Water Wizard’s Wonderland came back into view as we returned to the outskirts of Madeville where we’d initially teleported from. Tina, Bee, and Panda appeared behind me.

  Ahead of us, maybe ten yards away, stood a man in swim trunks with a donut pool float around his waist and a snorkeling mask strapped to his face.

  “Cool outfit,” Panda joked.

  “Maybe he just came from the dungeon?” Bee asked. I still wasn’t sure if she was back to her normal self or not, but she at least showed no signs of change, which was comforting. Although, having two versions of herself spliced into one was kind of disturbing, though it was still better than one or the other dying, like when I’d arrived in this dimension.

  “The water park is level 13,” Tina said. I remembered that she had checked it earlier. Unless the guy was cheating, there was no way he’d beaten the dungeon already.

  Lordie wriggled atop my head. “Me-ow…”

  “Already!?” I asked him.

  “Is it a Skinstealer?” Bee asked.

  “That’s what he says,” I replied.

  “I’ve got new skills, let me try them on him,” she said eagerly. I hadn’t realized her transformation had changed her Class, but I supposed it made sense, given that she was no longer an insectoid.

  I put my hand out in front of her. “Let me, I’ve got something I need to do anyway.”

  Bee frowned, but didn’t argue.

  The Skinstealer suddenly noticed us and started waddling in our direction. His movements were constrained by the pool float around his midsection.

  I didn’t waste a second and skipped towards him, swinging Brock eagerly as I prepared to obliterate him.

  [Appraisal x ]

  Level 1 — ‘Garold Smith’ — Player

  “Let’s go swimming!”

  Class: Puddle Boy

  Main Attribute(s): Wisdom

  Turns out that Gary was short for “Garold” all along. Who would have thought?

  Anyway, this is Garold, or Gary if you’re on friendly terms, and he loves swimming.

  Before the GREAT GAME started, he regularly visited Water Wizard’s Wonderland and was on first-name basis with all the employees.

  If you can get over the chlorine smell that sticks to his skin and breath, then he’s a nice enough guy. Just don’t ask him about his opinion on flippers, because then shit’ll get weird.

  He wants to go swimming with you.

  I paused mid-step as I read through the information.

  “Are you sure he’s a Skinstealer?” I asked Lordie.

  “He doesn’t have the obvious tell in his appraisal,” Panda agreed.

  “Meow…”

  “I’m not doubting you,” I said, “but his appraisal is normal.”

  “I wonder what his opinion on flippers is?” Bee asked after I shared the screen with her.

  Garold continued waddling towards me, and when only five feet separated us, he halted as well.

  Then he suddenly screamed, “HELP!!”

  I frowned, realizing it was the same trick that the Skinstealer in the Pool Rooms dungeon had used to lure me closer.

  Garold’s zipped open down the middle, even splitting the pool float as a massive mouth was revealed beneath his flesh.

  Before he could lunge for me, I skipped forward and smashed Brock into him. “Punch.spinTheWheel( )!”

  “Get it!!” he squealed.

  Time froze the moment the balloon gauntlet touched Garold’s skin. A golden wheel of fortune descended from above, arriving to the right of me.

  Then came the voice of the announcer within.

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  Hello, everybody watching at home!

  We’ve got quite an exciting show for you today!

  For those of you of Knight-Lord rank or equivalent power, welcome back!

  For the rest of you who are seeing this for the ‘first’ time, here’s what is happening:

  Player ‘Gambit’ has triggered a Lottery Ability and now has to test his fortune against Lady Luck!

  And let me tell you, she’s a fickle mistress, unless you’ve got yourself a Greed Demon tweaking the odds!

  *Audience laughter*

  “Mammon!” I exclaimed. “I got the Contract of Servitude from Breezy!”

  A small trap door popped open in the top of the wheel and the bronze-colored hairy imp appeared.

  “How in the Saint’s name did you manage to go back in time!? I’m not even supposed to be powerful enough to retain my memories across dimensional timelines, but somehow I still remember!”

  “You can thank Panda for that,” I told him. “Anyway, I’ve got the Contract on me. It’s in my pocket, but you need to grab it since I’m frozen.”

  “I can’t believe you actually managed to score me that gig! Appreciate you doing me a solid,” he replied, crawling down from his wheel to land on my body. “That being said, you’ll have to watch out for Gargalob. I owe that son of a bitch a lot of moolah, if you know what I mean.”

  “What!? You didn’t tell me this!” I protested as the imp crawled down the front of my body and stuck his grubby fingers into the right pocket of my suit pants. He was maybe half the size of Panda, but his hands and head were proportionally bigger than the rest of his body.

  “Don’t get upset with me, you fool,” he replied. “You’re the one who wanted to free me, for some reason. I didn’t ask you to.”

  With a yank, Mammon pulled the Contract ring out of my pocket. It was almost big enough to serve as a crown for the imp.

  Suddenly Panda was on my shoulder, looking down at the Greedling. “What are we getting in return for landing you a better job?” he asked him.

  Mammon paused his fascinated stare at the ring to address us. “Alright listen, I ain’t an ungrateful bastard. I know you pulled a miracle out of your ass with this one. I’ll try and swing Breezy’s opinion of you two in a more favorable direction.”

  “He already loves us,” I told him.

  “Well, I’m a gold-tongued bastard, so I’m sure I’ll be able to get him to look away the next time you pull some kind of bullshit.”

  “That would be useful,” Panda said.

  “I want my skills back,” I complained.

  “Don’t know that I can score something like that for you, but I’ll try.”

  “First you’ve gotta prove you can survive even being near an Adjudicator for more than a few minutes without imploding,” Panda remarked.

  “Don’t you worry yourselves about me,” Mammon said and flashed us a saw-toothed grin.

  Without as much as a goodbye, he slipped the ring over his right arm where it immediately resized itself into a bracelet that fit snugly against his skin, and then he disappeared with a wet pop.

  Time was still frozen, but it was clear the Spin the Wheel event had been interrupted, since there were no options on the wheel and no way to get it to spin.

  I looked around for a way to unfreeze us. “Ehh…”

  “Give it a second,” Panda said.

  Suddenly, the golden wheel transformed into a slot machine.

  “What the hell?”

  SPONTANEOUS SKILL EVOLUTION TRIGGERED!

  You have evolved ‘Punch.spinTheWheel( )’ into ‘1-armed_Bandit.exe’.

  [‘1-armed_Bandit.exe’ x ]

  Golden Fusion Ability

  This Ability suddenly became a lot less interesting, since there’s no longer a little Demon inside the machine getting tortured every time you use it.

  I really liked that.

  Did you know?

  Torturing Demons makes them taste better.

  Every time you activate this Ability, a Slot Machine will spin to determine the outcome of your next attack. These range between everything from devastating impacts, monetary wins and losses, self-inflicted damage, and environmental effects.

  Every outcome you land on is removed from the Slot Machine and replaced with something else, such that you never know what to expect!

  Cooldown: 10 minutes

  This Ability appears on your Appraisal!

  The slot machine had four icons on the screen below the three wheels that would spin when the lever was pulled. At the top was a blue fist which read “My arm is an orbital laser!”, then a green rain cloud icon with “Messimer staring contest”, followed by a yellow treasure chest reading “moneySucker( )”, and lastly a black skull that said “Demon Incursion”.

  “They still haven’t given up on that Demon Incursion thing,” I muttered.

  “Your odds are better this time at least,” Panda said. “Three good options and one bad.”

  “It’s really bad though, right?”

  “Oh yeah, we’re probably screwed if you hit it.”

  I sighed.

  “Alright, let’s do it.”

  Nothing happened.

  “Pull that lever!” I exclaimed, faking enthusiasm.

  Still nothing.

  “Panda, can you do it?”

  He gave me a look. “Seriously?”

  “I’d like to be unfrozen soon, my neck is starting to hurt,” I told him. Bee and Tina were frozen behind me as well, and if the freeze effect worked like every time before, then they would be fully conscious but unable to speak.

  Panda started stretching on my shoulder where he stood.

  “What are you doing?”

  “Warming up,” he replied.

  “Why?”

  “You want me to pull the lever, right?”

  “Yes,” I replied.

  “Then shut up and let me finish what I’m doing.”

  I patiently waited 10 seconds.

  “Alright, hurry this shit up Panda, I wasn’t kidding about my neck.”

  He frowned but then jumped from my shoulder and onto the slot machine’s lever. He was just heavy enough to pull it down.

  The three wheels started to spin while an upbeat jingle played.

  It took another 10 seconds before the wheels started to slow down, and I could actually see the icons cycle through.

  I had no idea if I needed to get three of the same symbol to get the effect, but if that was the case then I would have quite a high chance of getting no effect at all, which was definitely a downgrade from the skill’s previous version.

  The icons cycle through one last time before they came to a stop, showing a black skull, a blue fist, and a yellow chest.

  “Damn, it’s a dud,” I started to say before I was interrupted.

  Result: 3 Colors!

  Random effect triggered.

  “My fist is a grenade!?”

  “What does that mean?” I asked.

  Then time unfroze and my right hand exploded.