With all the dolls back at the hotel, the siren sounded the beginning of the game.
And high above, surrounded by countless monitors and windows, were the guests, chatting among themselves, wearing mundane plastic animal masks for a paper-thin layer of plausible deniability. The naked animal girl dolls served their paying customers subserviently and efficiently.
Each 'table' a larger than life anthro woman statue, all aware of their own existence and having their own conversation only they could hear, playing their own game on who could subconsciously lure more to sit around them to feed their immortal vanity. A few held monitors, and some had VIPs had the honor of sitting in their laps.
Hera sat among the obscenely rich. She didn't need to eat or drink, none of the dolls did, but it truly made her feel like of the elite she rubbed shoulders with. And woe be to any that mistook her for a servant. They weren't turned into statues or dolls, but Hera would have her lawyers dig up dirt on them to release to the news papers. With culture changing at a pace akin to a skeleton strapped to a rocket sled, everyone alive had done something that would be considered taboo by next month or doing something taboo that would be considered acceptable by next season. Combined this with everyone and their grandmother taking something said six thousand years ago in modern context, and no one was safe.
"So Themis, you're certain that the contract is air tight?" Hera asked the plastic snake doll.
Unlike the other dolls, Themis wore a practical business suit rather than go around naked. This contrasted with her having a giant tail instead of legs! She also carried a briefcase with her at all times.
In spite of being made in the shape of a snake, Themis still somehow managed to pull off looking adorable. "Yes honored Hera, Eunomia and I went over everything with a fine too comb. Their fate is sealed, the only way any of them are leaving the island is as a doll, a statue, or the winner."
"That's good," Hera said. The first few times the Contest had been held, there had been... legal trouble. Thus why Eostre had been made to give those disclaimers to the guests, and why the contract for taking part in the game was now a stack of paper, and why the contest was now held in international waters.
With the barrier around the island, nobody was going anywhere until the game was finished anyway. Hera personally wanted the barrier to slowly close in so all their players didn't just hunker down and reduce to the entire thing to a boring waiting game. But Eunomia and Themis had warned that might seen as their pushing for a 'nobody wins' scenario, which went aganst their legal promise that the game WOULD have a winner.
One thing in particular was that as long as it didn't violate the rules already established, Hera was mostly free to meddle in the game how she pleased, as long it kept the game interesting and she wasn't making the game unwinnable of course. If they got too many campers, she'd just announce their locations on the loud speakers.
Since violence was against the rules, that included self-violence, so if any of the players lost their nerve and tied to do something foolish, they'd quickly end up a new statue or dolly.
A detail not mentioned during the briefing was that if the target had no image of an ideal woman, the zapper's preferences would take over, and if neither of them did, one of four default templates would be cycled through at random.
The cameras were the size of insects, and covered the entire jungle, making sure it was impossible to miss any of the action! Their viewers and guests were paying for a good show after all.
Around the floor were dancers, musicians, and of course, Eostera, singing her own interpretation of J-pop. The cat girl doll was still naked, but now 'wore' glowing neon paint on her body in designs of her own invention. She also wrote her own songs, though she'd needed help with her choreography.
Only a few of the guests paid her any real attention now that the game had started.
Eostre loathed these rich elites, but the money brought in by their bets was important for the continued creation of more of their kind to experience the joy of doll and statuehood. The dolls didn't need to eat or worry about freezing to death, but equipment, repairs, jet fuel, printer ink, carpets, food, all cost money.
The human Eostre had been created from had been obsessed with Japanese pop idols, having been recreated in the image of his ideal woman, she had all the energy, grace, and charisma of those corporate created images.
There was a 'look, don't touch' policy among the animal girl dolls serving at the party for the One-Percenters. This hadn't always been the case, but far too many guests were unable to keep their hands to themselves, and the dolls grew frustrated at the distraction from their purpose, and after a few examples were made, only the truly reckless dared challenge it.
Already some of humanity's entitled were making bets on who was going to make it to the end, or who was going to get zapped first, or how many of what creature would show up this year, or if the ratio of statues and dolls would favor one or the other or be 50/50.
One or two of the guests had been among the rare contest winners, having used luck, determination, cunning, quick reflexes, and will to come out on top. As is typical, the nouveau riche were given an impolite distance by the inherited wealth. A man wearing a hedgehog mask sat with a cartoonishly busty pink cat on side, and a petit plastic squirrel woman on the other. The three of their reminiscing about their own time having played the game.
"You think that guy is gonna last long Owner?" Asked the pink cat. Remembering how she'd had run around like an action movie character during the game and had been among the first to be zapped.
"How can I say anything Bubbles when game's just started?" He asked.
The squirrel doll said, "At least he's getting his bearings Owner." Personally she thought people making bets already were idiots, it was the first few minutes eliminated the foolish and the unlucky. She was eager to see if this guy happened to survive to the top half.
The contestants and guests all used alias', to add another layer of glass between the audience the game. The squirrel doll had made it to the finale against Owner. It was against the rules to break any agreement or promise, but there was no rule against tempting others into breaking the rules, and the woman she'd been had exploited this to the hilt. Then Master turned the other last survivor into a statue and used them as cover. Well, the best contestant had won, and she was happy to be owned like a doll should be.
Speaking of which... it looked like the poor guy's game was going to end before it even began as he finished setting up camp, and another player had found him and was drawing a bead on him like a sniper.
Except, as is the gift of such people whom fate smiled upon, it was the sniper who got snipped.
In a flash of light, the woman's clothes vanished, her zapper fell to the ground unchanged, and her figure became that of a gold metal gymnast, while her body became solid polished wood (but infinitely more durable than any that occurred in reality). And she grew a foot in size to be larger than life. Her species changed, became a monkey, doing a hand stand, her expression one bursting with joy. Her hands looking like she was in the middle of frolicking through the tulips, while her feet, which for a monkey hands and were about the same thing, held a yoga pose. A brass plate engraved in base read 'Macy.'
Macy's own mind being welcomed by the voices of her many sister statues. The wooden monkey girl statue eager to be collected and put on display for all to see her.
The audience cheered at the first transformation of the contest. The zapper, unaware that he'd ironically spared another contest, went hunting in the opposite direction!
The flash of light did get our protagonist's attention though, and seeing the grinning monkey statue, it fully hit him that this game was for keeps!