Pete grimaced as his eyes began to focus in the bright light. He could see the elf woman standing to his side and in front, and there were three golden orbs floating beside her, moving slowly toward Pete. As they drew closer, he saw that they weren’t orbs at all but were oversized golden coins.
Of course, he thought bitterly. It’s always about money in this fucking place.
“Three coins to choose from, folks. Three chances for our Vault Breaker to meet his darkest fears. Now’s your chance to place your bets! Which coin will he choose? Which fear will he face?”
She turned around and motioned to Pete. “There’s only one way to find out. So, let’s get started.”
The three coins hovered just in front of the spot where Pete was kneeling. They glinted in the light, three basketball-sized coins that he now realized were holographic in nature.
“The choice is yours, Vault Breaker,” Liandra said. “Choose wisely, mind. You may not like what you—”
Pete didn’t wait for her to finish. He didn’t agonize over the choice, didn’t hesitate, and simply chose the middle coin. It wasn’t that he was following any particular strategy; he just never saw the point of hesitating over choices like this, particularly when the choice was random and the result was going to be bad whichever way it went.
“Oh, my goodness!” Liandra said in mock surprise. “Well, folks, it looks like our Vault Breaker has made his choice. The middle coin, and with it, a terrible fear revealed and one that I’m sure many of you out there would sympathize with.”
The coin spun around, and the ones on either side vanished. Golden writing appeared above the coin as it split apart to reveal a pixel art image of a spider that looked like it had been taken from an indie role-playing game.
>> CHALLENGE: Spider Time
Arachnophobia is no laughing matter, unless, of course, you’re sitting in the comfort of your own home betting on how long some chump can last surrounded by eight-legged creepy crawlies!
Guess what? You are that chump!
>> CHALLENGE REQUIREMENTS: Last for sixty seconds in a glass container filled with venomous spiders! You can get out at any time; simply cry out the word ‘mercy,’ and the spiders will be taken away. But be warned, the penalty for failure is steep.
REWARD: Gain 500 Belch Bucks
PENALTY: Lose 500 Belch Bucks, lose 3 Prestige
ADDITIONAL PUKE PENALTY: 1000 Belch Bucks!
Pete sighed. “I hate spiders.”
[Nero-Private-Pete] You will have to do your best to withstand them, Pete. Losing even a single prestige point would have a drastic effect on your standing in the contest. Losing three would be catastrophic.
While Nero was talking, a large glass tank was wheeled out onto the stage and positioned right in front of Pete. He could already see the spiders crawling about in there; dozens of them, all with bright green or blue eyes, furry legs, and fangs that seemed to be dripping with venom.
“Now, I want to assure you, Vault Breaker,” the elf woman said, “that none of these spiders can kill you. They may bite you, of course, and their venom does hurt quite a bit, but it won’t kill you. The venom may also make you hallucinate a little, but that’s nothing to worry about. We have a medic on standby, ready to administer antivenom the moment you cry mercy.”
Pete stared at the tank. He could swear one of those big bastards was staring right back at him, sizing him up. He counted at least twenty individual spiders, all as big as his hand. The sight made his skin crawl.
“When you’re ready, Vault Breaker,” Liandra said, motioning toward the tank.
One side of the tank opened up, the open side covered by some kind of force field that held back the spiders. There was also a section of the base of the tank that was free from the spiders.
Pete found that he could stand and move about, but he guessed that if he diverted from the path set out for him, the invisible restraints would probably kick in again. The thought of getting into that tank brought bile to his mouth, and he understood exactly why the show was called Puke and Pay.
“Fuck!” he spat, taking another step closer to the tank. “It’s just sixty seconds. I can do that. These things probably aren’t even real. Just holographic spiders sent here to scare the shit out of me. Fuck, I hate spiders!”
[Nero-Private-Pete] I’m afraid these spiders are real, Pete. The host is correct, however. Its venom is very mild and cannot kill you. It can, however, make you feel very nauseous and might even induce vomiting, so I would suggest avoiding being bitten if you are able.
“You don’t have to tell me everything, you know. You could have let me believe they were holograms.”
[Nero-Private-Pete] Oh, yes, of course. Given your phobia, however, would that make a substantial difference?
“It’s not a phobia. I just really fucking hate spiders. There’s nothing irrational about that. Spiders are creepy as hell, and anyone who doesn’t hate them has something wrong in their head.”
He reached the tank and touched a finger experimentally against the shield that was holding the spiders back. It crackled a little and tingled on the tip of his finger.
“I will remind you, folks,” Liandra went on, “that the Vault Breaker is deathly afraid of spiders. Think of your own worst fear and imagine what it would feel like to be confronted with it live and in front of billions of viewers all across the Dominion!”
Pete took a breath, noticing that the spiders seemed to be actively waiting for him to enter. One of the larger ones at the rear of the tank was even standing on its hind legs, pointing fangs toward Pete that were literally dripping with venom.
“Fuck!” he hissed, gently slipping into the large tank with his back to the bottom.
He heard the unnerving skittering of feet as he slid into place. Worse, he could already feel spiders crawling all over his legs and lower torso. Gritting his teeth, every muscle in his body tensed; he stared up at the lid of the tank as the force field to his right was replaced by glass and the spiders began rearranging themselves all over his body.
A timer appeared above him, hovering just below the lid of the tank and counting down from the sixty-second mark. Each shift in digits seemed to take much longer than a second, and he found himself begging the countdown to speed up.
Pain shot through his right leg as a pair of fangs bit into the meat. He hissed, forcing himself not to scream as the venom was pumped into his system. The venom might not be lethal, but it felt like he’d been stabbed by a rusty knife. That sensation was doubled as two more spiders decided to join in, biting him on the left arm and shoulder.
Tears began streaming from his eyes as he lay with his muscles clenched, the pain throbbing through his body and already making his head spin.
[Nero-Private-Pete] Relax your muscles, Pete. By flexing your muscles, you are merely hastening the spread of the venom throughout your body.
A string of obscenities ran through Pete’s mind in response to the AI’s words, but he didn’t say anything. That was partly because of the crippling pain flowing through his body and the fact that there was a dirty, great big spider standing directly on his face.
Pete closed his eyes slowly, not wanting to alarm the arachnid and earn himself a stab through the eye with a venom-pumping fang. He managed to close his eyes without the spider reacting. It did, however, move left and right, its furry legs tapping on his mouth and chin while he tried to breathe slowly out of his nose, all while a fire was burning its way through his blood and his mind was churning like a clothes washer on high spin.
>> PAIN TOLERANCE PROFICIENCY +1
>> RESOLVE PROFICIENCY +1
>> VENOM RESISTANCE +1
Somewhere outside of the tank, Liandra was speaking, and the crowd was cheering. Pete couldn’t hear the words, mostly because all he could currently hear was the sound of arachnid feet tapping against his body. Then there were the cherub creatures that had suddenly sprung to life, and which were currently floating above his body, sprinkling him with what looked like tiny strawberries that the creatures were plucking out of baskets.
The narrative has been taken without permission. Report any sightings.
He knew they weren’t real, of course. The cherubs were obviously hallucinations brought on by the venom, but they looked so real, and they all seemed so friendly. It was a tad confusing why one of the little creatures, unlike his strawberry-tossing companions, had his penis out and was peeing onto an unsuspecting spider below.
Pete chuckled at that, then immediately remembered his predicament and stopped laughing. He also realized that his eyes had been closed the whole time.
The pain of the spider venom had shifted to something different now, dulling his senses so much that he couldn’t actually feel the creepy spider legs prodding his body as they walked all over him. Pete still knew they were there, though, and he could still imagine them heaped on top of him.
[Nero-Private-Pete] Remarkable! You’ve done it, Pete. Congratulations!
Pete flinched at the intrusion in his thoughts. He knew it was Nero, of course, but his thoughts were moving so sluggishly that he didn’t quite know what to do with that information.
[Nero-Private-Pete] You can exit the tank now, Pete. You have successfully completed the challenge.
It was a trick. It had to be. Or maybe this was just another hallucination. This was his brain’s way of trying to escape the situation. It was trying to convince him that the trial was over, but Pete didn’t doubt that the moment he said the word and the tank opened up, he would be greeted with disappointment and failure.
No. He wasn’t going through all of this shit just to pull out early and lose his reward. He needed those Prestige points, and he needed to succeed at this stupid feed show.
>> PAIN TOLERANCE PROFICIENCY +1
>> RESOLVE PROFICIENCY +1
Pete flinched once again. Was that real? Maybe Nero was really talking to him, or maybe the venom had screwed up his thoughts so much he was completely unable to tell reality from fiction.
[Nero-Private-Pete] Pete? Can you hear me? I’m showing that your vitals are steady; however, the fact that you have not responded suggests that perhaps you are in a state of shock.
[Pete-Private-Nero] I’m not in shock. I’m just hallucinating my ass off, and I’m not sure if you’re real or not.
[Nero-Private-Pete] Oh, I see. Well, yes, I can understand why you might be dubious. Very well then. Open your eyes, and you’ll see that the countdown timer has completed. It looks like they are opening up the side of the tank now, and the spiders are in the process of being removed.
Even though he suspected that this was some kind of trick, he did as Nero suggested and opened his eyes, slowly raising each eyelid so as not to disturb the spiders. It was a painfully slow process, but Pete found that when his vision finally cleared, there were no spiders. More importantly, the countdown timer was sitting at zero, and it seemed that Nero was correct and the trial was over.
A figure appeared on Pete’s left and shoved what looked like a modified medkit into his arm. In an instant, the fogginess of the venom was cleared away, and Pete felt like himself once more.
“Here he is, folks, the Vault Breaker! Having faced his worst fear and triumphed, I think we can all agree his new title should be Fear Breaker!”
Roars of laughter and cheering rose from the crowd as Pete climbed out of the tank. He looked left and right, searching for some sign of the spiders but finding none of them nearby and no spider wrangler carting a box full of arachnids either.
>> CHALLENGE COMPLETE: Success!
REWARD: Gain 500 Belch Bucks
ADDITIONAL REWARD: 1 Prestige!
Another roar went up from the crowd as the notification appeared on Pete’s HUD.
“Wow!” Liandra said, turning around and clapping at Pete. “It seems that the good citizens of the Dominion really appreciate your efforts, Vault Breaker. Seems as though the System agrees!”
She motioned to the wooden table that he’d been sitting behind previously, and Pete walked back to his place, kneeling behind the object. The moment his knees hit the floor, he felt the invisible pressure lock him in place once again, tightening around his legs and waist but leaving his arms and upper body free to move.
“Now for your second challenge,” the elfin host continued. “You’ve mastered your fear, but let’s see if you can master your stomach. The name of the show is Puke and Pay, after all, so it’s time to see if you can swallow the next challenge without emptying your gut.”
She turned to face him, wearing a broad smile even though her eyes were as hard as flint.
“In a few moments, you might be begging to get back into that spider tank, Vault Breaker!”
Laughter rose from the crowd once again, and blaring music played while the lights in the studio flickered and strobed. A figure walked out from the rear of the stage holding a tray with a dome serving lid covering a large plate. The figure, another elfin woman that Pete noticed, wore the same kind of shackles as Liandra, placed the tray on the table in front of him, and then departed.
The music stopped with a loud trumpet blast, and the strobing lights shifted to a set of high-beam lamps that were pointed directly at the golden dome sitting in front of Pete. There were a knife and fork on either side of the dome, as well as a small paper bag to the side with a grinning goblin face on the front.
The words ‘Tongsly Belch Barf Bag’ were written beneath the High Baron’s grinning face, along with a series of markers that, Pete guessed, would indicate how much vomit actually filled the bag. Each marker contained a different Belch Buck amount, which the vomiter had to pay in order to properly dispose of the bag.
A hush came over the crowd as Liandra walked over, playing her part to perfection as she bent down and let one hand hover over the handle of the dome.
“This is a simple challenge, Vault Breaker,” she said with mock seriousness. “All you have to do is eat a single item without vomiting and in its entirety. Do that, and it’s on to the third and final trial. Would you like to see what you’re going to be eating?”
Pete nodded. “Sure,” he said, unwilling to offer any more but trying to make himself sound relatively nonplussed. All the while, his mind raced as he tried to think of what he was going to do if the orc this testicle belonged to decided to rip his head off.
Liandra picked up the dome, and a drum roll commenced. She lingered for a few moments, working the crowd into a frenzy as the drum roll continued, joined by other instruments, while lights began to flash and the atmosphere in the room reached peak insanity.
She whipped the dome off as the crowd erupted, revealing a peach-sized ball of what looked like green flesh covered in slime.
>> CHALLENGE: Tusky Mountain Oysters
They’re full of protein, packed with testosterone, and guaranteed to put hair on your chest, but good luck finding any butcher this side of the Teldari Expanse to sell you any! Orc testicles are not so much a delicacy as the last resort of a madman.
The good news is that all you have to do is eat this one, not-so-tiny testicle and you win the challenge. The bad news is that doing so will make you an enemy to every Orc in the Dominion and beyond, so whatever life you have left will likely be short and due to end abruptly.
>> CHALLENGE REQUIREMENTS: Eat the orc testicle. It’s really that simple.
REWARD: Gain 1500 Belch Bucks.
PENALTY: Lose 1500 Belch Bucks, lose 4 Prestige.
ADDITIONAL PUKE PENALTY: 4000 Belch Bucks!
Pete snorted, grinning as he read the details of the challenge.
“What a fucking joke,” he muttered, shaking his head.
The penalty for refusing to complete the challenge was ridiculous, especially considering what he knew was really at stake here and the fact that he’d been tricked into attending this insane game. The Dominion Ultrimax Contest was bad enough, but at least he was beginning to understand the rules and could do something to prepare himself for what was coming.
But this game show was completely unhinged and, worse, it was potentially going to be deadly. He expected to be fighting for his life during the course of the normal competition, but if he could be dragged into a stupid game show like this at any moment where the rules were designed to drop him in the shit… How was he supposed to prepare for any of that? If Liandra hadn’t warned him what was coming, he’d have been completely off guard.
“That’s right, all you have to do is eat the testicle of a full-grown orc!” the elf said with fake delight. “But that’s not all. This isn’t any old testicle; it happens to belong to the most infamous orc in recent Dominion Ultrimax history. None other than Ulrick Blackfang himself!”
If the crowd had been screaming before, now it was positively deafening. They went completely nuts as a large cage was wheeled in from the other side of the stage and placed on the opposite side of the table directly in front of Pete.
A hulking figure sat in the cage, with dark green skin, rippling with thick slabs of muscle, and scarred flesh leading to a thick orc head with painted black tusks jutting from its mouth. Dark eyes stared out from beneath a heavy brow as the creature growled.
It looked to be a similar size to the hobgoblins Pete had faced already, but this thing looked like it’d eat hobgoblins for breakfast. There was also a keen intelligence behind those midnight eyes, as though the orc was already sizing him up, working through the many different ways the brute could probably kill him.
Pete found that he was doing exactly the same thing. He couldn’t draw his weapons in this place, but he’d already spotted several items that he might be able to use as a makeshift club or a shield. None of that would mean anything, of course, if he wasn’t able to move from where he was kneeling.
As he considered the gruesome-looking faux testicle sitting on the plate in front of him and the muscled brute sitting in the cage opposite him, Pete began to understand. This was the whole point. The Company would have Pete held in place while he ate the fake nut; then the enraged orc would bust out of his cage and promptly rip Pete’s head off.
To the crowd watching from the comfort of their homes or workplaces, it would seem like a tragic accident. They’d served Pete up to the orc like a golf ball on a tee, and the big brute was the equivalent of a titanium driver.
Pete’s only option was to get through to the orc and let him know that what he was about to eat wasn’t his stolen nut, but Pete couldn’t throw up and couldn’t make it obvious. He looked down at the swollen orb, noting the veins on its exterior and what looked like hair sticking from its side.
The smell that rose from the fake testicle was enough to turn his stomach, reeking of a mixture of old eggs and something acrid that bit at the back of his throat.
“This is ridiculous,” he said, picking up the fork and hovering above the orb.
A growl rose from the cage, and Pete looked into the dark eyes of the brutish orc, wondering just how long it would take the figure to barge through the flimsy-looking metal bars and lunge for his throat. He turned back to the testicle as a hush fell over the crowd and stabbed it with the fork.
The moment the implement penetrated the exterior of the testicle, a whiff of pungent stink rose around Pete, and light green juice oozed from the puncture point. A grarbock egg. That’s what Liandra had called this thing. Sitting here with a fork sticking out of the orb, Pete was beginning to doubt her story. It definitely looked like a testicle, and maybe the whole super-secret warning had just been another trick, another way for the System and the game and this stupid show to fuck with him.
He held the testicle up to his mouth, and Ulrick lunged forward, both hands clamping around the bars of his cage as the crowd gasped in delight and terror. The orc’s growling had grown louder, but as Pete looked up into the brute’s eyes, he saw the glassy look of someone who had been heavily drugged. Drool was running down his lips and chin, and Pete could see that the orc was struggling to focus on him.
Still, those thick fingers gripped the bars so tightly that when the orc growled once more, Pete could swear one of the bars bent a little. The orc noticed as well, its eyes shifting to the right and the hand that was clutching the bent bar.
“Fuck it!” Pete said, lifting the skewered testicle and flinging it toward the cage so quickly that it caught the orc, the watching audience, and everyone else utterly by surprise.