Young Writers Society

Jerica settled back on the couch, letting her shoulders relax ever so slightly. The rum had at least taken the edge off her anxiety, even if she was still uneasy, and made it easier for her to think through her options.

She pushed her right sleeve up a bit and brushed her fingers across her wrist wishing she could hear something -- anything -- from the Guild about what she was supposed to do. But instead, there was just deafening silence. Guess it's up to you to get out of this mess...

Jerica looked back at the men on her right, considering them for a long moment. Carter seemed like he could actually fight if worse came to worse. Lordy was pretentious -- but he had rum.

"So..." she said. "Either of you know where we are, or why, or how we can go back to not being here?"

Lordy glanced over at Jerica, "My dear, could you not speak so much? I think we may just be in Purgatory and I'd like to not have a headache by the time they call my name for judgment."

Jerica raised her eyebrows challengingly. So that's how it's gonna be. "Oh, go jump off a cliff."

She looked towards Carter, wondering if he was going to actually be useful to her or not. "Do you have any ideas?"

Lordy smirked as he turned to Carter, "I don't know about you but I think this one's kind of suspicious."

He folded his arms across his chest and sat back in his chair, "Perhaps the rum was a bad idea."

Hildegarde opened her eyes to darkness. One moment she'd been stepping onto the deck of the Kraken's Lullaby, and now she couldn't smell the sea spray or feel the ship rolling under her feet.

"Shmebulock, putting people in pitch darkness isn't even a funny illusion," she shouted, feeling around for the stairs behind her and concentrating on the darkness. Usually, if she took a moment to think, she could see through that ridiculous gnome's illusions.

A huge, booming laugh echoed all around her. A spotlight swung right into her face, blinding her.

"WRONG! Your gnome friend's got nothing to do with this! Ladies and gents and others, might I introduce HILDEGARDE HOPESINGER, or Hildy if you want to make her uncomfortable!"

HIldegarde's eyes adjusted, and she stepped forward onto what she could see now was a stage. A roar of applause — and more than a few jeers — echoed from an audience she couldn't quite see. What she could see was who — or what — was shouting.

It was a dog. An talking albino white dog. Honestly, that was almost normal.

The dog's voice was sharp and mocking as he introduced her. "Knitter of sweaters, champion of common sense — because apparently they need a goddess for that in her world to keep everybody sane, member of — how do you say it again?"

Hildegarde grimaced. She was long past being embarrassed over her party's name, but it helped to pretend she was. "The Anchorless Alliteration Amalgamation of Anti-pirates."

"That's the one! Also know as...?"

"AAAA," Hildegarde screamed flatly. Usually it was Shmebby and Blitz standing right behind her who would shout it. But she didn't see the rest of her party anywhere.

"There it is! Unfortunately, you won't be getting a full demonstration of the awesome powers of common sense, cause we had to nerf her a little bit. Well, a lot. Ninth level spells — OP, am I right?"

The dog flashed a wink at her, and for the first time fear stabbed at Hildegarde. Whoever this was knew too much about her friends, and more importantly, her powers. Her reading glasses were still hanging around her neck, right eye emblazoned with Ava's symbol. That alone was a bad sign — it meant whoever had brought her here was confident enough to think she couldn't escape even with her spell-casting.

As some unseen force pushed her toward the couch where seven other confused-looking people sat, Hildegarde muttered something rather unladlylike under her breath.

"It's another godsd*** Nero."

Carter raised his eyebrows as he watched Jerica and Lordy’s exchange, and found his eyes drawn to the next victim of the game. An old woman. At least there was diversity?

He didn’t know what made Lordy suspicious of him (or for what), but he made a point to earn their trust.

“Sorry about the rum, Lordy,” he whispered to the man as a genuine apology, before looking to Jerica.

“It seems we’ve been forced into a contest. My suspicion is that we may have to win to escape, but we have yet to be told the rules or the stakes, so I may be wrong.”

"Hm, apologies do not fill my flask," Lordy turned to face Carter, "But they do fill my heart."

A competition? Maybe this guy was on to something.

"Well then, perhaps it'd be best if we agree to look after each other?" Lordy stuck his hand out towards Carter, "What do you say?"

Jerica watched the interaction irritably, anger building in her with each moment. People usually cowered when she was even in the same room. And here he was snubbing her and pretending like he could get away with it. This is what you get for trying to being nice to men.

She rolled her eyes as Lordy stuck his hand out towards Carter.

Maybe if I hit him hard enough it'll knock some sense into him.

"I thought you had a headache, my dear?"

Lordy turned slowly to face Jerica.



"Do you mind, darling, I'm trying to form a pact here."

Corrick almost bit out a growl at the girl next to her. Amy? Aly? Dumb name. He didn't bother to care.

Stupid people on the other end of the fake couch were complaining about headaches. "They are gonna be a headache for me..." He muttered.

The person next to him looked like he woke up on the wrong side of this century. And then they had to bring in an old woman at the end. Stick to being an elder, lady.

Carter took Lordy's hand and shook it firmly with a smile.

He didn't trust Lordy, but Lordy didn't know that. Lordy wanted an alliance, and alliances were always self-serving, so as long as they were on the same page, hopefully, it would prove profitable. Jerica obviously didn't seem to want to become allies with anybody. She seemed more interested in getting on everyone's nerves and having a bad attitude.

Further down the couch, the grumpy man - Corrick, it looked like - was muttering complaints.

Oh, boo hoo. No one was happy to be here but why complain about it? They didn't even know all the details yet. This could prove to be fortunate, if only, for a little fun.

"Pact formed," he said, shaking Lordy's hand up and down. He looked to Jerica with a small, smug grin. She seemed likely to outbursts of anger, judging from how feisty she was coming in, and he had a feeling appeasing her would take more effort than it was worth. Lordy, at least, seemed to have some sense, which counted for something.

Hildegarde climbed onto the oversized couch carefully. Never halfling furniture, anywhere, she grumbled. She found herself sitting beside... well, if he hadn't been smiling stiffly and distinctly not attacking anyone, Hildegarde would have said a zombie or a flesh golem. He was wearing a name tag that said SIMON, prompting Hildegarde to realize that everyone on the couch, including herself, had name tags. Well, that was convenient.

Out of habit, she pulled out her knitting needles as she evaluated the rest of the couch. Would they be competitors? Teammates? On the other side of Simon sat a sweet-looking young lady name with impressive boots and gorgeous bouncy hair. She was Mel, according to her name tag. As for the rest... it seemed they were alternatively forming alliances or sulking. Most of them wore strange clothing — only the man at the very end was wearing familiar plate armor. She'd have to talk to him later.

For now, Hildegarde leaned over Simon and said, "Mel, isn't it? It's lovely to meet you, and you too Simon. Well, except for the fact that I have no idea how I got here. I assume it's the same for the both of you?"

Music boomed throughout the speakers, silencing all chatter between the contestants, and as if on cue, the couch began to break apart. Of course, it didn't split like it was breaking. It only split itself into singular seats, each holding a contestant, and then the seats separated and travelled in a circle around the stage, until they all landed underneath large blinking, lit-up signs with each respective contenstant's name on them.

"Well, folks, it's time to get started!" K.K. Slider chirped. "For our new viewers and for our contestants here, I'll start by explaining a few of the rules."

"This here gameshow is split into consecutive rounds, and in each round, our contestants will be split into groups of two to three, and given a prompt. They will have to respond to that prompt within a five minute time limit, and once the clock hits zero, they're done! In between rounds, we'll pull each contestant aside for a small interview while viewers send in their votes for the winner of each round. The contestant with the least amount of votes, well, they'll have to face the humiliation of a surprise consequence. We'll leave that up to interpretation for now."

K.K. spun around in his chair and spread his arms wide.

"Now that that's out of the way - let's begin!"



A bell chimed loudly three times.

"For our first round, our groups will be as follows:

GROUP ONE: Carter. Simon. Corrick
GROUP TWO: Hildegarde . Jerica.
GROUP THREE: Mel. Lordy.

"Take a good look at your group, contestants, because you'll all be competing against each other."

K.K. Slider stood tall on his podium and whistled to the music as the audience roared.

"For this round, we'll be having a PUN BATTLE! You heard that right, folks. Get ready to laugh your snouts off. The curtains behind the contestants will reveal a backdrop of a specific setting. So if the background is a dog park, then each contestant will have five minutes to think of as many dog-park-related puns as they can! The worse the pun, the better. The louder the boos, the better!"

The audience kept cheering in response and the background behind the contestants dramatically started flashing.

BATTLE OF THE PUNS!

"What do you say, folks? Ready to get started?" K.K. chirped, and suddenly the next words out of his mouth were simultaneously said by the audience as well.

"WHO WILL SURVIVE ANOTHER ROLEPLAY REALM GAMESHOW?" literally everyone except the contestants said at the same time, but it really sounded like white noise since everyone seemed to say it at different times.

"Aaaaand let's begin with Group One!" K.K. squeaked, and suddenly Hildegarde, Jerica, Mel, and Lordy's seats quickly traveled to the side of the stage. Carter, Simon, and Corrick's seats seemed to travel at the speed of sound, knocking them out of their seats due to the instantaneous speed.

The three of them sat alone on the stage. For a second, the entire room went dark, and the audience went quiet. It was the first time since their entry that they could hear the sound of silence.

But that only lasted for about half a second.

The background behind them whirred to life:



"The clock begins NOW!" K.K. said dramatically as a giant five minute timer started counting down from the ceiling.

Carter found that any shock he felt at all of the flashing lights and colors was drowned out by the overwhelming competitive urge to win.

He couldn't disappoint the crowds, now, could he? He could stoop down to a child's humor and make puns. And he would do it marvelously.

He looked at the others with a smug smile.

"Eggcelent. Guess I'll start winging it," he said. "Even if some of these are cheep shots, I'm not one to stand poultry-fied in the spotlight."

Mel was about to be respond to Hildegarde, but it appeared this mysterious place had other plans for them.

By the time the chicken song and background appeared behind the three contestants, Mel started giggling and clapping, getting into the spirit of the show. Or whatever this was, really. This was far more entertaining than her normal life, that was for sure.

"YEEEEAHHH!" she very loudly screamed for Carter after he delivered his first lines, cupping her hands around her mouth. "Great first puns, Carter!"

Then she finally turned to Hiledegarde, beaming at her because she was an adorable small old lady knitting away. She wanted to adopt her as her grandma.

"And yeah! I'm Mel!" she said to her at a much softer voice, smiling. "Can I call you Hilly? I'm not sure why I'm here either, but this is fun."