Bass Battle

The barrier was exactly as John had remembered it. Discarded equipment littered the entry room, and strains of music reached them through the walls. Jenny was much more intrigued than he was.

“This is so cool!” she spoke in a hushed tone, hardly audible over the deafening music. “These amps are so vintage! Look at this!” she said, lugging a small looking amp from a corner. It appeared to be mostly intact, unlike the rest of the garbage in the room. The amp read “Electro,” and its dials were numbered in what John suspected to be an Asian language he didn’t quite recognize.

“That’s… cool?” John said, unsure of what was really in front of him.

“This amp is from a super futuristic Kingdom; Keith played there once. I can’t wait to see the look on his face when I bring this back!” Jenny explained, slipping the basketball-sized amp into her bass case.

She suddenly marched over to him and kissed him hard, pinning him to the wall.

“First,” Jenny said, between making out with him, “we’re going to march in there and defeat these wannabes,” she paused to move his hands to her breasts, “then, we’re going to go back to Springfield and have sex.”

“I like this plan,” John said dumbly, which earned him a light tap on the face.

“There’s that low Charisma. Alright, you distract them, I’ll take them down,” she explained her simple, but hopefully effective, plan.

“Nice!” John gave her a thumbs up before remembering the affliction that had riddled him the last time he was here.

“Here, I’m going to make some earplugs for us with Mana Construct; the music in there has some curse on it that turns you insane if you listen for too long,” John explained, forming dense earplugs for himself, then her.

“Woah, this is weird. When you handed me these things, I felt them connect to my flow of magic…” Jenny put them in her ears, realizing she couldn’t hear him.

“Do you have a party chat setting?” she mouthed right after he invited her to a party, and a very convenient popup appeared.

Third Time’s The Charm
Look at you being all social, why don’t you go talk with your friends?

• Party Chat unlocked!

“I do now,” he mouthed back, opening up his interface. Sure enough, there was a party setting that allowed for telepathic communication between members, but it cost ten mana an hour per member. That’s surprisingly cheap, John thought as he tapped it.

An unpleasant but not painful stretching sensation filled John’s head as he activated it, and the moment he tried to reach out to it with his thoughts, it snapped back but left a piece of his mind behind. A rubbery, meldable orb of thought. Testing, testing, one, two, John thought toward the pliable, material orb.

Jenny felt a similar sensation, and what they didn’t know was that their orbs had come together to allow impromptu communication. More party members would not only cost more, but they would also further the unpleasant stretching and worsen the communication quality. All of this would be explained to John if he were to hit the tooltip, but he was… preoccupied.

One last kiss for good luck, Jenny thought, reaching down and squeezing his crotch through his jeans.

Alright, go ahead! John stumbled into the concert hall, narrowly avoiding contact with the cold, pallid undead. He went to the left, as he could tell through their thoughts that Jenny planned to go to the right. The band’s cursed music went unheard by him as he turned his eyes to them. The same dwarf, pixie, and elf. His Charisma was a tiny bit higher, but he still couldn’t read the emotion behind the elf’s eyes. He could tell, however, that she seemed more broken than last time, her movements much less eager, her rainbow hair duller.

“Come home, black sheep. Come home, black sheep. Come home, black sheep…”

Jenny slipped through the door, crouching low and moving toward the stage from the right. Alright, you get their attention, I’ll surprise attack them! Jenny thought excitedly. She had never fought another magical band before, and adrenaline flew through her freely. A gunshot rang out, and she ducked into the crowd.

“The party crasher returns!” the bassist elf exclaimed, and John realized the Waite base wasn’t the first time he had seen an elf. Just the first time he had seen one up close.

“Well, I hope you’ve brought something better than that peashooter this time!” she yelled, and a wave of music sliced through him, ripping his gunbelt to shreds and cutting his gun clean in half. Miraculously, he was knocked down but unharmed.

“I gave you your chance last time, now you’re here-” the elf began, but she was cut off by the drummer, who blasted Jenny into the wall.

“Ohhh, you brought a friend this time! Well, she’s never heard my performance, has she?” Another blast from the elf went in every direction, shattering their earplugs.

You have been afflicted with Down With The Sickness level-

John swiped the notification away as he got back to his feet. Jenny also stood back up, and she pointed at the bassist accusingly. “I challenge you!”

“Oh trust me, honey, you do not want to do that,” the bassist replied, but the drummer backed off nonetheless, the guitarist flying off with him.

“What’s the matter?” Jenny asked, climbing on-stage. She strummed her bass, which sounded pretty good considering it was nearly broken. “Scared?”

“Oh, it is on!” the bassist replied, moving to the left corner of the stage and facing Jenny; “Get ready, little girl, I’m about to suck your soul out.”

Without warning, the bassist began playing. “Hello again, friend of a friend, I know you well...” Violet, shadowy chains materialized from the bassist’s instrument and shot toward Jenny. The music pushed her back, and she rode the motion, deftly dodging the chains. Laughing along, she slid the scavenged amp out of her case and plugged it in to her bass.

Those chains were weird, must be her instrument. If she thinks she can start off light, I’m gonna prove her wrong! I’ll start off strong… “So you think you can stone me and spit in my eye!?” Jenny began, strumming her bass. The crowd fell silent and motionless, John marvelling at them from the front. He noticed that the cracks in her bass began to glow and silently worried. “So you think you can love me and leave me to die!?”

Hearing her begin a song in the middle (and most climactic) part of it felt weird and unfitting. It seemed to be working, however, as the elvish bassist was quick to retort.

“Our common goal, was waiting for, the world to end!” The sound of metal scraping metal could hardly be heard as the chains pushed toward Jenny, her music barely holding them off. Jenny started off with everything she had, but it looks like the elf is pretty casual. She’s not even looking at Jenny… That’s when he noticed she was looking at him. With a wink and a blown kiss, she continued.

“Now that the truth, is just a rule, that you can bend!” the chains began to advance on Jenny, and she looked increasingly ****.

“Oooh baby~! Can’t do this to me baby!” the cracks on her bass advanced, growing steadily, though she took no notice. “Just gotta get out. Just gotta get right out of here!”

“You crack the whip, shapeshift and trick the past again. Send you my love, on the wire. Pick you up,” the elf’s music quickly overtook Jenny’s, and the chains wrapped around her. With a loud, ear shattering explosion, her bass exploded. Brilliant white light flooded the hall, and Jenny and the elf were both flung into the walls to their backs. The explosion brought John to his knees and seared his face, bringing his health to well below half. As his vision faded, he noticed the other two members approaching their fallen comrade and heard the door open at the end of the never silent concert hall. A cold, metal arm wrapped around him as the room span, and he passed out.