MADMAN APOCALYPSE

“I don’t like the sound of this,” Panda muttered as the new Announcer started explaining the Systems that were coming online following the first Game Event.

To start off, new Dungeons have been added to your Region. Until now, only public facilities could become Dungeons, but now any place of significance might become one. Additionally, as an incentive to Clear these Dungeons, they will be releasing Enemies every hour, with a successful Clear putting this ‘release’ on a cooldown for half a day.

So make sure you Clear those Dungeons before your city is overrun.

New Roaming Bosses have likewise been added, with many inspired by folklore, myth, and urban legend of your region. Defeating these Bosses is a good way to earn unique rewards like weapons, armor, or even skills, as well as GAME Coins.

GAME Coins are a new addition for our Merchant system, which allows for trading with unique non-hostile entities, known as Vendors, as well as with other Players through public marketplaces. However, these Vendors most frequently appear in Safe Zones, which have to be unlocked.

Safe Zones are yet another new addition, which is meant to consolidate Player strength in a region and enable the Quest and Merchant systems. While we prefer that the weak are torn to shreds, it is important that the strong get stronger for what will come later. Now, in order to unlock Safe Zones, important Dungeons and/or Roaming Bosses must be Cleared, such that a ‘Safe Zone Sphere’ can be obtained. This item will allow for the construction of a Safe Zone and its subsequent management and upgrading by the Players supporting it.

Currently, there are five ways to obtain ‘Safe Zone Spheres’ in your Region:

- Clear the Police Headquarters (Castleburg)

- Kill the Mayor (Castleburg)

- Clear the Sewers (Madeville)

- Kill the Shadowman

- Kill the Yellow Raincoat Demon

Last on the list of additions is: the Benefactor system.

As you fight through Dungeons and kill Bosses, while growing stronger, you may catch the eye of a Benefactor. These can be anything from Agency Executives like the Queen of the Child Protective Services Hive, Demons and Daemons of the Nine Realms of Vice, and even the Spawn of the Great Ones.

Some of you may already have attracted the attention of such esteemed entities, and once this announcement concludes, you may receive notice that you have been acquired by a Benefactor.

In case you were wondering, Samantha, you do not have a say in this. Those of you worthy of earning a Benefactor will be sold to the highest bidder.

Do your best to please your Benefactors and their whims, lest they penalize you.

That is all for now.

Once the rest of your world’s first GAME EVENTS conclude, a seven-day countdown for the second EVENT will begin. To avoid unintended behavior, you are not able to leave your region until surrounding regions finish their EVENTS.

“That’s a lot to dump on us all at once,” Bee muttered.

I took in the information. They had turned the Mayor into a boss monster from the sounds of it.

“How fitting,” I muttered.

He was a weak man, and had gained his seat of governance thanks to his vast inheritance and general disregard for his constituents. In reality, he’d always been a monster, but now the Great Game had made that literal.

Then suddenly a hazy dark-blue box that seemed to exist beyond our three dimensions appeared in front of me. I looked over to Bee to see that one had appeared in front of her as well. The box had a large eye in the center with the iris of a goat.

As I looked at it, it felt like tongues were licking the outside of my brain, making zaps and tingles flow through my mind like a lightning storm.

Then it opened.

An honest-to-God parchment letter emerged, unfolding itself in the air. The text was impossible for my human mind to comprehend, but ‘fortunately’ a System pop-up appeared to translate it.

Benefactor Contract

This is a System Contract.

This contract is binding for the duration of the GREAT GAME, but may be annulled by the Benefactor if they decide to sell you.

The following is a message from your new Benefactor:

Oh, Gambit, how doth I lust for thy luscious thighs.

Gazing upon thy amoral figure bathed in gore delights me so.

Thus, I have decided to make thee mine plaything.

Miranda,

Demon Duchess of Throbbing Excitement

SIGN HERE ______________

I frowned.

“I’m not doing that.”

Suddenly my right hand lifted towards the floating letter on its own, and wouldn’t budge even when I tried to pull against the movement. Thin tendrils of blood snaked out from my fingertips, emerging from under my nails. They reached out to touch the parchment, before writing my real name on it.

Then the whole thing went up in purple-pink flames, including the box it had arrived in. A symbol, almost like a tattoo, appeared around my ring finger, visible through Brock’s balloon gauntlet body, thanks to its glowing light in the same hue as the flames. Fortunately, its intensity died down quickly. Still, I wasn’t a fan of being branded.

I looked over and saw Bee going through the same thing, but before I could try to intervene, her letter had gone up in a warm blue puff.

An achievement appeared.

Congratulations! You have unlocked an achievement! x

‘The Benefactor’

Received a Benefactor.

You have been marked and made a Benefactor’s Chosen.

Benefactors are the lifeblood of how the GREAT GAME stays afloat financially. While your world was run on money, the GREAT GAME is sustained by cosmic influence. This intangible resource is paid by these Benefactors in return for allowing them to sponsor their favorite Players and subject them to their whims.

I hope you enjoy being given Quests to kill a rival Benefactor’s Chosen, because that is about 99% of the requests Benefactors seem to make. Though there might also be special ‘favors’ mixed in with them, especially if you get snatched up by some of the weirder types.

Reward: 10x ‘GAME Coins’

“What’d you get?” I asked her after waving the pop-up away.

“A Benefactor called the ‘All-Mother’, apparently.”

“Mine’s a ‘Demon Duchess of Throbbing Excitement’ called ‘Miranda’…”

“Pretty sure you got snatched up by a Succubus,” Panda remarked snidely.

An unfamiliar chime sounded in my ear.

“Do you hear that?”

“No.”

It rang a couple more times, before a new pop-up appeared.

Benefactor Gift

This is a gifted item from your Benefactor.

The following is a message from your new Benefactor:

Be a Good Boy and wear these for thy Mistress.

Miranda

Gift: ‘Lustful Loincloth’

“I just got a Benefactor Gift…”

“What is it?”

I frowned as the item appeared in my hands. It felt like animal hide, but it was purple, and had a limp noodle-like tail with a heart at the end coming out the back. The tail and heart attached were both soft as though covered in real skin.

Against my better judgement, I inspected the item.

‘Lustful Loincloth’ x

Made from the hide of a Lustful Demon, who wronged Duchess Miranda, and imbued with her unique powers. She is known as a fearsome General that gains power from showering in the blood of her foes.

This loincloth is imbued with the following effects:

This item does not count as a piece of armor and cannot be unequipped unless Miranda allows it.

When a kill results in a splatter of blood that hits your bare skin, you get a stack of ‘Battle Hardened’ for 30 seconds, increasing damage resistance by 5% and damage by 10%. This effect can stack up to 10 times.

This is a Benefactor Gift and cannot be sold or discarded.

Weight: 0.45 Pandas

“Apparently once I equip this, I won’t be able to take it off, but it’s actually quite powerful. I’m torn.”

“I’m all for you not flashing people anymore,” Panda stated.

“Maybe it’ll look better than what you normally wear when you unequip everything.”

I blinked in surprise at her words. “What’d you mean?”

“Normally you have these pee-stained white boxers on. They’re kind of gross to look at. Ah, but then again, purple pants with a tail attached is definite weirdo vibes.”

“I wish I’d have known earlier that I wasn’t going full commando on you, but thank fuck for that.”

“Panda didn’t tell you?”

“Don’t look at me!” the plushie said defensively. “He’s 100% nude on my end, maybe you just have a censoring filter or something.”

I sighed, my fingers pressing into the fabric of the loincloth, before I quickly equipped the Benefactor Gift by pulling it over my Carapace Suit’s ‘pants’. It immediately disappeared under it, phasing through the armor. I could feel how it stuck to my skin with an uncomfortable kind of warmth.

GOOD BOY.

A shiver ran down my spine at the words which resounded in the depths of my ear canals. They were honeyed and sweet, but with an underlying tone of malicious intent and glee at my discomfort.

I cleared my throat, trying to shake the awful feeling of whatever the hell I’d just been signed up for against my will. “Let’s go to the Police Station. I have a date with the Chief of Police.”

BAD CATCHPHRASE!

You have taken 1 point of damage.