Stayin' Alive

"You're repeating yourself," I said to the Tower out loud. I'd started doing that, apparently. "Who are you talking to?" Anna said. "Uh, the Tower," I said. "Bruh, I don't think it can hear you," Zack said. "Wouldn't bet on it. Besides, I've already done a gym. That one was full of spiders," I said. "Damn. That would've made me jumpy. Before. You know," Hannah said. "Before you stopped ever being jumpy?" Zack said. "I still feel fear. It's just… down there," Hannah said. "Ha, like up your ass!" Zack said. "I thought you were sober now," Hannah said. "Huh? I am. Fucking sucks, half my abilities don't work," Zack said. "I know I'm new here, but maybe we should shut up until we figure out what sort of shit we're in?" Anna said. We nodded and got quiet, because it was extremely obviously a good point.

So, we were in a gym. I hadn't really had a good look at the previous one, since it was entirely wrapped up in spider webs. So this one looked sort of like a school gym in a really expensive private school might. It had the bleachers and the basketball court, as well as an area with free weights and even lifting machines, stationary bikes and a couple of treadmills. The ceiling was also really, really high. I hadn't seen that far up in days, with almost all of the rooms being more or less the same height.

"The score counter, it's on," Anna said, and it sure was. It was an old-school but digital one. The teams were designated simply as 'Home' and 'Away'. Home team had 99 points and away team had 00. "Windows are painted on," Hannah said. Also true, though, there had been no real sunlight or outdoors anywhere in the Tower so far, and I hadn't really expected them to start now.

We cautiously advanced, looking for any further signs, but didn't notice anything until we hit the middle of the basketball court, at which point out headmaster's voice split the air. This time it sounded like it came from a cheap school intercom, but it was undoubtedly the same deranged man.

"Ladies, gentlemen, neither and beyond, welcome to the first and only annual Slaughterball tournament of the sector!," he said, and this was followed by canned applause and cheering. "Challengers, coming all the way from Earth, are Team Losers! They had their chance to change their name, and they wasted it. You better make sure to check those Journals of yours whenever you hear scribbling, or it could be your deeeeeeeeath!"

This time there were canned boos and laughter.

"Eat a shit, you corny copfucker," Zack said to the air.

"And defending their title, the one, the only Horde of Ninety-Nine Trash Monsters That Somehow Survived The First Two Days!"

As canned cheers filled the air, there was a popping sound up above, as several trapdoors opened and creatures fell out of them. A very round goblin fell to the court first, splattering on impact, changing the score to Home: 98 Away: 1.

"And first blood already! What an exciting match," the principal said. "What the fuck are you talking about," Zack said. "The contestants don't know this, but all of these lines are pre-recorded (Re-re-re-RECORDED) and I can't hear you, Zack!" the principal said.

There were five hatches that monsters could come out through total, so I did the obvious move in this situation- used two charges of my staff to block off two of the hatches. Fuck playing by the rules.

"NAUGHTY! Player number two has received a penalty!" the asshole said.

A hatch opened up underneath me, and I heard the sounds of grinding metal beneath. I would have fallen in too, fumbling with my staff and spellbook, but Hannah caught me by the scruff and set me next to her.

So, ultimately, only two other monsters began descending at the first wave. One was indeed a large spider, descending on a thread of silk. The other was some sort of a vaguely humanoid thing, seven feet tall at a guess and extremely long-limbed, and it scuttled away across the ceiling rather than dropping down.

Anna scorched the spider, incinerating it instantly and leaving a scorched corpse to crunch to the floor.

"Conserve mana, we've 97 to go," I said. "Kill it with fire, it is the only way," she said.

We stood back-to-back, as we'd lost sight of the slender man-thing and that didn't feel great for anybody. We didn't see it coming, but to be fair, how could we have expected that it could teleport through shadows. Luckily its claws clanged against my glass armor and the sizzling of its acid didn't come anywhere near me. Both Hannah and Zack pivoted on a dime and literally ripped it apart, Zack going low and Hannah going high with their respective weapons. Or, in Zack's case, his fists.

"Ninety-six to g-" Hannah said, as swarms of bees flew out of all of the hatches above. Judging by the screaming and the sounds of fists on sheet metal, the bees had come down through all five of the hatches, and finding whatever monsters I'd sealed away there, eventually netting us two more cheap kills. At that moment, however, the swarming bees were a larger issue. And when I say bees, these things were fist-sized each with a stinger the size and shape of a steak-knife dripping venom.

"Fire?" Anna said. "I mean, probably, but how?" I said. "Need to gather them in one place," Anna said. "Zack, Hannah, which one of you could take a few stings?" I said.

A case of theft: this story is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation. "Fuck," Zack said. "Zack," Hannah said. "Everybody in the waterball, when they swarm Zack, get out and fireball the bees," I said. "I'll hit him too," Anna said. "Better than the bees," Zack said. "You're immune to venom," Hannah said. "Not immune to knives," Zack said, or something to that effect, but I didn't wait, as the swarms were now within spitting distance. I used my octorod to create a ball of water, and I and the two women got inside it.

With a hiss and a boom and Zack's scream the bees all died. He did look hurt, but not badly. The fucking score card only gave us four points, despite us clearly killing hundreds of bees. By which I mean Anna killing hundreds of bees.

"Spicy," Zack said. The hatches opened up again.

And we killed monsters.

And the hatches opened up again.

And we killed monsters.

If you've never been in a fight, first of all: nice, good for you, keep doing what you're doing. Second of all, it takes about three minutes to get tired. Professional boxers can go for longer, but they generally don't get punched in the balls all that much either. Twenty minutes after the challenge had started, the scoreboard read HOME: 50 AWAY: 49. Zack was laying prone between the remaining three of us, the fight had moved back away to the rafters and the monsters coming through had become bigger, scarier and, as a rule, had more sharp bits to stab and bite us with.

A flying wyvern sort of thing was circling us and throwing blobs of acid at us, which I had to spend all of my focus on intercepting with shield spells because they were launched at such velocity that they'd get here before anyone could move, and only my instant cast spells could even hope to intercept them. Besides that, if I caught them too close to us, instead of dissipating into a fine mist, we would be covered in a spray of acid. Hannah was engaged in a knock-out drag-out melee with two trolls, who had learned a good deal of respect for her sword, but even still could almost reach her with the extreme reach of their long, meaty claws.

I attracted the wyvern's attention, dashed behind the trolls and hit it with an icicle to hopefully taunt it. It worked and it spewed acid directly at me. I cast an invisible barrier at an angle between me and the trolls, expending my second to last barrier and covering the massive beasts in boiling acid. They screamed and Hannah decapitated them. But as it was happening, the wyvern dove, changing up tactics. Either its acid glands had run out, or else it had understood that its tactic wasn't working. I turned to cast another spell, but saw Zack, limp but a second ago raise on his knees, breathe in a few times, scream and leap, intercepting the wyvern and crashing it into the ground.

Home 47 Away 52

"If this was a real game we would win now!" I shouted at the Tower. Instead, three hatches opened in the walls, making it so that we had to face eight instead of five creatures at a time.

Twenty minutes passed.

Home 20 Away 79

"How are wolves more trouble than wyverns?" Anna said. "There was only one wyvern, dodge left!" I said

Anna dodged to the right, directly into the jaws of a large wolf. Which should tell you how many ways one can interpret those directions. Luckily, she dodged with enough force to elbow the creature in the nose as it was leaping at her, dealing an apparently significant blow, as the wolf yelped and took a few steps back.

"Protect the nerds!" Hannah said. "Busy," Zack said. "Fuck," Hannah said, swept her sword in wide arcs above her head, threatening and cutting the four wolves surrounding her to come rescue us.

I swore and cast more greasefire spells. There were small fires spreading all across the gym, and I was running out of mana, but you had to do what you had to do.

Home 6 Away 93

"I'm out of mana, next one comes from hitpoints," Anna gasped. "Hold on, we're almost there," I said.

In the very center of the basketball court Zack was trading punches with a minotaur one for one. Both the fighters were bloody, sluggish and covered in sweat, in the minotaurs case it was bloody lather, like a horse run to death. With a final roar the minotaur leaned down and battered Zack with his massive horned forehead, throwing the man into the bleachers, breaking them and leaving him among the rubble.

"Zack!" I shouted, to no response. I couldn't see him, but that throw should have killed anybody. The exhausted, distracted minotaur didn't see Hannah approach from a blind-spot to his right where his eye was beaten shut, and she football tackled him to the ground, leveraged her giant greatsword to her boot and sliced his head off like a bread slicer.

"Let's- Let's get Zack, he's tough, he'll be-" I said.

There was a terrible screech. It sounded remarkably like the screaming of the nazgul in the Peter Jackson movies. Rotten ghoul-like creatures, crawled out of the remaining hatches. These were your traditional ghouls, human corpses made bestial with necromatic energy, with one notable difference. Each of their muscles was already bulging beyond what you might expect from any Mr. Universe, but then more muscle was grafted on top and stretched taut by death and dark alchemy.

"Hannah, it's us," I said. "I can fight," Anna said. "If you have to. Stay between us for now," I said.

We stood backs to Anna, ready for the enemies to come to us. I had maybe one more spell in me, plus whatever I could cast out of hitpoints. I hadn't taken real damage, but a swarm of gremlins with blackjacks had shattered all of my invisible armor below my waist before Zack could rescue me. The monsters moved faster than anything their size should be able to, and they were upon us. I cast invisible barrier, creating a small maze, so that only the two nearest enemies could get at us without testing out the invisible walls. Hannah chopped hers in half, and we switched places, so that she could fight the other one.

Unfortunately, we didn't notice that she hadn't killed it until after it bit into my calf. I slammed down with the butt of my staff, crushin its skull and brain, and it let go, but it left a double set of large, bloody bite-marks in my foot that was already going numb.

"Fuck, fuck, fuck," I said.

Hannah finished hers off, making sure this time, but we were getting surrounded. I threw some ash in the air, remnants of monsters made by Anna, so that we could see the labyrinth, because we needed to get the fuck out of there immediately, as the monsters were closing in on us. We got out, and the remaining four caught up with Hannah almost immediately. She was fighting them well, but four-on-one aren't odds anyone should take. Anna screamed and I felt fire exploding from where I knew she was, and a moment later I was dragged down by two ghouls, bashing at my armor. It wouldn't take them long.

"WOOOOOOOOOO!" Zack shouted. He leaped out of the bleachers, literally in a single bound. He was still just as bloodied and his left hand was limp, but he drop-kicked into the two ghouls on me, throwing them a good ten feet off me. Hannah used the distraction to trip up the one she was fighting and Zack stomped down on his head, and we all rushed over to help Anna as the scoreboard read:

Home: 1 Away: 98

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