The Mermaid

The Broadcast

Daphne enters her shop alone. Once she hears the door close, she lets out a giant squee. She bops and shakes her waist as she shimmies towards the counter, almost as if she dancing to a tune only she can hear. She pulls herself up on top of the counter and slides her way across as she gets behind it. The mermaid grabs a notebook from under the counter and starts to write down some notes.

Suddenly, Daphne jumps up, alert, saying something in a language not in the Universal Broadcasting Translator. She shakes a hand, gets frustrated, and then grabs a spear from under the counter. She moves towards the nearest water tube, only to shuffle back, as another mermaid pops out, ropes in hand. She doesn’t quite panic, but shimmies as quickly towards the door as she can. She opens the door to see a mermaid throw a net at her; Daphne slams the door shut to deflect the net. Knocking down a nearby display, she turns to thrust a spear at the intruder. While not the greatest in melee combat, Daphne is at least competent. She pierces the rope wielding mermaid right in the egg sac. The stuck mermaid screams, attracting another mermaid just coming out of the tube. As Daphne tries to shimmy around the injured mermaid, she deals a massive blow to the fish girl’s right flank. The rope girl passes out, bleeding heavily from the wound.

Daphne shimmies as fast as she can towards the post-dungeon delving rest area. The door to the store breaks, with three more mermaids busting the door down. One stops to tend to the heavily wounded, but the other two pursue Daphne. Soon enough, she has 3 mermaids on her. Daphne throws another thrust, but her target shifts around the strike point and wraps her arm around the protracted shaft; the aggressor yanking back on the shaft, Daphne loses grip on the spear. Daphne takes on a defensive stance.

A fifth mermaid shimmies into the room. One very eel-y.

“Daphne, stop being difficult. If Nike dies, we are going to be very annoyed.”

Daphne speaks in the mermaid’s language. Still not intelligible on the broadcast, outside of “Cassiopeia”.

“English, Daphne. We are filming.”

Daphne slams into the mermaid that has her spear, only to get smacked back just as hard. Daphne bites down, hard, and shakes her head, ripping out a chunk of neck flesh. Slamming again at the downed mermaid, she finds herself lassoed by a rope from another of her assailants. She snaps the rope just in time to take a spear butt to the back of the head and an electric eel blast of electricity. Woozy and coughing up a little blood, Daphne tries to crawl away. She takes a poke between her ribs from her own spear for the trouble. The spear is slammed deeper into her; she’s effectively pinned.

The eel mermaid shimmies over and leans over Daphne. “Look, Daphne, It’s 4 against 1 and you are a runt. Just surrender and the pain stops.”

Daphne spits and keeps the mermaid speak going. The eel mermaid gives her another electric shock. Daphne passes out, smoldering. The eel looks up, “We’re coming, Ariel. Does this make up for my bad camera positioning?”

Francis

Shit, Daphne. What the fuck happened to you?

Francis sprints towards the mermaid, a broken spear sticking out of her and burnt. Dinah is soon behind him. The pulls the stopper out of the potion, saying, “We need her to drink this. Done that before?”

Dinah nods, “On it.”

Turning back towards Ariel, Francis rages, “What the fuck, Ariel? How is this supposed to be my transformation?”

Ariel shrugs. “Here you go. Magic is already done, by the way.”

The display screen transitions, replacing the other transformations with one new one:

Part of Your World – With a magical bunny girl in his possession already and more magical transformations on the way, the Master could really use an advisor on arcane matters. Well, we know just the DoD obsessed mermaid for the job. Daphne joins the harem according to the rules laid out in the “Bring in Staff Members” section of this season’s official rulebook. Yes, it is a bit silly to state that someone from a unisexual species has same-sex attraction, but it does work for the theme of the show. Shut up (Dungeon Master).

“The hidden transformation won,” he hisses as he reads.

“That’s right, Master. With like 62.5% of the vote. The audience really thinks that you need the help.”

“You better have a good explanation, Ariel.”

“I gave you something to repair your property with, Master. We still have things to do. His property still alive, Dinah?”

Francis turns at the sound of coughing. The broken spear is squeezed out of Daphne’s ribs as she starts to sit up. She groans in pain. Francis rushes back, “How you feeling?”

“Like I’ve been stabbed and electrocuted. Why am I...”

Daphne

“...here?”

Daphne reads the displayed transformation. She smiles, weakly.

“Don’t exactly have the strength to get myself in position, Master. Can you carry me?”

Daphne squees in her head as she is picked up. It’s like swimming in a current. A slow current, but a current nevertheless. Whee!

Her joy is snuffed out when she sees Ariel. Big sis looks mad.

“Alright, folks. We got a new member to the harem, so we need to handle introductions. So, name, profession, last time you had sex, the contestant you want to have sex with the most, your relationship with The Master?”

“Uh, sure, Big Sis. Hi, I’m Daphne, your friendly neighborhood Dungeon Mermaid. I’m on staff here at the hotel. I met the Master here, but helped with research before the season started, so I knew he existed and stuff. For the sex questions, should I answer them by human or mermaid standards?”

“Humor the audience. Both.”

“Ok. I’ve done some hand and mouth stuff with the Master, most recently this morning, but I haven’t let anyone stick anything in my cloaca, which, I guess, is the closest I can get to human sex. I mean, our cloacas are really only used for excreting waste as our reproductive system is located in our neck and chest, but it’s in the right spot. My best, also only, customer Tina would be the one I want to have sex with in the human way, assuming it doesn’t involve my cloaca...”

Tina interrupts, “Thanks for the compliment, but can you stop saying cloaca? It’s weird!”

“More weird than legs or your appendix thingy?” Daphne pauses, then apologizes, “Sorry. Master is the only eligible person here for mouth sex, as we all know. Scarlet was reeeally good at the mouth foreplay, so I wouldn’t mind doing that again. I guess I would most like to lay my eggs inside Indigo? She looks to be the most expendable, yet substantial meal for my babies. So, we done here, Sis?”

“No, we aren’t. Master, if you would be so kind as to put your property down, you have a transformation to select. Then we have one more audience transformation to apply. I have other things to do.”

Ariel hands Francis a sheet of paper. He reads it, frowning.

“Sorry, Daphne, but, assuming we ever get to go back home, only one of these options will even give you a shot at normalcy. This one.”

Ariel smirks, “Fine. Stick it on screen and let’s make it happen. This will feel weird at least for the first time. You’ll get used to it, I’m sure.”

The screen updates to add the chosen transformation to the list:

Legs Are Required For Jumping, Dancing – The Master is notoriously terrestrial, so Daphne needs to be terrestrial too. When not submerged in water, Daphne transforms into a human form over a span of 5 minutes. She keeps her sharky teeth, webbed fingers, arm fins, and some decorative scales along her legs. Her mermaid reproductive system, if not removed from other transformations, is held in suspended animation; she cannot consume semen to develop mermaid eggs while in human form, thus removing the desire to do so. During the game, Daphne can only gain VP while in this form (The Little Human).

It’s like my tail is ripping itself to two, but it doesn’t hurt. Not really. Still don’t like the feeling.

She looks down at her weird human legs. Her weird human legs. Francis offers her a hand, “You feeling up to standing?”

“We can try, I guess.”

Daphne: +5 VP (Displayed Naked Slut Body to Master)

Daphne: -5 VP (But He’s Seen Her Naked, Like, A Lot)

Daphne: +6 VP (But Now She Has A Vagina x2 Bonus [first time contestant participant])

Daphne: +3 VP (Seen Master’s Glorious Cock)

He pulls her up. She’s super wobbly. Hey, I’m the tallest one here! Even taller than Master! Neat! I’m not usually the big one. And she falls straight into him. Weird human legs are hard to control. He carefully helps her back onto the floor, saying, “We’ll work on teaching you how to walk.”

Ariel, looking tired of shenanigans, continues, “With exactly 50% of the vote, The Master Becomes the Assistant wins the audience poll for you. Let’s get that applied. Display the details.”

The screen updates to showcase Daphne’s other transformation:

The Master Becomes the Assistant – Good news, Dungeon Mermaid lovers! Dungeons for Damsels will continue regardless of Daphne’s continued employ at the hotel. Bad news for Daphne, this transformation is the only way she’ll be allowed to work on her baby again if she’s in the harem. Daphne is demoted to assistant at her shop instead of just being fired and replaced. She will earn a portion of BP of items sold in the shop as a commission. In exchange, the Master gets to be, well, the Dungeon Master, making all future decisions about the dungeon. If he changes something while someone is in the middle of a run, any changes made will start applying the next run (Dungeon Mermaid).

They were going to take my dungeon away from me?!?!?!?

Daphne feels a tingle in the back of her skull. Around where the spear butt hit her. A tablet appears in Francis’ hands.

“How this works: The tablet controls the dungeon. Pretty standard interface, as far as dungeon builders go. Master, you can fiddle with it at your leisure. The little counter-top bell in Master’s new Infinite Dungeon shop will now teleport your property so she can do her assistant job. As an introductory gift to the harem, she gets 30 BP from the hotel staff’s position in the Best Girl poll. She earns no VP from the stuff you did with her before joining the harem; no bonus VP for first times when you already done the thing. Finally, her magic is now bound by the same rule system as have been applied to Tina. Master, you can check her character sheet on the tablet, if you are so inclined. With that, I believe Beckie can handle the final bit of business for today.”

Ariel and Sibyl both slip into water tubes. Francis yells, “Wait. Ariel. I still want a full explanation.”

Daphne grabs his hand and gives it a good squeeze, “Hey, Master. It’s okay. I’m fine with it. And someone needs to wake up Beckie.”

Beckie Petersen

“Well, with that folks, the transformation ceremony for this round is...” Beckie begins to speak, only to be interrupted by the brat.

“I believe we have your transformation to handle first, Beckie.”

Shit. He remembered. Well, fake it ‘til you make it, right?

“Very well, display the options to the audience, then make your selection.”

The screen updates to list out the 2nd place options:

• Pervy Legerdemain

• (Brain) Pop Quiz

• Champion of Lolth

• Time for a Collab

• A Solution to the Cow Girl Monotony Crisis

• An American Wolf-Girl in Harem Hotel

• Go on and Kiss the Girl

“Just in case, can I see what ‘Go on and Kiss the Girl’ is like? That wasn’t in my prep notes.” He continues to speak as he reads, “Since a last minute vote moved the one I wanted to give you out of eligibility, I struggled with which one to pick. Really boils down to two choices: ‘(Brain) Pop Quiz’ and the cat girl one. The others won’t make you suffer enough, this new one included; I’ll be frankly annoyed if Daphne’s third option would have been super punishing for you. On the one hand, you did say you wanted to be know for multi-breasted breeder cat girls, so it would be ironic to give that one to you so you literally are known for being a multi-breasted cat girl. On the other hand, the brain drain one will be way more debilitating. I came to a conclusion eventually. Needed to tweak the wording. Hope you don’t mind.”

Francis hands a final slip of paper to Beckie. The impertinent brat.

The screen updates to display Beckie’s transformation:

(Brain) Pop Survey – Despite the importance of Host/Participant relations, Beckie doesn’t seem to care about fostering a sense of good rapport with the others in the Hotel. Let’s give her a little more encouragement, shall we? Beckie permanently loses a point of IQ for every day she does not bring a new person to consensual, non-**** orgasm until either she gets a satisfactory rating from all game participants or she reaches an IQ of 70 (whichever happens first). If she somehow convinces everyone on the island to have sex with her, she can start repeating individuals (Punishment- Bimbo. Progress: 0/25).

“Fine, Master. But I’ll remember this. Boop.” That’s right. Just make the noise. It’s not like he picked one that has a visual component. Just fake it ‘til you make it.

“You’re welcome to try.”

“And, with that, time for the tail end of Matlock. Toodles!”