniently have me get swallowed by the floor and die…” I commented. “Alright, I’m picking the Lance.”

            Then I pulled out the ‘Fairyfly Wing’ and inspected it.

            “Do they have some kind of Feeder fetish, these guys??” Panda exclaimed.

            I didn’t question it at this point and put the wing, which was about the size of a post-it-note, onto my tongue and then closed my mouth. The wing immediately started melting as though it was some kind of strange sugar. I gulped it down, tasting nothing but synthetic grape as usual.

            By now, the skin and flesh on my face had more-or-less returned, thanks to the Mothball Spaghetti, but it was bright-pink like a newborn baby’s. The pain of my broken ribs was also now just a faded soreness, and a mental fog I’d had, perhaps the remnants of several overlapping concussions, was also cleared away.

I actually felt good.

            Like, really good.

            “Uhhh, gambit…” the plushie started, looking at me weirdly.

            “Yes, my beloved?” I asked, picking Panda up in my arms.

            “I think that wing was spiked with LSD.”

            “You’re very soft,” I told him.

            “Your eyes have turned completely black,” Bee remarked.

            I reached over and padded her on top of her head. “You’re a good person.”

            “Alright, let go of me!” Panda protested, hammering his squishy arms into my chest. “I don’t like this version of you! It’s too much love!!”

            “What ‘bout me, Nigel!! Hug me too!!” Brock yelled from where he lay next to me.

            As I was about to lift him up and praise him for his good work, the effects suddenly disappeared.

            Slowly, I glanced down at Panda, then over to Bee.

            I cleared my throat and lifted the plushie off of me.

            “Sorry about that,” I said.

            “Holy shit, they actually poisoned you!” Panda exclaimed.

            “It was kind of nice, to be honest,” I replied.

            I looked at the options, surprised that two were Glitched abilities, but, then again, Riii had used several of those.

            “Ugh, two of them use Wisdom and Intelligence…” I groaned. “They’d probably have no effect if I tried to use them then.”

            “The reversed gravity one has the potential to be really powerful, so you could take that one and see if there’s a way to change your Class such that you get Wisdom?”

            “Are you trying to turn me into a Mage??”

            “Would it be so bad?” he asked.

            “Unless I can become a Mage that punches things, I’m not doing it!”

            “Don’t be a little baby!” he scolded me.

            I clicked ‘.interrupt( )’ just to spite him.

            Panda let out a sigh.

            With all the new rewards out of the way, I popped on the ‘Moon Boots’, to which Panda and Bee both made a ‘Yuck’ sound immediately. The boots also immediately turned purple…

I then got to my feet and began stomping off towards where I seemed to recall the Production Control Room was located.

            Every step felt like I was walking on bouncy balls.