Discount Dan

“Hey,” Croc said from beside me, “Funtime Frank’s a gorilla.”

Funtime Frank was indeed a gorilla.

Or at least, predominately gorilla shape. Frank was covered in grimy black fur, speckled with silver, and had beady, deep-set eyes that burned like hot coals. He was easily eight feet tall, four feet across the shoulders, and had arms that were bigger than my torso. An electric blue tie dangled from a neck as thick as a tree trunk, and a fat cigar protruded from the corner of Frank’s all-too human mouth, letting out a constant plume of smoke.

Stacked beside the gargantuan gorilla were colorful barrels. Some blue, others green. More fire-engine red or deep purple.

The moment I saw those barrels, I realized the awful, terrible truth. Just as the Mobile Murder Muncher from the third-floor Arcade had been a nightmare version of Pac-Man, Frank was an acid-trip parody of Donkey Kong. Barrels included.

“I thought you said gorillas wouldn’t be involved in any part of the process,” Croc added, tilting its head to one side as it regarded the Arcade Boss.

“Nope,” I replied softly, my eyes still locked on the massive simian. “What I said was that if there are gorillas involved at any point in the process, things have gone wildly off the rails.”

“Oh, fiddlesticks. Does that mean things have gone wildly off the rails, Dan?”

“I think we’re about to find out,” I replied as the Codex generated a new entry.

Dweller 0.7824A – Funtime Frank – Arcade Boss (Blighted) [Level 24]

Funtime Frank is a mad scientist’s wet dream. The perfect blend of man and machine, all gift wrapped with the primal prowess of an embalmed silverback gorilla. Make no mistake, this monstrous neon-drenched mashup is a blast from the past who is ready to fuck up your future. Although the stage-dominating simian is more than happy to leave the spotlight and turn you into pink mist with his reinforced metal fists, he prefers to do his dirty work from a distance.

Those barrels of his? They are far more than wood and nails.

Some go BOOM! Others? They’re full of skin-melting goo. But the best ones? Those are packed with hordes of horrific animatronic murder minions, all hell-bent on achieving a single objective: wrecking your shit.

Killing Frankie-boy ain’t easy, especially since he isn’t a solo act. Frank’s the charismatic front man of the Funtime Jamboree. You’ll need to send Frank’s bandmates—Vex Vixen, Bellatrix Black, Synthia Lynx, and Drumbo Chumbo—packing before you have a snowball’s chance in hell of hurting him. Thing is, their beats don’t just slap, they shield Funtime Frank with powerful buffs that make him… well, not invulnerable exactly. But there’s not really another good word that fits.

Hope you’re ready to dance, because Funtime Frank is here to party, and his parties involve copious amounts of cocaine and murder. Though mostly murder.

Current Active Effects: Melodic Shield, Beat of War, String’s Sorrow, Bass Boost

My eyes raced over the words, quickly parsing between the flavor text and the actual meat of the description. The long and short of it was that Frank was one bad SOB. He had a host of ranged attacks, could summon minions, and was basically invulnerable until we took out the other four band members that were buffing him through the gills.

The only upside—and it was a big upside—was that my StainSlayer Maelstrom spells would likely affect the band, since they were at least partially composed of organic matter.

“What do we do here?” Temperance yelled to be heard over the pumping beat of the drums and the buzzing drone of the keytar.

“Classic arcade setup,” I called back. “We need to take out the band first. Otherwise, attacking Frank won’t do anything. But watch out for his barrels. They all have different effects. I’m thinking we split up. There’s four band members and four of us. Math makes it pretty simple.”

Much as I hated to split the party, we couldn’t afford to focus all of our attention on one single target. If we tried that, it would open us up to all sorts of nasty attacks. Especially with an invulnerable Frank chucking exploding barrels at us when we weren’t looking.

“Fine by me,” Temperance said, gaze sweeping over the four members of the band. Her eyes narrowed when they landed on Synthia, the keytar playing lynx. “The cat bitch is mine,” she growled, already prowling forward. She looked more like a hunting wolf than a timid bunny.

I eyed up the elephant man, hammering away at his drums. He looked powerful but slow. As long as I kept that son of a bitch from landing a blow, I could probably take him. “I’ve got the elephant man.” I glanced right, at the other two remaining band members. The fox looked like the least dangerous of the four, while the bear was legitimately one of the most distressing things I’d ever laid eyes on. And that included the Mobile Murder Muncher from the third-floor Arcade.

“Croc, you’ve got the fox.”

“You can count on me, Dan,” the dog replied, taking off like a blue rocket. The mimic shifted as it moved, its body swelling up and out, until it was easily as large as any of the uncanny-valley robots. “Jakob”—I grabbed ahold of the Cendral before he could take off too—“keep my dog safe, okay? I couldn’t live with myself if anything happened to the big blue idiot.”

“I’ll do what I can,” the man replied with a shallow dip of his head. Then he turned on his heel and took off after Croc at a dead sprint.

I turned my attention back toward Temperance, who was already rapidly closing the distance with Synthia Lynx. Although the striped keytar player was buffing Frank, she wasn’t content to stand by while Temperance attacked. The cat woman turned toward the approaching murder bunny and let loose a jagged riff of discordant notes that sent chills racing along my spine.

Power built and brilliant streaks of blue lightning lanced downward, stabbing at the ground with furious vengeance.

The bunny was lightning fast herself, though, and easily dodged each of the attacks. The bolts of energy pockmarked the floor, leaving behind a series of smoking divots. As quick as Temperance was, however, she wasn’t ready when Drumbo Chumbo, the elephant percussionist, brought a huge foot slamming down. The ground rumbled and a huge fissure zigzagged across the floor, threatening to swallow Temperance.

The murder bunny dove to the right at the last possible moment, narrowly avoiding the crack spreading along the ground—

But she didn’t avoid the purple barrel, which sideswiped her like a Mack truck.

The barrel didn’t explode on impact, which was a small mercy.

Instead, it shattered, wooden shrapnel flying out in every direction as a score of butchered cyborg monkeys scampered out, screeching loudly and waving their arms in the air.

Dweller 0.734D – Reanimated Murder Monkey [Level 4]

Ever wonder what happens to all the lab monkeys once the scientists are done with ’em? Yeah, now you don’t have to wonder.

Monkeys in a barrel? Really?

I shouldn’t have been surprised, but I was anyway.

It genuinely would’ve been funny if not for the fact that the reanimated monkeys were about five seconds away from ripping Temperance’s throat out. The creatures charged with reckless abandon before the furry could gain her feet.

With a thought, I sent my screwdriver shooting forward like a bullet fired from a high-powered rifle. The tool punched into one monkey’s throat with enough force to blast clean out the other side in a geyser of black gore. Two more monkeys had broken off from the pack and were attempting to flank me from the left and right. The floating screwdriver pirouetted in midair then slammed into the monkey on the left. I thrust my right hand out and unleashed a concentrated beam of pressurized water that sliced the other monkey clean in two.

Three more monkeys had converged on Temperance, who was still struggling to gain her feet. They were scrambling all over her, teeth biting at her arms, claws raking at her skin. One was even yanking on her hair.

But she wasn’t taking things lying down—even though she was technically lying down. Her meat cleaver was a blur. She decapitated one monkey, then sliced the arm off another. She leveled her free hand and hurled a ball of spiders right into the face of the third. The monkey screeched in terror, showing far more emotion than I would’ve expected as it stumbled back a few paces, swatting madly at the bugs.

Temperance brought one boot up and slammed it into the creature’s stomach, propelling it backward.

I cut it down with another quick pulse of Pressure Washer, then rushed over and hauled her to her feet.

“I know you like to work alone,” I yelled, fending off yet another monkey with my screwdriver lance, “but if we’re going to survive this, we need to work together. And, in this case, that means staying together.”

She rolled her eyes but nodded. “Just try not to slow me down too much.”

“Back in the Marine Corps we had this saying. Slow is smooth, smooth is fast.”

She grinned. “My people had a saying as well, fast is fast. But I suppose we can try it your way.”

We’d killed about half of the mechanical monkeys, but more were closing in.

Temperance drew her bat and pointed it at the pack of feral apes like it was a magic wand. “Venatus Veneficae Surgit!” A writhing ball of green light flashed from the tip of the blunt weapon and slammed into the encroaching wave of monkeys. When the ball hit, it exploded into a fine mist, tendrils of green magic boring into noses and eyes and mouths.

Half the monkeys turned and violently hurled themselves at the other half, screeching frantically as civil war broke out among their ranks.

We let them fight it out amongst themselves as we closed the distance with Synthia Lynx.

Another barrel, this one bright red, arched toward us from the stadium seats, but this one I sniped from the air with a thread of water. Good thing too, since it exploded, releasing a billowing cloud of orange and red flames.

Synthia jabbed at the keyboard once more, conjuring another discordant jangle of music.

Energy built, but I cast Sterilization Field for 40 Mana. The dome of blue-white light rippled outward, enveloping both me and Temperance before Synthia’s lightning lances had finished forming. The bolts of power still penetrated the shell, but passing through the wall of light reduced their strength by half. Temperance soaked up twenty damage, which shaved off seven percent of her HP.

An errant bolt slammed into my shoulder for seven points of damage on contact, sending a jolt of electricity racing along my arm. I shook the pain away with a grimace.

“Get up there,” I yelled now that we were finally in range. “I’ll take out Tiny.” I waved toward the elephant man.

Temperance nodded curtly, then backpedaled a few steps and sprang upward, running across the air, until she landed on the raised platform housing Synthia. A green nimbus flared to life around her as she lashed out with her baseball bat.

Synthia met the blow with her keytar, turning the strike, then retaliated with a brutal front kick. Temperance danced away, just out of reach, then feinted left and rolled right, unleashing another spider bolt at the lynx.

Much as I wanted to, I couldn’t watch the fight.

I had Drumbo Chumbo to deal with—not to mention several more incoming barrels.

Funtime Frank had launched a trio of barrels in rapid-fire succession. One red, one purple, one neon green.

Purple was more reanimated minions and red was a firebomb. The neon green was new.

I raised my hand and launched another jet of water at the red barrel, silently praying the ensuing explosion would take out the other two barrels. But just in case they didn’t, I launched my screwdriver at the green barrel like an antiair missile. In my book, there was no such thing as overkill. I even had the title to prove it.

The beam of water triggered the firebomb barrel. It exploded in another room-shaking blaze of oranges, reds, and golds, but unfortunately the blast radius didn’t take out the other two incoming projectiles. The screwdriver also ricocheted ineffectively off the side of the green container, spinning away then landing on the floor with a clatter.

Well, shit.

Drumbo was winding up for another stomp attack, and I didn’t have time to take out both barrels with water pulse.

Unless…

A truly unhinged idea occurred to me, but I really had nothing to lose, so why not roll the dice?