All hell broke loose in the bar.

The music continued. The gauges remained ready to judge our performance. Half the crowd continued to bounce and cheer, but the other half was suddenly beating the shit out of each other.

I exchanged a look with Donut. We didn’t have a choice. We had to sing the song. With the DJ dead, this would be our only chance.

“You killed Lucienne!” Dwight roared drunkenly at me and Donut, the dead gremlin still attached to his twinkling horn. “You killed her, and I’m going to stab you in the fucking spleen!” He whipped his head, and the corpse sailed across the bar.

But Dwight was drunk, and his aim was off. Instead of hitting me or Donut, the dead gremlin slammed into Yuto, the large red demon from team Yokai. The gremlin exploded like a jar of salsa against the chest of the demon, who roared indignantly. The Oni swung a fist at the unicorn, who wasn’t even close, and instead connected with some scarecrow monster, who blasted into a spray of glittering straw. His two partners, also scarecrows, turned on the red demon and attacked. The Minister of Blood-Letting and his skeletons jumped into the fray, defending their Yokai friends.

That idiot unicorn was going to get himself killed. We couldn’t let that happen. Not yet. We needed him to live until at least the next heat started.

But then it was time to sing, and I couldn’t think of anything else.

“We’re talking away,” I sang, starting the song. I ducked as a bottle flew through the crowd. It sailed over my head and exploded against the curtained wall, spraying the back of my head with glass and cold beer. “I don’t know what I’m to say . . . I’ll say it anyway!”

A gremlin fighting a Draconian bowled onto the stage, then rolled toward Donut. I kicked them both, sending them away before they could crash into her.

“Today is another day to find you . . .” Another bottle crashed against my chest. “Shyin’ away.”

Dong Quixote was suddenly in the middle of the fray, swinging his gigantic nickel sock over his head, clearing the stage in front of us, howling at the top of his lungs.

“Oh, I’ll be comin’ for your love, okay.”

Donut sat poised at the microphone. It was time for the chorus.

“Take on meeeee!” I sang.

“Take on meeeee!” Donut echoed, singing her part, her Auto-Tuned voice high and, thankfully, in key. The sound pierced through the chaos like a knife. She shot a low-powered magic missile, and it blew an axe out of the hand of a Draconian who was about to sink it into the back of Dong’s head.

“Take meee onnnn!” I continued.

“Take on me!”

“I’lllll beeee gone, in a day or twoooooo!” I cried, hitting the extra-high note.

There was a chime from the performance gauge floating by my head, and digital sparkles showered off it.

Half the crowd stopped fighting at that. I caught eyes with Florin, who’d stopped dead in mid-punch. He looked at me and mouthed, Wow.

Both of our performance gauges were buried to the right, all the way in the green, though mine now had little flames coming out of the top. I hoped that was a good sign.

We moved into the next verse. From across the bar, I could see Mongo was finally starting to realize there was a real fight going on, and he let out an ear-piercing screech. He leaped from the table and sailed across the bar, landing in the midst of it all, turning and screaming, knocking people over left and right with his tail. This also almost took out Donut’s microphone stand, but I caught it with my foot, grabbing it between my big and index toe just as we hit the second chorus.

A group dogpiled Dwight, but Imani moved in and slammed a potion against the ass of the unicorn, causing him to drop unconscious. Louis, Britney, and Bautista surrounded the passed-out unicorn, protecting him while Imani moved to the Yokai–scarecrow fight in an attempt to keep them from murdering each other. Every team that died in the bar meant another crawler-on-crawler matchup, so we had to protect them all the best we could, no matter how much we wanted to murder them all.

We hit the middle part of the song, which was mostly music. Donut cast Ice Slick on the dance floor, causing a group of fighting NPCs to go spinning and crash against the bar. Prepotente was there at the bar, seemingly ignoring the fight. The bartender wasn’t back there anymore, having jumped over the counter to fight.

The goat was bent all the way over the now-unattended bar, his hooved feet dangling as he rummaged behind the counter. He let out a loud yelp when the group of combatants slammed into him, causing him to flip and disappear with a clatter.

A fairy creature tossed a miniature fireball at Imani’s head. Imani ducked, and the fireball hit the curtains at the back of the stage, which immediately went right up.

Oh, fuck!

I, still singing the last chorus, still with Donut’s microphone stand held aloft with my toes, bounced forward off the stage to keep myself from catching on fire. The flames spread to the ceiling.

The fairy moved to fire a second mini fireball, but she disappeared with a cry as Mongo bit her out of the air. The dinosaur screeched and belched out a puff of smoke.

Donut, pretending like this was all part of the show, stood on her two back legs and hopped down, following the microphone.

A mantis-like creature sliced at Dong, and he countered with his enormous sock. The mantis went flying, but not before she tore a hole in the weapon, which caused coins to fly everywhere. One pinged right off my forehead. They were nickels, I saw. All of them, even though he’d been putting actual gold pieces in there.

Still, seeing that there was now money all over the dance floor, those who hadn’t been fighting pounced, jumping into the skirmish, grabbing handfuls of the coins.

The real version of this song faded away, but the karaoke version seemed to go on and on. Just one more time.

“I’lllll beeee gone, in a daaaaaaay,” I sang, hitting the long note as digital fireworks exploded around the gauge, mixing in with the real fire that was quickly crawling across the ceiling of the bar.

Donut only had one more line.

“Take me . . . Arggggggg!”

She cried out as Dekoki the kappa, paralyzed, fell backward right into her. The Saran Wrap around the kappa’s head was peeled back, and the water in the creature’s bowl head had spilled, which caused the monster to freeze up.

And then it was over.

Above, the twin screens sparked as they burst aflame. Louis was there spraying something out of his hands, stopping the fire. And Britney, too, a drink in one hand, was also putting out the fire as most of the NPCs fled.

I dropped the microphone to the ground. There was a blare of feedback and then the DJ booth exploded in sparks, and the sound went out.

Congratulations, Carl. You have been granted permanent access to the Stage Performance Guild!

New Achievement! Sing for your supper!

You’re a proper musician! You sang something, and you’ve been rewarded for it. The next thing you know, you’ll be earning a third of a cent per stream on Spotify and bragging to your friends and family and fellow kitchen staff that you’re a “professional.”

You have discovered a task-based guild by completing the entrance exam.

Reward: From now on, hidden guilds with entrance requirements will appear on your map if you are in close proximity.

The secret door in the side bar started to glow and pulse. This was on the one wall that hadn’t been scorched.

Donut had FAILED over her head. She huffed indignantly, beer dripping off her. Mongo was there, licking it up, waving his wings excitedly.

“Shit,” I said, seeing the sign over Donut. “I guess I gotta do this myself.”

“We are never going to mention this again,” she said. But then she added, “I do love that song, though.”