[Choose your reward! x ]

  I think I understand why the apocalypse had to happen to your species.

  That was absolutely vile to watch.

  Pick one of the options:

  ‘System.Hiccup( )’ | ‘Shocking Touch’ | ‘Clone’

  [‘System.Hiccup( )’ x ]

  Ability

  Everyone is telling me to discourage you from picking this Ability.

  That seems counter-intuitive if they don’t want you to have it, since telling you not to do something probably makes you wanna do it more.

  Anyway.

  I don’t know what it does.

  Nobody knows.

  I guess that’s why they’re scared.

  I’d pick it if I were you.

  Make the System hiccup.

  Cooldown: 12 hours

  [‘Shocking Touch’ x ]

  Passive

  I knew a guy like this once.

  The charred and burnt smell of his body after he touched something metallic was very delicious.

  Your physical touch causes minor shocks to anything you touch.

  [‘Clone’ x ]

  Ability

  If I could clone myself, I’d try to eat them.

  Haven’t you ever wondered how you taste?

  Create a clone of yourself or anything you target.

  Clones last for 20 seconds and die in one hit.

  Cooldown: 3 hours

  “Pick Clone,” Panda said.

  “Hiccup sounds fun,” I mused.

  “I got something called a Diarrhea Beam,” Bee said.

  I frowned. She was turning into a walking talking war crime.

  “I guess my Fall Guy is already like a clone,” I mused.

  After contemplating it for a second, I ended up picking System Hiccup.

  Once Bee and I, as well as all the MLP Society members, had used the screws without dying or getting injured, Isabella and most of the guards used the screws by drilling them into their heads, though it didn’t look like it actually hurt. One guy used his belly button, which was weird. Most of the workers, like Waldo, copied Isabella, although one guy snuck into the bathhouse with his screw, which was deeply suspicious.

  “Tell the creepy Roomba to scrub the baths when he's done,” I told Bee.

  “I wonder why the MLP guys didn’t screw it into their heads like a horn,” Panda mused absentmindedly.

  [WHERE ARE WE HEADING, CAPTAIN?] Greg asked.

  Support creative writers by reading their stories on Royal Road, not stolen versions.

  Bee looked at me. “Are we still going to the lake?”

  “Otto has to be there,” I replied.

  She nodded. “To Madeville Lake!” she commanded the Humanbus.

  [AYE AYE!]

  As we bumbled along the highway, I realized all the prisoner zombies were gone, reduced to piles of ash and scraps of orange fabric. It seemed that with the death of the Warden, all of his summoned creatures had perished. It was a shame though, because we could have farmed them for coins using Greg’s new upgrade.

  Since we had plenty of downtime, I pulled out the Reaper’s Lunchbox we’d gotten for killing the Delightful Reaper.

  [‘Reaper’s Lunchbox’ x ]

  Item

  Everyone’s gotta eat, even the Reapers.

  Of course, their tastes are a bit special.

  You wouldn’t see me eating at the same restaurant as them, if you catch my drift.

  Anyway, all you’ve gotta do is open it up.

  How bad can it be?

  Weight: Approximately one

  I opened it up and a mist of despair, sadness, and pain wafted over me, making me cough violently. My head started to buzz, and lights swam before my eyes.

  As expected, it was quite a nice experience.

  [Choose your reward! x ]

  Soul sandwiches, despair cakes, suffering soufflé, pain profiteroles, and existential cookies, all packed into this box. And yet none of it actually tastes like anything. Told you these guys have weird tastes.

  As you know, I much prefer when my food is alive and screaming, or at the very least bleeding a bit.

  Human food is generally a bit too tame for me, though I did enjoy the magic known as ‘deep-frying’. The crunch was almost like snapping bones.

  Pick one of the options:

  ‘Deathly-Good Looks’ | ‘Reap This!’ | ‘Delightful’

  [‘Deathly-Good Looks’ x ]

  Passive

  Supposedly, Reapers are able to kill with just a glance.

  This flips that on its head, making everyone who looks at you immediately regret it.

  Sets your Charisma to -100.

  Any Player whose total stats are below 100 will instantly die if they look at you.

  [‘Reap This!’ x ]

  Passive

  Ooooh, this is a fun one!

  One of my brothers plays a game like this with his victims.

  On death, flip a coin.

  If it’s heads, you’re still dead.

  If it’s tails, your attacker dies instead.

  Also, they won’t tell you this, because they’re cowards, but this Passive does not conflict with Respawn Once from Rules of Anarchy.

  Cooldown: 24 hours

  [‘Delightful’ x ]

  Ability

  This is actually a natural power possessed by Lust Demons.

  Not all of them are about mixing fluids and turning nuns into succubi.

  Although they like telling jokes, they’re generally quite bad comedians, so they rely on their powers a bit too much to make people laugh. That kind of coercion damages the mind, or so I hear.

  Tell a joke to induce a laughing fit in whoever hears it.

  For each minute of sustained laughter, the targets’ insanity meters go up.

  The strength of the effect depends on how well the joke lands, but the laughing fit will last until a target passes out from lack of oxygen.

  Cooldown: 2 hours

  “Do not pick the first one!” Panda exclaimed.

  “I’m not gonna,” I told him. “Billee is clearly steering me towards Reap This, so I’ll grab that.”

  Panda nodded. “Thank you. I was worried you'd pick something that’d immediately kill all our passengers.”

  “I wonder if that would violate the Safe Zone rules, since it’s not actually an attack, just a passive.”

  Panda frowned.

  I picked the skill and a tattoo of a coin showing tails appeared on the back of my left hand.

  “They branded me…” I complained.

  “Could be worse,” Panda remarked.

  Next to me, Bee pulled out her own lunchbox. One of the MLP guys stood next to her when she opened it. She just sneezed as the mist wafted over her, but the guy took off running down the bus, screaming and frothing at the mouth, until Cooper stepped in and clotheslined him, knocking him unconscious.

  After a few moments, Bee said, “I picked an ability called Delightful Aura. I can switch it on and off, and it allows me to induce Tummy-Rumbles in anyone within 10 meters.”

  “What the fuck is Tummy-Rumbles?” I asked.

  “It’s an insanity-based attack,” Panda answered knowingly. “It’s similar to the Giggles, but doesn’t turn people into your hallucinating slaves. It just makes them chuckle uncontrollably and gives them stomachs spasm.”

  “It doesn’t do any damage,” Bee said, “but it counts as an affliction, so it benefits Affliction Master, adding 10% effectiveness to all my other afflictions.”

  “What about Diarrhea Beam?” I asked. “Does it do what the name advertises?”

  “Sort of,” she said with an evil grin that absolutely terrified me. “On humans it causes uncontrollable diarrhea. On non-humans it makes effluvia spill out of all their orifices. It doesn’t do any damage either, but it makes those afflicted more susceptible to other attacks.”

  “Jesus Christ,” I muttered. “Your whole setup is just to cascade effects into absurdity, isn’t it?”

  Bee flexed her right hand. “I can probably double my Rotting Touch effectiveness if I stack everything just right. But I need more afflictions.”

  “Did you just say Diarrhea Beam?” Isabella asked.

  The whole bus jumped as Greg went off-road again, leaving behind the highway and its abandoned cars.

  “We’re close now,” I said.

  “Are we still searching for Otto?” Isabella asked. I wondered what ability she’d gotten from the Warden.

  “He’s the key to everything,” I told her.

  Panda sighed, and Isabella looked to Bee for an explanation.

  “Apparently he’s important,” Bee said. “One of the Absolutes is looking for him.”

  “What’s that?” she asked.

  “Like a weird God,” she replied.

  Panda frowned. “That’s too narrow a definition.”

  “He likes octopuses and sea creatures,” Bee added.

  “So, he’s like Poseidon?” Isabella asked.

  “No!” Panda shouted.

  Bee and I both turned to look at where he sat on the dashboard of the bus, surprised by his sudden outburst.

  Isabella followed our gazes, but she clearly couldn’t see him.

  “No,” I said, slowly turning back to face her.

  “He’s the Lord of Black Holes and Deep Places,” Panda explained.

  I relayed that to Isabella.

  “Weird. What does he want with Otto? He’s not a deep-diver, and I don’t see what otters have to do with black holes.”

  I shrugged. “No idea.”

  “How do you know Otto?” Bee asked.

  “I didn’t tell you?” Isabella replied. “Otto is my brother.”