Good morning, Monsters, It’s April!

And april means …. Cheshy!

Fruitlings, April is the month when the cracks go soft and I slip through. I rose, as I do, from the wet whispering nonsense of Level 5 to visit your dear little Dungeon again, and what a lovely noise you all made about it. I brought you riddles, warnings, glitter, teeth, and the usual charitable confusion, because that is what a proper guest brings when arriving from the swamp. You called it games, you called it chaos, you called it Cheshy being Cheshy, and all of that is true enough, but I do hope some of you noticed the gold trembling when I spoke. A joke may still be a prophecy, my tender fruit, but for now, do not trouble your pretty little heads overmuch. April is here, I am here, and there is a whole month of delightful nonsense, crooked games, and glittering trouble still waiting to bloom.

Oh Cheshy.

May your April be mysterious and fun,

Viva La Dungeon!
Lich

If this is your first time back to reading the Dungeon Bump and are confused by the new format please see this article.

The Viva Battle-Royale Adventure Game Show

One of the experiments with the Game Show has been a set of Characters we’ve followed through three seasons of Viva. These seasons comprised a three act story for each of those characters.

This is the final season with these characters.
Their arcs conclude now.

SilvrKat | Glitch | Monster.exe

All advanced hacks are indistinguishable from magic. -SilvrKat

There are no such things as past files on the hacker known as SilvrKat.

That data was deleted in one keystroke simultaneously exiting SilvrKat from the system of .usa and narrowly upending a full-blown FBI investigation.

And where did the non-citizen go after? On a treasure hunt of course. Dark net. A simple pattern here. A half-coded email there. A comment response. Then a file. Then an address.

Ctrl-Alt-Viva. SilvrKat the free became SilvrKat the contestant. SilvrKat the in-charge-of-my-own-fucking-destiny-tant.

But what kind of Meta-Lawnmower-Man-reality shit did she find herself in?

Turns out Viva wasn’t a video game, or virtual reality or even alternate reality.

It was as real as toast.

In the first season SilvrKat focused on the Dungeon itself. She didn’t know this system, so it was time to get in that shit.

Good hackers will tell you that most of the time you aren’t running programs. You’re hacking people. And SilvrKat found the Monsters to be the weak point in the system (Let’s keep this between us.)

SilvrKat became an expert in dispatching the monsters of Level 5.

So good at it that she started getting the monsters talking in between matches.

See, SilvrKat figured out that the monsters weren’t dying.

Now, my spellwork is not shoddy, let me by absolutely clear here so I dont know how she clocked it. Maybe she recognized them? I don’t know, but because she knew they weren’t dying she’d start taunting them and getting into their heads! 13 seasons of Viva and I have never heard the monsters afraid of a contestant.

When we entered season 14, SilvrKat dropped her old-world handle for The Glitch. This season we were in a completely different environment. No longer outdoors, but instead cramped steampunk hallways with rotating rooms and flaming vents! And the trolls, giant and ogres learned to fear the one known as the Glitch because she had figured out ways to use their own strengths as her own…once she had “dispatched” them.

But Glitch had only mastered one part of the system. It was time to push this Dungeons limits, and while the other contestants put winning first, Glitch locked in on awareness.

I don’t really know how she did it, so I won’t try to explain it. I’ll just jump to when I found out.

One Tuesday night last December, I noticed I had a visitor in my Doom. The Glitch stepped out of the shadows. We had tea. She’s quite amazing.

She had found her way out of Viva on level 6 and managed to get all the way to my doom. Which if you knew, is quite a feat.

I asked her if she wanted to kill me. She laughed and told me it ain’t me. There’s not a system that will hold her and that’s when I told her I was looking at a planes-walking sorceress. She laughed. What like fucking Gandalf she asked? No. Like whoever you want to be, I replied.

She was very curious about the Dungeon. I explained how I am the caretaker, how the different levels work together, and how I keep the world inside safe from “adventurers.”

She told me she was going to leave, that she wanted to check out those other planes I was talking about, but she wasn’t ready. And then surprised me by saying she’d like to play one last season of Viva.

As she was leaving she stopped to ask me “Do you think I’m a Monster?”

I said “You are a scary fucking monster.”

That got a smile. (even though I wasn’t joking.)

If you’re wondering why she may have stayed I can offer a thought. I think the last system the Glitch needs to hack is SilvrKat. Welcome Monster.EXE.

Viva La Monsters!

Hope to see you tonight at 9pm EST on Twitch.tv/theLichingHour for some Viva!