Choose your own adventure in this RPG-esque adventure that lets you—the reader—vote on its outcome.
When we last left our heroes, Rivers had been offered up to the leader of the sea bears as food in return for the sea bears letting the rest of the party move along without any trouble. Before digestion could be completed, though, Rivers exact his revenge by nailing Render and QM Girl with a fusion ball, sealing them together to form a female version of Render.
Meanwhile, Necrostreeb was trying to get Render to aid in the resurrection of Streebless, but Render was a little preoccupied with his newfound gender, and somewhere in there—the readers—came in. Did Render concoct a scheme to regain his masculinity? Did Rivers find a way out of the bear? Did our party figure out what to do next? And what about Streebless? Find out the answers to these questions and more in this month’s episode of The Gates of Life!
Chapter Forty-Six
Hold on a Minute!
Rivers Duo: What the hell?! You can’t just KILL me! I’m so coming back, and there’s not a damn thing you can do about it! Enrique, CUT OPEN THIS SEA BEAR!!
Enrique: What happened to your precious little negotiations?
Rivers Duo: CUT OPEN THE BEAR!!
Rosalito: ¡Pero teníamos un reparto!
Rivers Duo: Stop talking gibberish and get me the hell out of here!
Enrique: lol. Why should I take orders from you.
Pirate: Arr, we think he thar thar hath a good point, lad. You not be the cap’n.
Rivers Duo: Render, help me out here!
Render Girl: I’m a little preoccupied at the moment. With my breasts.
Bar-Bar: You’re awfully sexy when you’re selfish; did you know that?
Enrique: Ugh, there is something SO wrong with that!
Rivers Duo: AUUUUUUUUGH!
Rivers Duo: SOMEBODY.
Rivers Duo: LET. ME. OUT.
Rivers Duo: RIGHT. NOW!!
Enrique: Uh, no. Sorry dude.
Rivers: GOD DAMN YOU ALL TO HELL!!
Narrator: And just then, a bright light flashed from within the leader of the blind horde of sea bears! A green light, it was. His body was illuminated for, like, five seconds, and then it slowly morphed to a new form. Still a blue, hairy, singing form, but one not quite so large. Rotund, but not large. And it kind of had Rivers’ face, except not really, but you could totally tell it was Rivers.
Singing Sea Bear Rivers: You brought this all upon yourselves.
Horde of Blind Singing Sea Bears (in unison): And now your day of reckoning has come.
Singing Sea Bear Rivers: With me at their helm, vengeance will be served.
Enrique: Their songs totally used to rhyme.
!MEANWHILE!
Necrostreeb: At last, oh, at last! The time has come! Here, in the Infinite Nega Vortex! My apprentice Streebless will soon be with me once again!!
QM Boy: Can’t wait! So, hey, what makes you think this is gonna work, anyway?
Necrostreeb: Because it brought back Render, silly! I didn’t really need him—I just needed to see that the resurrection would actually work, and it sure looks like it did!
QM Boy: Awesome…hey, wait, it brought back me, too! Kinda. Are you saying you didn’t actuallywant to bring me back?
Necrostreeb: No, I’m saying I didn’t want to bring Render back. I brought you back because-
!MEANWHILE!
Narrator: Singing Sea Bear Rivers had joined up with the Horde of Blind Singing Sea Bears, and they were circling Captain Thomas “7-Eye” Render VI of Trelenodora, Enrique, Rosalito and Bar-Bar. And this time they were armed with more than just just stones!
Narrator: Actually, no, they weren’t. But they did have their claws ready to strike.
Singing Sea Bear Rivers: Slash, slash, slash my former paaa-rrrrty….
Rosalito: Esto no es bueno. No bueno en todos.
Render Girl: Don’t worry—I have a plan.
!MEANWHILE!
Necrostreeb: So, you see now why I needed to bring you back?
QM Boy: Sure do. Thanks for the explanation.
QM Boy: One more thing: Why did that fusion spell separate me and Render and switch our genders?
Necrostreeb: Oh, hah-hah! That one’s easy! It’s because-
!MEANWHILE!
Render Girl: Well that takes care of the horde; now we only have Rivers to attend to.
Singing Sea Bear Rivers: You’ll never get me, no, you’ll never get me.
Singing Sea Bear Rivers: This wave I’m sending will be the last thing you’ll see!
Narrator: Just as Rivers’ song was drifting away, a large tidal wave came out of nowhere andslammed our heroes against a nearby cliff! Yes—all of them! They were dazed, but the wave wasn’t enough to take them out.
Singing Sea Bear Rivers: And thiiis, right heeere, will be youur eeeeeennnnnnnnnnnnnnddd!
!MEANWHILE!
QM Boy: OK, I think I get it all now.
Necrostreeb: Marvelous! Simply marvelous!!! Now, FINALLY, it is now the time! Now the time! Now time to bring back my fallen Streebless! Rapture!!! Do your thing, pure-of-heart QM Boy!!
QM Boy: So, hey, Almighty Infinite Nega Vortex? Think we can have Streebless back now? Please?
Almighty Infinite Nega Vortex: Can’t see why not.
Narrator: And with another flash of magic that could only be found here, in THE GATES OF LIFE, Streebless was brought back. And there were absolutely no problems at all.
Streebless: Wow!!! It’s-
!MEANWHILE!
Narrator: Singing Sea Bear Rivers limped away from the rousing battle, and, despite all his visible wounds, he was actually the best off for it. Bar-Bar was in a bloodied heap, Rosalito wasn’t looking much better, and both Enrique and Captain Thomas “7-Eye” Render VI of Trelenodora were only just barely still able to breath properly.
Narrator: So, this seems like a good enough time for this episode’s other main characters to arrive back on the scene!
QM Boy: Looks like they didn’t get too far! Good.
Necrostreeb: Look, gang! We got him!! We got him back! My Streebless! Oh, my missing apprentice, oh how we all missed you.
Streebless: It’s so great to be back…uh…Necrostreeb? Say, when did you pick up that name, anyway? Was it on one of the super cool adventures you had while I was dead?!
Necrostreeb: Don’t worry, I’ll definitely fill you in!
QM Boy: But not right now, right? Right now we’ve gotta get our revenge!
Necrostreeb: I’m sorry?!
QM Boy: I don’t know if you’ve noticed this, Necrostreeb, but at least two of our three party members were killed by members of that party, there.
Necrostreeb: Holy crap!! Good point! That’s a good point you’ve got there!
QM Boy: So, hey, I figure we should do something about it! Especially now when they’re in such a bad way.
Streebless: Yeah!! Do something! Let’s do something!
Necrostreeb: Neat! What do we do?!
Which Gate Do You Choose?
Give Them Death
QM Boy: Kind of obvious, isn’t it? We gotta kill them!
Necrostreeb: Easy enough! We can do it!!
Streebless: Darn right we can! Let’s kill them! Together! As a team!
Give Them Liberty?
QM Boy: Actually, I think the best revenge we could take would be to just leave them here. They’re gonna die anyway; why should we make that happen any faster?
Streebless: Yeah! Die! Diediediediedie!!
Give Me Lovin’
QM Boy: I just…no, I don’t really want to kill.
QM Boy: What I really want…I just want him to finally accept my love.
Streebless: Who, Render? That’s not even a him anym-
QM Boy: No…not Render. Rosalito.
Rosalito: ¿¿Que??
Give Me Answers
QM Boy: Before we do anything, I want answers.
QM Boy: Give me answers, Render!
QM Boy: This whole thing is a mess, and I need you to tell me what’s going on. Then we’ll figure out what to do with you.
Render Girl: OK, I’ll explain in detail everything about what is currently going on and clarify every single thing in the entire The Gates of Life universe before the end of this episode.
This poll ends on June 7.
