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Chekhov's Amazing Gunshow!
Floor Six
Time to Level Collapse: Fourteen days, eighteen hours
Hunting Trophies Collected: 42
Views: 525 sextillion
Followers: 146 quadrillion
Favorites: 24 Quadrillion
"Watch out for – yeah, that," I said.
The bug exploded, showering Donut in viscera. She yelped, tail curling, fur standing on end. She smelled like a carton of eggs left in a dumpster.
"We should've gone to the pool, Carl. I told you we should've gone to the pool."
It was unmercifully hot. The hunters had finally backed off – for now – after having so many of their own slaughtered. Signet had gone off by herself to finish scouting or whatever it was she did when we weren't on camera together. For a few gracious hours, nothing around me was exploding. We settled to that most important of crawler tasks: grinding.
"I'll reach level 51 soon," I said, punching a bug, making sure to put enough force into it that the corpse rocketed away. It splattered against a tree. These Venombugs weren't tough, but they were incredibly annoying. Their corpse juices stank and, according to the AI description, attracted all sorts of predators. That usually meant a Neighborhood Boss lurking nearby.
"What's that?" Donut said.
A pistol lay on the ground. I knew it couldn't have belonged to the hunters because it looked too old, like it came out of the Revolutionary War era. Hell, it probably did. The AI probably nicked it from a museum.
Above it was a sign:
Pick up to enter the gunshow!
I sent a message to Mordecai.
Carl: We found a gun. What's the gunshow?
Mordecai: For the love of all that is good, don't touch it!
Donut picked up the gun with her paw.
"Oooh, it's heavy. What do you think, Carl? Can I pull off a cowgirl look? I think I have a ten-gallon hat somewhere – "
Music burst around us, a loud trumpet fanfare. The world slowed. My heart rate sped up. The viewer counter spiked. I was intimately familiar with this scenario, but instead of a boss…
…a wolf popped into existence. Immense, grey-furred, with inch-long fangs, he must've belonged to the same race as Chaco. Slung around his neck was a rifle.
"Welcome, one and all, to Chekhov's Amazing Gunshow, the greatest gameshow in the galaxy! I'm your host, Chekhov. And do we have a treat for you today! We have not one but two top-ten crawlers! Please give it up for Carl and Doooooonut!"
This would be where a crowd would applaud, but without a live audience, the music thrummed on, empty. The wolf – Chekhov – floated in mid-air, sliding around without thought to gravity. He was a hologram.
Goddamn it, Donut.
"A gameshow?" Donut bounced up and down. Next to her, Mongo growled. "Carl, I've always wanted to be on a gameshow! What game are we playing?"
"The rules are simple! Survive for the allotted time, and win an amazing prize! Oh, what's that – it's our first enemy!"
Out of the forest undergrowth rose a – well, zombie. A decayed corpse, like those you see in the movies, bits of flesh dangling out from between tattered clothing.
Reanimated Earthling – Level 32.
It's a zombie. Yawn. You know what these are. They're your typical slow and clumsy BRAAAAAAINS sort. Not the most exciting of monsters, but don't blame me, the producers wanted vanilla.
Fun fact, these are real earthlings we recycled for this. You might even come across someone you know!
Guess what happens when a couple hundred of these get together?
Warning: Getting injured by this enemy will cause you to get the Walking Corpse debuff.
The thing limped up to us like a retirement home patient. Even as we watched, part of its foot fell off, toes trailing behind it like breadcrumbs. You know how in zombie movies, you always think to yourself, How the hell do these slow-ass zombies ever manage to catch anyone? I bet I could survive pretty well in a zombie apocalypse.
I looked at Donut. She looked at me. I shrugged.
I clenched my fist, readying my war gauntlet.
The gauntlet wouldn't form.
I frowned, tensing my arm again. Nothing. Stupidly, I tried my other arm. Still nothing. Shit, was this bugged?
"Carl, I can't cast Magic Missile!" Donut said, panicked. "I can't cast Clockwork Triplicate either! I'm silenced!"
"Oh, did I forget to mention?" Chekhov said, firing off his gun in staccato fragments. "You're not allowed to use any active items, spells, or abilities you've used this floor or last floor! Exceptions apply for basic consumables. Time to go searching in those inventories!"
The zombie lunged. I sidestepped, kicking at its belly. Its chest caved in like a pool ball through a stick of gum. Remembering the cardinal rule of zombie films, I stomped down on its head. Its brains slid off my feet.
"Goddamn it, Donut!" I shouted as more zombies rose around us. Reflexively, I reached for my xistera, but of course it wouldn't let me do that. No explosives, either, or any traps. The zombies were slow and low-level, but the sheer amount of them crowded out the trees, a sea of shambling bodies. And we couldn't use our best abilities?
A timer blinked into my interface.
30:00.
Thirty minutes. It started counting down.
"Come on!" I shouted to Donut. "Let's move!"
We raced along the narrowing forest road. I cursed my complacency at not mapping out the area earlier. We figured we'd do a quick bit of grinding before returning to a safe room. There was a village around here, that much I remember, but I don't remember what direction, or if even going there would help us.
Carl: Too late, Mordecai. Tell me what Chekhov's Amazing Gunshow is.
Mordecai: You can think of it like a show-within-a-show. A quest with live commentary.
Carl: I'm already involved in Vengeance of the Daughter! I thought we weren't allowed to be in more than one of these at once!
Mordecai: Technically, the AI is still in charge of everything, so it's not an elite quest. The producers provide a live commentator and get all production rights. Chekhov usually hosts at least one of these every compatible season. It's very popular. If you survive, your viewership will get a huge boost.
A group of zombies blocked our path. More crept from the sides. Donut's panicked eyes lit up as she scrolled through her inventory. At least I still had my feet and fists. As a caster, almost her entire skillset would be disabled.
My fist smashed into the zombie's head. These things weren't tough, probably on purpose.
Even without my gauntlet, my Iron Punch skill remained active. Passives, at least, it seemed, still worked. I kicked another zombie, trying to stay close to Donut while moving forward. Mongo screeched, jumping from zombie to zombie, tearing throats.
"Mongo, get back!" Donut shouted. "Carl, he's been afflicted with the Walking Corpse debuff. I can't – I can't heal him!"
Of course. Heal Critter was something she'd been using constantly since she got it. I quickly glanced at Mongo's debuff.
Walking Corpse: Drains 1% of max health per two seconds. Every ten minutes, this amount increases by 1%. If your health hits zero, you turn into a zombie. This may be cured by visiting a priest of Inle.
I pulled a health potion out of my inventory and slammed it against Mongo's side. His health shot up. Basic consumables still worked, Chekhov had said. At least we had some recourse.
But I didn't want to be downing a health potion every minute. Even if I could punch and kick these zombies to death, getting into melee range was asking to get cursed.
I pulled a stack of weights out of my inventory, chucking them at the zombies. Each plate easily weighed over a hundred pounds, and I threw them as easily as throwing frisbees. That's what a strength over one hundred got you. I had gotten the weights from the Juicer all the way on the first floor.
"I got it – watch this!" Donut said.
Her Shield spell flickered to life around us, tinging the world in cotton-candy blue. I vaguely remembered this from a floor – two floors? – ago. It was like my Protective Shell (which, of course, I couldn't use) but weaker, and it moved with us, as it was doing now as we ran through the forest. I can't even remember if Donut had ever used this in the dungeon. It didn't stop the zombies completely, but at least it slowed them, preventing them from completely overwhelming us.
"Thank you, Sledge!" Donut said happily.
"Looks like our contestants are getting the hang of it," Chekhov cackled. "But wait – what's this? All these dead bodies are attracting some dangerous animals!"
Caws from above. I dove to the side as an immense winged creature crashed down.
Carny Bird – Level 44.
Every ecosystem has its scavenger, and these guys love nothing more than feasting on rotten food, kind of like people who go to carnivals and buy deep-fried butter. Normally Carny Birds prefer the dead to the living, but the only thing these guys like almost as much as drugs are Venombugs, and guess what you're covered in?
The Carny Bird resembled a vulture but way larger. Its wingspan must've been taller than me. Bizarrely, it wore a colorful T-shirt and suspenders along with a nametag that said 'Hi, my name is STEPHANIE.' It bit into a zombie, then paused, sniffing the air. Slowly, it rotated to face Donut.
It moved impossibly fast for something of that size. But Mongo was quicker. He jumped forward, headbutting the thing, the two of them careening in a tangle of fur and feathers. Mongo's health, already at half, decreased rapidly. I dashed forward, slamming my fist into the Carny Bird's side. Its immense eye fixed on me, unblinking. Its health barely went down.
I cursed. This thing was a lot sturdier than the zombies, and without my gauntlet, I barely did any damage. What else could I use? My explosives and smoke bombs were all unusable. My Fear spell was unusable. I dug through my inventory: nine-hundred and ninety-nine stacks of coal, Rev Up Moonshine pamphlets, a slingshot, bonker liver, a bowl of Snickers…I really needed to get more organized. I couldn't even remember where I picked up all this crap, much less why I decided it was a good idea.
But there was one thing.
I held up the blitz stick.
Instantly, the Carny Bird forgot Mongo, forgot Donut. It dove for the blitz stick. I let it have it.
The Carny Bird screeched happily, swallowing the blitz stick whole. Its enormous beak spread into a lazy smile. Tilting this way or another, it lurched back and forth, as if drunk, and that was how it died as Donut slashed its throat open.
"Come back to mommy," Donut said, fretting over Mongo's slumped form, feeding him a health potion. He screeched weakly. That Walking Corpse debuff was a huge drain on our resources. Our potions would constantly be on cooldown to prevent Mongo from dying.
Shadows circled overhead. More Carny Birds.
"We need to find cover! Get into the trees!" I shouted.
We stumbled through the forest. Chekhov followed us, keeping up a constant stream of commentary I didn't have the patience for. I'm pretty sure I caught an advertisement for some book he was promoting. Donut's Shield spell kept the zombies from swarming us, and my thrown weights splattered the ones that made it through. Donut had re-discovered her Scrolls of Confusing Fog, and she dumped several of them as we ran. The zombies turned on each other, biting each other and being bitten in return, an eternal cannibalistic ouroboros.
We eventually reached a copse, surrounded on all sides by thick trees, reachable only through a narrow opening between the trunks. I heaved a bunch of bullshit out of my inventory to make a barricade: furniture and discarded weapons, piles of alchemical ingredients even Mordecai couldn't find a use for, more than one random dead body I picked up for some reason, including a dead hooker. Christ, was I really that weird? I felt like a serial killer.
"I told you we should've gone to the pool," Donut said, completely ignoring the fact she had been the one to pick up the gun. The timer read 11:23.
"We're in the final stretch. Do you have anything else we can use? What about the Love Vampire skill?"
"I used that last floor," Donut said miserably. She perked up. "Maybe it's time I finally use Minion Army. I've never used it yet."
"Forget it. The cast time roots you in place for five minutes. It's even more dangerous now."
"Don't you have that porn spell?'
"What?"
"You know, the one that makes your fist fiery and electric."
"You mean the Bang Bros spell? I can only cast it on an equipped item, and I can't bring out my gauntlet at all."
Man, we've accumulated a lot of bullshit during our time through the crawl. Did the other crawlers deal with this? How could anyone keep up? The more you learn, the more you forget. Eventually you end up with more than you know what to do with.
"I think my singing might still work…" Donut trailed off.
The music had started again.
It began as slow drums, hammering the ground. Thump. Thump. Guitars and bass kicked in, along with a frenetic crescendo of strings. Above us, Chekhov cackled.
"It's the moment we've all been waiting for, folks!"
My makeshift barricade shattered like a child toppling a sandcastle. What approached was –
Something. A black mass of arms and legs, torsos and hands, and, horribly, faces. Mouths screaming into a facsimile sky. Eyeballs darting back and forth in panic. The thing was twenty feet tall. It didn't so much as walk as wriggle, leaving behind a trail of gore. The stench of it assaulted me like a debuff.
B…B…B…Boss Battle!
Chekhov's Gunshow Finale!
The wolf's smirking face appeared in an explosion of bullets, followed by Donut's face and mine.
VERSUS!
Undead Amalgamation – Level 74 Borough Boss.
What happens when you stick a whole bunch of undead in a blender? Well, you get a bunch of disgusting blended-up corpse juice, but if the conditions are just right, and you add a splash of war magic, you end up with a semi-sentient hulk of eternally regenerating undead flesh! If you thought being a zombie was bad enough, wait until you get fused into one of these things. Undead Amalgamations used to be all the rage in the Faction Wars until they decided to outlaw them. Pussies.
Torn apart, unable to control your body, haunted by the screams of all the other zombies around you – it's no wonder these things wish for death. Will you give it to them?
Warning: Getting injured by this enemy will cause you to get the Walking Corpse debuff.
The AI was a sick fuck. Or maybe it was the producers' idea. I wanted to smash the two of them between my palms until only the liquid leaked out.
"Now, I know what you viewers at home are thinking," Chekhov said as the world sped up back to normal. "We've never had a Borough Boss on this show. And you would be correct! In the spirit of fairness, seeing as how our dear crawlers are handicapped, we try to limit it to Neighborhood bosses. However, Carl here has an item in his inventory that he hasn't used – ever – capable of getting rid of this boss very easily! In fact, it'll get rid of everything very easily, if you catch my drift."
The Doomsday Scenario. He wanted me to use my Doomsday Scenario.
"Fuck off!" I shouted at the hologram. "If I didn't use it against the Octo-Shark, I'm sure as hell not using it against this lame-ass thing! I've got my own plans for the Doomsday Scenario, and when I use it, you'll all know!"
I turned to Donut. "Do you have any more Scrolls of Confusing Fog?"
"Won't work. It's already affected by it. We're the only things around for it to attack."
"We don't need to beat it. All we have to do is survive. Here, pop this Iron Skin potion."
I also downed an Iron Skin potion. I hadn't used these for multiple floors, and to be honest I'm not even sure how much good it would do. A bunch of extra physical defense was fine, but getting hit even once could kill us with Walking Corpse.
"I have an idea," I said.
I dug the Enchanted Shurikens of Bloodlust out of my inventory. Remember these things? I had used most of these in the boss battle against the Ball of Swine, but I had twenty or so left. They dealt more and more damage if you shot them at the same target.
But that wasn't all. I still had that Weeping Wound weapon oil from the first floor. I'd never had a use for it, since it only applied to edged weapons. It'd never crossed my mind until now to use them on the shurikens.
Necessity, they say, is the mother of invention.
Dipping the shurikens in the weapon oil, I threw them toward the Amalgamation. As expected, the first couple didn't do any noticeable damage, but after a dozen or so I could clearly see its health decreasing. By the time I threw the last shuriken, its health had ended up at seventy-five percent and continued to tick down as the oil's bleed effect kicked in.
Not nearly enough.
The thing was slow. That much we could use to our advantage. If we were back on the forest trail, we could simply outrun it, but here, in this copse of trees, we couldn't escape. The Amalgamation occupied nearly half the space already, pushing through Donut's Shield spell like it was mist. This close, I could see almost every inch of its flesh covered with crying, screaming mouths.
Tendrils shot out, bullet-fast. I ducked between the blade-sharp appendages. I was too scared to risk a punch. This thing was an endurance predator. It was slow, but all it had to do was nick you once, and from that point it was only a matter of time.
"Mongo, get back!" Donut shrieked as the velociraptor leapt forward. Mongo tore into the mass of undead flesh, ripping out enough dismembered corpses to start a medical school. I once again marveled at his ability to eat anything.
"That actually works," I said. "Mongo can't get re-infected. He's the best one of us to do direct damage to the thing."
"He can't fight it alone!" Donut said, flinging another potion at Mongo as his health entered the red. Donut was right. Mongo's health dropped far faster than the Amalgamation's, even with the damage dealt by my shurikens and Weeping Wound oil. And, if that health bar wasn't lying, the boss seemed to be healing.
"If only I could use Wall of Flame," Donut said.
Of course.
I remembered a certain author from the Cookbook, Sinjin, and their creative use of Hobgoblin Smoke Curtains. I remembered an enslaved bear and the corpse of a skyfowl.
I dug the Fireball-or-Custard lottery ticket out of my inventory. Furiously, I began scratching it. "Mongo, get out the way!"
The warmth started in my palms. I held out my hand. An immense fireball shot forward, setting the grass and trees on fire. The sudden warmth was a physical thing. The fireball smashed into the Amalgamation with the sound of steaks sizzling on the barbecue. I gagged from the stench of cooked corpses. But it had worked. The Amalgamation screeched, all thousands of mouths, its health dropping by another twenty percent and continuing to burn.
"Carl, it worked!" Donut said. "Do it again!"
I scratched off another. A second fireball shot forth. The Amalgamation shrieked again, actively retreating now, folds of flesh folding back on itself like lard on the pan.
"Yes! One last time!"
I scratched off the final spot.
It came as a wetness this time. Wet, and gummy, like cream. The splooge of custard roped through the air like…uh…something every guy was familiar with.
"Oh no!" Donut said.
"Yes!" I said.
Normally, the custard fully healed the target. But that's the trick with undead: healing harms them instead. Even more effectively than fire, as it turned out. Wherever the custard touched, it actively ate away at the dead flesh, chomping through the Amalgamation with the gusto of a hungry toddler. It was like watching a slime devoured by a larger slime. The Amalgamation's health dropped to nothing.
The last of its screams faded, and I thought it almost sounded like Thank you.
Winner!
"Give it up for our two crawlers!" Chekhov said, firing his rifle into the air. "That's a top-ten crawler for you! What imaginative use of random bullshit! As we say here on the Gunshow: Never forget what you got! That's it for today, folks! Catch us next season!"
I could almost hear the grating applause, the whirr of studio lights turning back on. At least in a studio, I could put my hands around Chekhov's throat.
"Thank goodness," Donut said, picking her way between the gobs of custard. Mongo lapped at the custard, health slowly rising. "I totally forgot you had that thing. But didn't you say there was a cooldown between uses?"
"It's ok. Nobody remembers the details."
I scooped up some custard and added it to my inventory.
Achievements pinged on my interface. I finally hit level 51. Messages from Katia and the others blinked at me, messages I would scroll through later, once my heart stopped jackhammering.
Donut frowned. "I keep thinking I'm forgetting one last thing – wait, of course."
She pulled out the pistol and fired a single shot into the air.
"What was that about?" I asked.
She shrugged. "Just felt right."
"Come on," I said with a sigh. "Let's get to a safehouse and find a way to cure Mongo."
Never forget what you got, I thought. Never forget, indeed.