Book 8, chapters 62, 63, 64, 65, 66, & 67 + Parade of Horribles Hardcover Cover (Patreon)

This is a very long chapter dump, but it's all cliffhangers all the way down, and I figured might as well give it to you all at once.

If you've been on Social Media, you may have noticed the Ace hardcover version of DCC 8's book cover just dropped! This is not the cover I was talking about when I said we'd have a cover release soon, but here it is in all its glory!

The spine on this one is the same shade of purple as the truck.

We will soon have a cover reveal for the Luciano version, but it's not done yet. That will be for the ebook/Audible/and paperback release.

Also, for those of you reading along, we have a bit of movement on the music lyrics front. Hopefully Sony grants our request.

ANYWAY. Here's a fuckton of chapters. As always, thank you for your continued support.

Chapter 62

Carl: Akuma. In a few minutes we are going to send a single person to Herot to see if you’re telling us the truth. Assuming this works, we will send more after this next heat.

Akuma: It will work. I will be leaving soon. Don’t fuck this up, Carl.

Carl: If I ever learn you’re attempting to trick us, or if you do anything to hurt any of my people, I want you to know I will hunt you down, and I will kill you myself with my bare hands.

Akuma: So hostile.  As long as you keep stroking me, I will stroke you. It’s not that hard, dipshit. Find Agatha. She is here somewhere. We cannot find her, but perhaps you can. If you’re only sending one to start, make sure it’s someone who can handle themselves.

Carl: Don’t worry about that. 

Li Na sat in the middle of the common room, hovering a foot off the floor. She glowed, and her good eye remained closed. The other, mechanical eye twitched, clockwork gears spinning. A large group of us had formed around her. Standing next to her was Mordecai, Mistress Tiatha, and Rosetta. The white cleaner bot also hovered nearby

Mongo stood at the edge of the room, posted up near the Bopca at the storefront.

Just behind Mongo was the entrance to the guild’s pet stables. I really needed to get in there and check on Rend. He, Gonk, Simoom, and now Penelope were all in there, supposedly all having a great time. 

Prepotente was also here in the room. He was examining a pet carrier. “Interesting,” he said, handing the case off to Mordecai.

“So,” Mordecai was saying to Li Na, who did not acknowledge him. “This is how this works.”

I released Samantha, and she zipped over to Louis, who stood right next to me. Donut jumped to my shoulder.

“Has she said anything?” I whispered.

“Nothing,” Donut replied. “But she did cast some gooey dread thing on your cactus when Rosetta asked her to.”

“She did what on my what?”   

Mordecai held up the pet carrier, which had some sort of device installed on the outside. “This is an XL pet carrier. As we all know, they can’t hold crawlers. But as some of us also know, they can still suck crawlers in, if the crawler allows it. What happens is a crawler gets sucked up by the pet carrier, and approximately 10 seconds later, the carrier breaks, and the crawler is expelled. They have a Bonked debuff that lasts for about 20 seconds, which is a type of stun. But it doesn’t come with any additional health penalties. This loophole has been exploited hundreds of times over the years, but it’s expensive and only has limited utility. If the pet carrier is destroyed before the ten seconds, the inhabitant is immediately expelled. The target needs to be willing, and you can’t do it to yourself. Unfortunately, if the crawler get zapped into the pet carrier and someone attempts to add the carrier to their personal inventory, it will not work. We already tried that. However, the cleaner bot’s weight-based utility inventory system does work. What we’re going to do is zap you into the pet carrier, and before the carrier breaks, we will have, uh, Suckira here suck the pet carrier in.” 

“Suckira?” I asked.

Donut scoffed. “That was Louis’s idea. I wanted Anna Nardini. I insisted we name the cleaner bots now that we had two, and he said that was the name of the robot vacuum his mom had in Florida. We flipped a coin for the right to name it, but Samantha was the one to do the coin flip, and I think she cheated.”

“Anna Nardini?” I asked. “What?”

“I did cheat,” Samantha said from Louis’s shoulder. He’d given up trying to shoo her away. “That’s what a woman does for her man.”

Louis let out a spray of water. “She didn’t cheat. It was a fair flip. Please stop sticking your tongue in my gills. It freaks me out.”

“Freaking you out is my love language, Louis.”  

“Wait, what did you name the one in our space?” I asked.  

Before Donut could answer, Mordecai continued.

“This is a stabilizer containment, used for bombs,” Mordecai said, showing the device attached to the outside of the pet carrier. “Simply sucking in a failing pet carrier will still result in the pet carrier breaking and you getting expelled inside of the storage. This isn’t actually fatal, but you will be conscious of the time passing, and you will suffocate. We learned this through trial and error with some of the sluggalos. But, what we learned is that the stabilizer containment, used to keep bombs stable, needs to break first before the pet container breaks, and the stabilizer does not break while it is inside a cleaner bot’s storage, meaning...”

He continued like this for some time before Elle interrupted.

“Holy shit, we get it. It’s going to work. Can we get on with it?”

“Carl, did you understand any of that?” Donut whispered.  

“Sort of,” I said as I examined the bomb stabilizer. I didn’t use the things because I could stabilize them magically now. “Basically, Li Na gets sucked into the cleaner bot, the cleaner bot gets sold, Herot buys it, and he empties her out inside of the other place. And now Li Na has left the game. She’ll be considered to have lost.”

“It’s like trading a Pokémon between devices,” Louis said. 

Donut snorted. “You wouldn’t catch me dead doing that.”

“Are you absolutely, positively positive that the contents of the bot’s storage will still be there when this stranger purchases it?” Prepotente asked.

“No,” Rosetta said. “But we believe they will be. It’s a container. And containers and their contents do transfer. But it is a risk. We are also not positive that Na will survive when the floor collapses. The rules suggest she will survive, but as this has never happened before, we’re not positive.”

“It’ll work,” Mistress Tiatha said, speaking for the first time. “It has happened before.” She was drunk again, swaying where she stood. She didn’t elaborate.  

“Okay,” Prepotente said. “But how do we know if it’s successful? We’ve already established that the regular messaging system probably will not work. She is partied with Zhang, but she will automatically leave the party. Will we even receive a ‘this crawler has perished’ message if we send her a note?”

“That’s actually a very good question,” Mordecai said. “But we have a solution for that as well. Rosetta?”

Rosetta produced a tiny cactus plant with a plastic pot. The cactus glowed blue. “Li Na has cast a dread trap on this plant. Deadly bloom. We’re in a saferoom, but the trap will still activate if you touch it, so leave it alone. You won’t get poisoned, but it will ruin it. Normally, someone comes near the plant, the flowers bloom, and they release a spore that will paralyze you.”

“Hey,” I said. “That’s from my room! I got that from picking an Earth class. It’s just a little cactus from Home Depot.”

“It didn’t match with the new rug,” Samantha said. “I put it out. It’s covered with poky parts. Much too aggressive for the vibe I’m going for.”

“You put it out?” I made a mental note to go check on my room.

“The condition of the plant will tell us Li Na’s status,” Rosetta continued. “If it’s glowing in the ready status like it is now, Li Na is alive and in the dungeon. If the plant activates on his own, blooms appearing and spores spread but no longer lit up, that means Na has physically left the game. She is outside the dungeon. If the spell fails suddenly and doesn’t activate, and the cactus dissipates into dust, that means Na is dead, and that she died inside the dungeon.”

“Interesting,” Prepotente said, leaning in to examine the small cactus. “You best keep this someplace safe. What if she ends up trapped inside the cleaner’s storage, never released?”

“That is another possibility that will be indicated. The glow will slowly fail over the course of several days. And finally, if she believes it’s safe for the others to proceed to the Pineapple Cabaret, she will be able to remotely make a single flower bloom on the top of the cactus. There will be a single flower, and the trap will still be glowing. If she’s still alive, but she believes this is not a safe method for crawlers to come, she will make three flowers bloom.”

“I get it. Sort of,” Donut said. “If Suckira and Na make it to this Pineapple place, and there’s a single flower on Carl’s cactus at the end of this next race, then we know it’s safe to send everyone else using Ezra Fitz.”

“Using what?” I asked.

“Keep up, Carl,” Donut said. “If we get the go-ahead from Li Na, we’ll have everyone we can get sucked up by Ezra Fitz the Second, and they’ll go there, too.”

“Wait, you named the cleaner bot ‘Ezra Fitz’? Why?”

“Because Ezra Fitz sucks, Carl.”

“Who the hell is that?”     

And then I realized I didn’t actually care, and I returned my attention back to the important conversation.

“It’s not a perfect solution,” Mordecai said. “XL pet carriers are expensive, and there’s limited room in the other cleaner bot, especially after we had it clean up all the leftovers from Carl’s naga inheritance. We can maybe send 50 more people with just one bot. We do have some leads on other bots, but not many. We can’t have this Herot sell the cleaner bot back to us, either, unfortunately. All dungeon upgrades such as the bots have a timer. He won’t be able to re-list the bot for 30 days.”

“Shit,” I said. Fifty people? That wasn’t nearly enough. But surely we weren’t the only party with a cleaner bot. I started to compose a message to send out.   

Prepotente made a noise that sounded like a bleat. “Very clever. This still seems like a sure-fire suicide method to me. Good luck, Li Na.” He turned and strode from the room, but he paused at the door. He stood there for a moment, running his hand along the wall near the couch. There was a table there containing the two wrapped Christmas presents. One for me, and one for Imani. “I do like this place, I must say. Maybe you can, you know, allow me to attach my personal space to the guild?”

Imani crossed her arms. “You’d said no the last time I offered.”

“That was before I knew about the pet stables. And the Bopca! This place is a delight.” He turned to look at Donut. “I have a karaoke kit in my space I can add to the main room. I bought it to practice for my performance that never happened.”

Donut gasped.

“I will see you and Carl in the factory,” Prepotente said, turning away. “I will send you my plan after I confer with Jurgen.”

“Can we continue please?” Mordecai asked.

I spied Linus the tourist on the other side of the room. He was whispering something to Bautista, who did not look amused. Donut followed the path of my gaze.

“He keeps trying to get Daniel to make tea,” Donut said. “Apparently Bautista tea is a trending thing right now. Daniel doesn’t even have an outreach manager, so he’s sure to get ripped off. The folks on my social media board are all jealous of him. Of Linus, I mean, not Daniel. Elle’s Snow Cones fan club did a raid on my server the other day, and they and the Posse were all fighting, but now they’re friends and working together.”

“Okay, we’re ready,” Mordecai said. “Uh, Suckira? Are you ready?”

Suckira let out a beep.

Zhang stepped forward, head lowered.

“I’m sorry it was your brother and not me,” he said, his voice a whisper. “If Jun is watching this now, I hope he isn’t angry with me for not watching over you like I promised.”  

Li Na looked up at that, her one good eye opening. The other, mechanical eye twirled and zoomed.

“I am no child to protect. I never have been, and you have nothing to apologize for. You have been a good friend to me. Jun loved you like a brother. I will do this. I will clear the way for you and everyone else who is to come after this next race, and then I will make certain the War Mages do not turn on us. Do not die, Zhang. I hope to see you again soon.” She paused. “Do not ever lose your smile. I used to smile at you so you would smile back at me, and I would pretend, in my mind, that you and I were married and that your smiles filled me in a way that I could only pray for. Thank you for always trying to protect me, even when I didn’t deserve it.”

She turned to Mordecai. “I am ready. I do not wish to speak to anyone else.”

“Uh, yeah. Sure, kid,” Mordecai said, handing the pet carrier to Zhang, who had to do it.

And then, it was done. Zhang held out the pet carrier, pointed it at Li Na, who nodded. He pressed the button, and she disappeared within. The pet carrier started buzzing, and the containment chains immediately started to glow red. The white cleaner bot, “Suckira,” picked it up. It disappeared without so much as a beep.

We all waited, holding our breath. Nothing happened.

We all turned our attention to the cactus. So far, there was no change. The one thing we didn’t want to happen was for it to activate and then turn to dust. That meant Na was dead.

Mordecai reached over, hit a button on the back of Suckira, and the robot unit turned off. He held it in two skeletal hands.

“Okay, then,” Mordecai said. “Donut, let’s sell this at the terminal.”

We moved to the shop interface terminal in the common room, located right next to the Bopca station. Donut swept her paw across it. We all watched as she made a new For Sale listing.

“Yay! I did it right. Okay, Mordecai, put it in front of the light thingy, and it’ll be done.”

Mordecai reached over, and with a beep, the white cleaner bot disappeared. 

Mordecai’s hood was suddenly down, and his eyeball head was on fire.

“The Oakfell lives up to her name,” he said in his deep voice. But then the giant eye blinked, and he was back to himself. He pulled the hood up and patted the fire out on his head.

The interface beeped, and text appeared. Your item has sold! 

<Entry from Donut’s A Banquet Fit for a Princess.>

Mees Koning 2. Crawler #9,174,929.

Race: Half-Orc

Class: Boring Ol’ Mage.

Final level: 63.

Hi, Princess Donut.

I was never a good-looking guy, and I never had a girlfriend. But I used to think if I tried really hard at keeping in shape and keeping up with fashion and taking lessons online on how to be social, maybe I would one day find someone.

I feel so invisible sometimes. No matter how hard I tried, it didn’t seem to work. I freeze up when I talk to people. I’m not good with social interactions. I stutter sometimes, and it makes people uncomfortable.

It was really hard not to be bitter about it, if I’m honest. But I tried not to be. I tried to keep a positive attitude.

I think the dungeon knew this about me because when it came to race selection, my only options were things that made me even uglier. I’d sliced into an Acid Spitter and was badly scarred and lost my arm just before the second floor collapsed. I could stay human of course, but that meant I’d have to keep my injuries. So I picked the race that seemed the least offensive looking.

I regret it. People shied away from me even more afterward, and after I accidently hurt two crawlers when my Whoopsie Daisy spell backfired, and I received two player killer skulls, I was truly alone.

Why am I telling you this?

You probably don’t remember, but just before the battle at the southern border during Faction Wars, I was working a stinger unit, keeping the protections in place. You and Carl strolled by, and you stopped, looked up at me, and you said you liked my fangs. You saw my player killer skulls and asked me if I was a bad person. I told you what happened, and I stuttered, but you waited for me to tell you, and afterward, you told me about your friend Imani, and you said that we all have scars.

We only talked for maybe a minute, but it was enough.

It’s stupid, I know. You saw I was scared, and it was just a little, throwaway moment. But I think it was the first time in my entire life anyone has ever looked at me and said something nice, just to be nice, just to make me, a stranger, feel better.

So, thank you for that. During that horrible floor, it was a small, happy moment of brightness that gave me just enough of a boost to get through the most terrifying experience of my life.

I was inside the ball when you cast your Atrocity. You saved the life of myself and so many others.

You are beautiful on the inside and on the outside, no matter how many scars you may receive before this is over. I want you to know that. 

I used to draw a lot of anime characters growing up, and I hope this drawing helps you in some way.

Drawing: A well-shaded, curved piece of metal with little electric bolts coming off it.

Associated Spell: Big-Ass Magnet. Casts at level 14. 

Chapter 63

Just before the race started, I found Dong in the pet stables. He’d brought Porky with him, and he was showing him Gonk the swamp Yak, who was in her pen, happily munching away at something while Simoom the rhino snorted beside her. Rend was also in here, playing with Penelope the pig, though he started whining the moment he saw me, likely upset that I wasn’t bringing him out adventuring more.

I unloaded a ton of frozen chicken patties on the ground, and he let out an excited grunt before he started to devour them. I patted the meatball on the head. “Don’t worry, buddy. We’ll get you out there soon. It’s too dangerous right now with all the potatoes everywhere.”

Penelope was also excited about the chicken patties.

Porky was staring at the food on the ground, but then I realized he was actually staring at Penelope the pig, licking his lips with his half tongue, which looked especially lascivious due to the white gimp suit. I sighed. 

“You are a good mount,” Dong was saying, patting the oblivious Gonk on the side of the head. “I used to dream of one final charge into the unknown astride a beast such as yourself, but, alas, some dreams are impossible indeed. Still a worthy quest, I say.”

He turned, seeing me waiting.

“To battle then?” he asked.

“To battle,” I said. 

And five minutes later, we were in the truck, approaching the starting line.

Carl: Akuma. Are you still on this floor?

Akuma: I am still here. I will be leaving soon. Stop messaging me unless it’s important. Don’t you have a race right now? Focus on that and not annoying me.

I was about to send him an snide reply when another message came in.   

Zhang: I just got a notification that she’s left the party and has been disqualified. Then I got an “Uh-Oh” achievement for being a solo driver. I hope this Bodi guy knows how to ride an octopus.

Mordecai: The cactus is holding steady. I’ll let everyone know if something changes. 

“He said that would only happen once,” Donut complained from the passenger seat. She was talking about Mordecai’s cryptic proclamation. “But that’s twice now. It’s really scary. I don’t like it.”

“If someone is making you uncomfortable, it’s best to cut them from your life,” Dorota said.

“He said we need to ignore it,” I replied as I eased up to the starting line. I was the last one here. The race would start in two minutes. We were two spots over from the Lady Dominators. We had Osvaldo between us and Team Free Love on the other side. At the far end, Dwight, alone, sat within his vine, staring straight forward. 

“Let’s get through this,” I said. Ahead, the massive factory loomed. The place didn’t really look like a factory, but the entrance to an industrial-themed amusement park ride. The enormous entrance door was large enough for us all to drive in side-by-side. I knew that once we entered, the tracks would narrow.

There were a total of twelve heats entering this race, but none of the other heats were teams from our guild except Prepotente and Jurgen aboard their Tapir, Sweety. I didn’t see them now.

I knew Louis, Imani, and Zhang—who was riding behind Bodi—were all on a track called “The Infected Gravity Well.” Florin was on a track called “There’s Something Wrong With the Zoo.”   

Behind us, Dong, Porky, and Gregori sat strapped in their newly installed seats, all placed in a row. Dong’s health was in the deep yellow, about to turn red. He insisted that he actually felt fine, though I could see in the mercenary tab that he was suffering from fatigue.

Porky sat directly behind Dong, and he had his hand on Dong’s shoulder. Dong reached up and held it there.

Gregori was also looking a little green around the edges. The tall human looked very out of place in his seat at the very back, sitting stiffly. Hedy said he hadn’t taken well to the driving lessons.

“You doing okay?” I asked the man.

He let out a little cough. “Will you be driving this fast for the whole event?”

I exchanged a look with Donut. “This fast? All we did was go to the starting line. I was just coasting.”

“I don’t think my stomach agrees with this sort of conveyance.”

“You have a sink next to you,” I said. “If you gotta hurl, do it in there.” 

Dr. Metcalf beeped.

I have received the map data. Analyzing now. I’m probably analyzing it a lot slower than all the other teams in this heat. Did you know that Janice, who is the GPS unit in the Lady Dominator car, is now completely upgraded? She’s a snotty bitch, and now you’re forcing me to be seen in public next to her with no upgrades whatsoever. Do you know how humiliating that is? Do you?

“All this negativity will cause your hair to prematurely shed, my princess,” Dorota said.

Shut the fuck up. I will fucking kill you.

“Dr. Metcalf,” I said, trying to keep the frustration out of my voice. “We ran out of upgrades. I’m sorry. We will be following the Lady Dominators, but we’ll need to know what’s ahead. Can you do that for us?”

We had just over a minute.

The map appeared on the screen.

Fine. It appears there are many wide open spaces mixed with narrow tracks, but we must traverse from one section of the factory to the next. It’s straightforward, though the factory itself will be active. We enter through the receiving bay and exit through shipping. There are no obviously safe paths. It appears there are multiple Neighborhood Bosses in the middle area. The entire floor in this room is molten metal, so we will have to either drive on the walls or ceilings. The bosses live within the molten metal and will likely put me out of my misery.

Also, you will receive your containment shield upon entering the factory. The same rule as last time. The last team to cross the finish line is eliminated, and the team that wins the entire heat will receive an extra upgrade, this time a golden upgrade.

“Okay,” I said, looking over at Osvaldo, who was the one holding the reins of his gnu. I’d already talked to him, and I was going to let him go ahead of us so we could zip to the left and get behind the Lady Dominators. Prepotente and Jurgen were going to help as well if we were in proximity with one another.

We were only going to get one shot at this.

Ahead, the starting lights appeared.

“Are we ready?” I asked, revving the engine. This race had a time limit of thirty minutes, and the total distance was only 20 kilometers. “It’s gonna go quick.”

“Ready, Carl,” Donut said.

“To battle,” Dong said from behind us.

The light turned green, and we were off.

Chapter 64

Tires squealed, and four of us lurched off the starting line, zooming toward the entrance to the massive factory. Sparks flew off the neon factory sign as we approached.

I had set up a group of tiny explosives on the roof of the truck, and I activated them.

Bam! Fiberglass shattered, and the drum barrel of the tommy gun blasted away, clearing my windshield.

Osvaldo: Careful, puta! That shrapnel hit our ass!

Carl: Sorry!  

“Carl!” Donut called, looking in the mirror. “Dwight is just sitting there on the starting line! He’s not going!”

“Don’t worry about him,” I called as the fast-moving Bruna rushed ahead. I swerved to the left, moving directly behind the GTO, which was also rapidly gaining distance. I hit the pedal, and we accelerated. If we didn’t make our move soon, we’d lose them. “Eat the page!”

We passed under the entrance gate.

Entering the Gasworks Screw Factory, Steel Mill, and Doll Workshop.

Thwum!

The containment appeared and then turned invisible. A light in the corner of Dr. Metcalf’s interface blinked green, indicating it as active. We had to keep out of contact with the other vehicles. Any continuous contact for more than five seconds, and our containments would merge.

Ahead, we entered a giant, industrial room filled with what appeared to be piles and piles of banger spheres. The dirty floor was made of concrete, and the distant walls appeared to be corrugated metal. The lights were off, but a red glow filled the far side of the dusty, dingy room, making the shadowy piles of spheres look like the shells of giant beasts until you got too close.

There were dozens of these piles, all reaching to the high ceiling, which was at least 30 meters. These were, I assumed, metal pellets to be melted down, and we had to swerve around them. The room itself was many times that in width, reminding me of the football stadium-like room where we picked secondary class selection on the sixth floor.

A wave of heat washed over us the moment we entered, and I knew without the containment, it would already be deadly hot, and this was just the entrance. 

Hundreds of little NPCs filled the floor of the factory, and they scattered as we rolled in. These were tiny, round-faced creatures, each about the size of Zev. They all wore bright yellow hardhats, and they looked to be a race of creature that was a smaller version of a Bopca mixed with a gnome. They were all level 10 to 15, and they were called Knockers.  

I activated the newly upgraded Bubble Buddy shield and clicked the Heat Sink button, which turned on with a hum, and it lowered the temperature even further.  

Behind me, Gregori was loudly vomiting. He’d turned not into the sink but the empty deep fryer.

Far ahead, there were about a dozen smaller doors, just wide enough for a pair of vehicles. A deep, red glow emanated from all the entrances. About ten of these doorways had wide conveyor belts leading up to them, which were pulling the metal pellets into the next room. The other two doors were larger, and this was where Osvaldo was heading. Team Free Love’s van also zoomed ahead, aiming at the second, conveyor-belt free door. I cringed as the floating van mowed over a pair of the fleeing Knockers.  

I saw from the map that the conveyors all led up to the second level where the pellets would get dropped into giant melting vats. One would have to make a jump off the end of the belt, lest you’d fall into the vats of molten metal. But if one made the jump, they’d bypass the third room, which was where the molten metal would be shaped into massive coils. That third room would be dangerous as fuck, but it didn’t require a big jump.

If I was choosing our route, I’d skip this first jump and try to zoom around the vats. But it appeared the Lady Dominators were aiming for one of the conveyor belts, meaning we’d have to drive over a belt filled with metal balls. And make a jump.

I growled and tightened my grip on the wheel. I warily eyed the new button on the dash, just to the left of the GPS unit. This was the rocket acceleration activator. In theory, the rockets, combined with the Bubble Buddy upgrade would allow us to fly for a short period. But we hadn’t tested it yet.

There were suddenly vehicles and mounts everywhere, coming from both sides, zooming in around the piles of metal balls. A firetruck, lights and siren blaring, zoomed up from my far left and appeared to attempt to sideswipe an ostrich-like mount with goblins on the back, but the ostrich flapped and rose into the air, and the firetruck smashed right into a pile of metal balls, which caused the truck to flip and the balls to go everywhere. The goblins cackled and laughed and flipped off the truck as they zoomed ahead, trampling a group of the fleeing Knockers.

The Lady Dominators were angling toward the second-to-last door on the left, also mowing through the tiny NPCs, cutting a diagonal line across the factory floor. The conveyor belt on this one was thick with the round, metal balls. I reached over and increased our wheel size slightly. That would slow us, but it would increase our traction to the belt.

The new, golden wheels of the Dominator car had spread out laterally, and an impressive shower of sparks flew off the sides, leaving me to wonder if that was on purpose or if something was already wrong.

Bang! Bang! I didn’t see the vehicle that shot the weapon, but a pile of balls exploded far off to my right, and the balls rocketed through the room like shrapnel. A massive giraffe squealed out in surprise, tumbling from sight, its shield fuzzing like a buffering video.

A hovercar thing with twin flamethrowers spun along to our left, having been shot by something. It hit the edge of a pile of spheres and rose up into the air, leaving a curl of black smoke as more metal balls shot out in all directions, including off our shield. More explosions and spells ripped back and forth across the room.  

We bumped as we hit the edge of the conveyor belt, crunching over the metal balls. Far ahead, the GTO disappeared into the second door, already a good five seconds ahead of us.

But then a dark shape appeared in quick pursuit.

Bianca. Prepotente’s hellspawn familiar was out and flying through the factory, likely at home in this heat. The goat dragon roared and pushed through into the next room.

The plan, which had been Prepotente’s idea once he heard about the problem, was to have Bianca grab Corky out the back seat. We’d first have to defeat the shield, but it was a simple and straightforward idea. If that didn’t work, the backup plan—which I’d come up with just about ten minutes previous—was a little more iffy. It involved the Big-Ass Magnet spell Donut had just eaten from her Feast book.

A shrill alarm filled the cab.

Containment warning!

The voice was sudden and loud and in a voice similar to that of the card battle announcer from the 8th floor. But the alarm stopped after just a second. A fat, gray, monstrously ugly creature zoomed ahead of us, disconnecting our two containments before the five seconds. The mammoth-sized mount didn’t have a saddle so much as a square cage that had a secondary, glowing shield over it. At the front of the cage, holding the reins in a single hand was Prepotente. Standing behind him was Jurgen. The man held a giant battle axe in each hand. He turned to salute us as the creature galloped ahead. 

“Wow, look at the thing!” Donut yelled, chewing on her page.

“That is a Perriso!” Dong called from behind. “Wonderful mounts! They are deceptively fast for such large creatures.”

We bumped again as we moved to the next room, revealing a set of rising conveyor belts and a haphazard tangle of giant, bubbling vats. The temperature noticeably rose, but it was still bearable. The little gauge by the heat sink was still in the green.

Prepotente: I am directly behind the Pontiac. Will be attempting to defeat their shield, but I will wait until after the jump. After the shield is defeated, Bianca will deliver this half mantaur to you, and then she will return to us for defense. Good luck, Carl.  

Carl: I see you! We’re just behind!

Far off to our right, one of the conveyor belts tumbled over as a group of two vehicles spun away. One landed in a vat of molten metal while the other, a roundish, old car with no obvious upgrades painted a dull yellow, spun once in the air and then landed soundly on the floor and continued. The car was an AMC Pacer. I only knew that because my grandfather had that same car.

“Carl, that’s team Yokai!” Donut called when she saw the yellow car. “Our friends from karaoke!”  

Just ahead of us, the conveyor belt curved to the right and then curved again, going under another belt before the belt dropped all the contents into the bubbling vat below. Across the way, easily 150 meters further into the room, only slightly lower, a second conveyor belt also dropped its contents into a vat. This would be where we’d have to land. But when we did land, we’d be moving against the conveyor belt, which arced up into a higher room deeper into the factory. This distant conveyor belt was dropping a different substance, some sort of white, chalky powder into a different type of vat. The entire second half of the room was filled with a thick, roiling smoke.

A jumble of small, knocker-sized walkways, scaffolds, and more permanent gangplanks filled the room, crisscrossing over the conveyor belts. These walkways were breaking like twigs as vehicles and mounts crashed through them. Dozens of the knockers screamed as they ran and fell, occasionally plopping into the molten metal.

“Get out of the way!” Donut cried. “Carl, they’re hurting all the poor worker guys!”     

“I see it. There’s nothing we can do,” I said, gritting my teeth. I held my breath as the GTO, with Bianca floating just behind it, made their jump.

The golden tires turned, facing downward like a spaceship from some sci-fi movie, and the car rocketed over the space, soaring as it aimed for the opposite conveyor belt. Prepotente’s Sweety hurled her giant form into the air just behind it.

The car landed soundly with a crunch as Sweety galloped through the air with her fire feet. Ethereal wings fluttered, helping her steer toward the track.

As Sweety moved to land, we approached the jump.

Oh shit, oh shit, oh shit.

“Hold on!” I yelled. 

The edge wasn’t a ramp at all. Just a drop off. I reached over and smacked the rocket button just as we approached and held tightly onto the wheel.

We all pushed back as the rocket engaged. Donut yowled as extra straps appeared around her. The Bubble Buddy’s floating upgrade mixed with the gyro kept us stable, but after just a second, I could tell the rocket was way too powerful, and we were going to overshoot. I quickly tapped it off as we hurtled through the air, correcting with the wheel as the bubble upgrade, thankfully, allowed me to correct our trajectory. Sort of.

Ahead, Sweety landed gently as we rapidly caught up with the slower-moving tapir.

A group of rockets launched from the tapir, and faster than I thought possible, slammed into the back of the Dominator car just as it disappeared into the next room.

We thumped heavily onto the track as Gregori cried behind us. I ran right off the side, but the bubble kept us from falling off, and I swerved back onto the path, almost running right into the back of Sweety.

Containment warning!

I eased the brakes as the tapir sped up. With the ground under its feet, the creature galloped faster. A second set of missiles shot out, disappearing into the dark. There was a flash of explosion.

I glanced below just in time to see a whole group of vehicles and mounts, all bunched together and clearly sharing a giant containment moved into the third room together. This was the coil room, which we were now skipping.  

“One of the vats broke!” Donut called. “The metal is going everywhere!”

“Focus ahead,” I said as we ascended against the moving treadmill, rising into the air as we progressed into the next room, which was way up on the third level of the factory. We crunched, and were once again in the dark. All around us, vehicles who’d successfully made similar jumps on their own tracks entered the room and started zooming across the floor, heading toward a group of five exits.   

Prepotente: Shield is down. Bianca will move in now.

This room was similar to the first one, but instead of piles of balls, there were piles of the white powder dotted around the room like giant anthills. A few vehicles had already crashed through the powder, causing it to fly everywhere. It didn’t stop the cars, but in seconds, everybody and everything in the room was covered in the thick, white dust, and it became impossible to see. Our shield frothed like a sparkler as the powder misted all around.

I’d been so focused on the task at hand, I’d forgotten the stupid name of the track. And the sign under it. I quickly examined one of the mountains of white powder.

Donut scoffed. “Carl, is that what I think it is? It’s everywhere!”

“Err,” I said, upon reading the extra-long description.  

Toddler Cocaine.

Also known as Daddy’s Little Snow Drops, this is a giant pile of low-dose, but highly addictive cocaine specifically designed to be sold directly to children who are much too fragile to enjoy and too poor to afford the higher-grade stuff. 

This is the raw product before the patent-pending Wack Flavoring is added.

The Coblyn Corporation has a problem. They’re addicts. All of them. 

These small, gnome-like creatures were unable to stop the world from encroaching on their caves. Once the larger, stronger, and more powerful creatures of the world discovered the rich minerals buried under their feet, they did what large, strong people do. They took it for themselves, never mind that these caves were the only home the knockers ever knew.

The knockers were too weak to fight back. They had nowhere else to go. So they did the next best thing. They started manufacturing high-grade drugs and selling it to the miners. Miners with an E.  

Fast forward a few years, and the knocker community had pulled themselves up by their bootstraps. Yes, the Corporatocracy running the mines made drug use illegal. At least the drugs that weren’t sold by them. They did everything in their power to stop it. They vilified the knockers. They tried to eradicate them. They attempted their own alternatives.

But no matter what corporate did, they couldn’t stop the upward trajectory of these plucky little drug dealers. These corporate suits learned what a thousand organizations and governments throughout history already know. If you go to war against drugs, drugs will always win. Drugs will win because what you’re really doing is going to war against the biological imperative all living creatures have to find comfort and happiness. And if you’re unwilling or unable to first provide that, artificial alternatives, no matter how destructive, will always prevail.

A funny thing happened after that. The knockers, finding themselves absolutely loaded, tried to do something with that money. They formed the Coblyn Corporation, and they started to buy up legitimate businesses. After all, while they were making a ton of money, they still didn’t have as much as the Corporatocracy running the mines.

So they started buying the ore from their own land. They milled it, turned it into product, sold it. All above board. And then they branched out, selling toys, skateboards, fidget spinners, bullshit like that.

But it wasn’t enough. In selling drugs to the miners, again with an E, they fell into their own trap. While the miners got strung out, they themselves became addicted to the money they were earning.

It’s a terrible circle, that. There’s not really a lesson here, or a point to any of this, just a sad observation. We’re always seeking comfort, and when we don’t get it, we can be pretty destructive. And by “we,” I mean those of us with the ability to grasp at what’s around us.   

Anyway, the knockers, upon realizing how well their dolls were selling, and unable to get a piece of that hot, hot legal pharmaceutical market, came up with the next best thing. If they could sell illegal drugs to the miners with an E, they could also start selling drugs to the minors with an O.

Kids are a lot stupider than adults, after all. You can get them addicted to stuff really easily. 

Their new, secret product is cocaine for toddlers! It comes in different flavors, and each flavor has its own mascot with matching doll! My favorite is Sally Speedball. She’s the blueberry one, and she comes with a 12-pack of press-on bump nails and two free hits. Her, Toot-Toot, and Belushi are part of an all-girl band called The Nose Candy Star Dusters.

Oh, by the way. The knockers are pretty harmless. But they’re very protective of their new product. The workers in the outer rooms can’t fight back. Their magically-built help, however...    

Yeah. Watch your ass.

Chapter 65

Prepotente: I did not get a chance to save any of this powder. Please grab a bucketful for me. I would like a sample.

“Really?” I asked out loud as I angled the truck, swerving around another ceiling-high pile of cocaine. “We’re in the middle of a goddamned race!” Behind me, another crash echoed as two vehicles collided.

The truck bumped as we accidentally rolled over a group of passed-out knockers. They all had little symbols over their heads I didn’t have time to examine, but I assumed it had something to do with the giant cloud of cocaine. The white cloud was getting thicker by the moment. I could barely see the red light of the five different exits up ahead. 

This next room was doll packing. After this one, we’d be back in the steel mill part.

Carl: I can’t see! Which door?

Prepotente: They took the exit on the far left. I just hit their vehicle with my hobble gun, so they are slowing. I am entering the second from the left track. I recommend you follow them.   

I was about to reply to him when another, panicked message from Prepotente came in.

Prepotente: Bianca has fallen ill! She appears to have been rendered “strung-out” by these unlawful toddler drugs! I am pulling off the track to administer aid before she perishes! She hasn’t yet grabbed your target!

Carl: Shit! Okay, let us know if you need help.

We bumped as we left the cloud of toddler cocaine and entered a brightly-lit room filled to the ceiling with wooden crates, leaving only a narrow path.

The room was a little too bright, especially compared to the previous rooms, and I had to squint to see where we were going. I immediately sensed a trap, and I eased slightly off the accelerator as I...  

“Oh shit!” I cried, upon seeing the massive hole in the floor ahead of us. Thankfully, we rolled right over it because of the bubble buddy.

“Carl, stop!” Donut shouted. “They fell in! I saw them!”

I slammed the brakes, and we screeched to a stop.

“We gotta reverse!” Donut said. “They’re in the hole!”

I thumped the truck into reverse, worried about getting hit from behind. I slowly backed up until we were right against the hole in the ground, pushing the truck tight against the crates so any other vehicles could pass us. I put the truck into park and pulled myself out of the seat.

“Gregori, get in the driver’s seat in case we need to go!” I yelled.

“I cannot,” he said as he continued to dry heave into the deep fryer.  

“I have you,” Dong said, his voice weak as he pulled himself up. “Everybody, up! Up! Do as Carl says.”

Donut and I pushed open the back of the truck and looked down into the large, jagged hole. The hole, I realized, had been a trap. Either a small explosive or just rotten floorboards had given way under the Dominator car.

We were parked flush against a massive, wooden crate that was scorched around the edges. The entire box smoked, like it would catch on fire at any moment. On the side of the large box was a spray-painted label that read “My First Sicarios boy action figures, case of 500. Assorted.”

“Damnit,” I muttered, examining the hole. 

The GTO, shield down and hit with Prepotente’s hobble missile, had fallen right through and landed on its side. It was a ten meter drop. The bright light from this room shone down below like a spotlight. The whole front of the car was smashed, and one of the golden wheels had broken off. I could see the axle was broken in half.

No matter what happened, that vehicle was done.

Our truck shook as a massive, ferret-like mount squeezed by, not stopping. A containment warning came and went.

Both Rapture and Genesis were still inside the vehicle, both alive and groaning. Both had a Strung-Out warning over them, meaning they’d been hit by the cloud of cocaine. I knew their protection shield was gone, but I couldn’t tell if their containment shield was active or not. If it wasn’t active, they’d all be boiling hot and wouldn’t last long.

Corcunda remained in the back of the car, attached via seatbelt. He was both unconscious and strung-out.

Crunch, crunch, crunch!

“What is that?” I asked.

A group of dolls had surrounded the GTO and were in the process of ripping it apart. These were small, Barbie or Bratz-like dolls with giant heads. Half were girl toys, but there were several large, GI-Joe like action figures as well, all about the same size as the Uzi Jesus toy Eris was walking around with.

The creatures were starting to swarm. Donut cast Magic Missile, blowing a ton away, but more just kept coming. I examined one, which was an elf-like doll with black hair and with purple streaks.

Toot-Toot doll. Level 12 Grape-flavored Cocaine Elemental.

So, the dolls were a mistake. In preparing to defend their factory, the knockers got a little enthusiastic with the elemental magic. The metal frames of these dolls are infused with their special blend, and when they cast the magic spell in the steel mill to create the elemental boss monsters you’ll probably face in a few minutes, some of that magic accidentally leaked. And now these creepy little fuckers are everywhere. That’s why this room was sealed off, but some elemental magic is contagious, and now that you’ve broken the seal of the room.... Well, let’s just see what happens next.   

Warning: This is an infused elemental. Unlike regular elementals, the infused variety have the pass-through ability. If you don’t know what that means, you’re about to find out.

 Next to us, the giant crate started to shake.

“We need to hurry the fuck up,” I said. “I’m going to jump down there and grab him,” I said.

“And then what, Carl? You’re not a kangaroo anymore. I got this.” Donut jumped from the back of the truck and landed atop the GTO.

“Donut!” I called.

Thwum!

She and Corky reappeared on the road next to the truck. Donut had just cast her level-17 Puddle Jumper spell. Right at the beginning Zev had warned us that a lot of the movement spells wouldn’t work correctly. She could teleport herself back to the truck, but not Corky into the truck, so she’d done the next best thing. I jumped out, careful of the edge of the hole to pick up the knocked out half-mantaur and pull him inside, coughing.

The heat just outside the containment staggered me. I was not expecting it to be this hot. Donut whimpered as she bounded back inside, her fur smoking after just a few seconds.

The containment of the GTO, I realized, was not active, and the man’s suit was burning hot. He was still alive, but he was cooking in his suit and would have died if we hadn’t grabbed him.

I didn’t stop to think about Rapture and Genesis, burning in their crashed car as the cocaine-fused action figures tore at them.  

“Make room! Make room!” I called, shoving Gregori forward. He didn’t move, and I unlatched his belt and pushed again, causing the tall mage to stumble. “Sorry!”

I pulled down the table we’d hastily affixed to the cabinets just for this. I dropped the large, suited mantaur heavily on the platform. His entire form was smoking.

“Yo, I’m Toot-Toot,” a new voice said.

It was one of the dolls. She’d hitched a ride, her hand melted into the PVC of Corky’s suit.

“Do want me to teach you how to get some cash out of your teacher? False accusations are a great way to... Errrppp”

 I grabbed it and tossed it out of the back of the truck, but in doing so, I accidently ripped a large patch of suit away. A bulge of red guts popped out of the hole like biscuit dough. A health bar appeared.

“Gah! Donut, heal him!”

I realized I’d basically trapped myself in the back of the truck. I wouldn’t be able to get to the front without literally crawling over the prone figure of Corky. “Porky, get on the table! Gregori! We’re doing this!”

The crate next to the truck broke open, and a swarm of soldier action figures started pattering on the side and roof of the truck. Several spilled out onto the ground, some falling back down into the hole. All were smoking and melting in the heat.

“Is the shield not working? Is it not turned on?” I called.

“It says it’s on!” Dong called back. 

I remembered that pass-through warning on the last doll. I assumed that had something to do with it. If that meant they could get through the shield, then we really needed to go.

“My princess! Please get back in your seat!” Dorota called.  

Donut healed Corky with a scroll, but his health continued to seep. She fired a missile over my shoulder at something unseen. “Carl, how are they cocaine elementals when they’re action figures! This doesn’t make any sense!”

“It doesn’t matter! Come on, Porky! Dong, get moving!”

But Dong was turned all the way in the seat, eyes on the makeshift table. “Corky! Corky!” he called.

Corky remained unconscious and had the Strung-Out debuff. But Gregori, wobbling on his feet, now stood over him and was also casting something on the mantaur as Porky pulled himself next to the other half.

Both of the debuffs zapped away.

“What? Where am I? Is the race over?” Corky asked. His voice was identical to that of Porky. His lower hand shot down to the hole in his suit. He tried to sit up, and Porky gently pushed him down.

“Don’t move,” Porky said. “I’m here. It’s time to get back together.”

“What?” Corky asked again, still confused.

“Corky! Corky!” Dong cried. 

“Snitches get their throats slit,” a new voice said. This was a heavily tattooed action figure. He appeared in the open back of the truck, peering upside-down from the roof, looking in. He had a brown headband and sunglasses which dripped as they melted. His name was el Asesino de la Melaza.

“Dong? Where am I?” Corky cried.

I pulled the back doors closed, which severed the action figure in half. He started to pull himself toward me, smearing brown goo across the floor. I stomped down with my foot, and the figure squished.

“Go! Go!” I called. We’d already been stopped for far too long. We risked coming in last place.

The truck lurched forward. “We must remove the suits. Quickly now,” Gregori said. “Oh gods. Do we have to be moving while we do this?”

“Yes!” The truck moved forward.

Prepotente: I have retrieved Bianca and we are proceeding forward. Be warned that many racers are stalled out in the next room. I recommend traveling along the walls as opposed to the ceiling if you can.

Carl: No can do. Sideways isn’t gonna work. Gotta do the ceiling.

“Carl, Carl, I can see the entrance of the next room!”  Donut yelled.

“I do not know how to engage the controls to drive on the ceiling!” Dong yelled.

“Damnit,” I said. “Sorry guys,” I called. “I gotta go over. Watch out.” I climbed atop the two mantaurs, squeezing over them. But the moment I did that, the temporary table I’d hastily fashioned with a piece of wood snapped, and we all fell, falling into the three chairs. Corky cried out in pain, and his suit ripped further, guts leaking everywhere.

“Dong, out of the seat!” I yelled. “Let me drive! Help your friend!”

Dong was already up and out, letting the truck drift, squeezing past me as I returned to the driver’s seat.

“Hold on!” I cried as we rocketed toward the next room.

Chapter 66

The path ahead swerved. I turned, but the maze of boxes had all broken and shattered. A dozen of the action figures were on the hood of the truck, holding on, occasionally flying off. They all army crawled toward the windshield. The entrance to the next room loomed, but it appeared that it was just a balcony with a drop. We were on the third floor, and this next, big room, which just seemed to go on and on, dropped all the way to the first. It glowed red within, and I knew the entirety of this room was just molten metal. I activated the spider legs as we approached.

“We’re gonna have to go sideways before we turn upside down,” I called.

“This interior is not conducive to a proper procedure,” Gregori was saying in between coughs. Donut was not in her chair, but sitting atop the oven burner. Both the tall half-mantaurs were standing, both rapidly pulling at the zippers to their suit. Both were taller than the interior, and they were half hunched over, each with a single arm on the ceiling, bracing themselves. “We’ll have to do it while standing, and only once we are inverted.”

“Will that work?” Donut asked as we took a sharp turn to avoid another hole in the floor. From within, dozens of the female dolls were climbing out, screaming as they melted.

“It should, but we must do it, blahhhh.” Gregori turned and dry-vomited. “My gods, this is horrible. We must do it fast. Princess, keep casting your healing scrolls.”

“Dong, are you unwell?” Corky, who’d finally caught up to what was happening, asked. “Dong, you’re sick!”

“Do not worry about me, my love,” Dong called. He had a roll of plastic wrap in his hands. We’d gotten it from Dekoki the kappa, and he was wrapping it, at Gregori’s direction, around Corky’s head. He turned to Porky, whose half-head was now also exposed and started to do the same. The fleshmancer had said it was fine if the guts spilled out a little, but the brain needed to remain sealed until the last minute. “We must do this quickly. Let me help you with this zipper after I seal this.”

“Oh gods,” Porky said, reaching up to touch the plastic wrap on his head. He started to pull down the same zipper I’d earlier helped him fix.

“Ew, ew, ew,” Donut cried as Porky’s suit popped open and the guts slopped everywhere, like a jack-in-the-box filled with noodles.

Gregori cast something, and the guts, dangling from his exposed double torsos floated by his side. The mess of guts was only on his lower torso, though strange and foreign organs and tubes also bulged from his upper side. He had beating half-hearts in both the top and bottom torso. The one in the upper, smaller body was almost twice the size as the one in the larger torso. Both hearts glowed, kept working by a spell from either Donut or Gregori.   

I finally saw both of their faces and half-mullet. They looked just like any other Mantaur, only just cut in half. Their plastic-wrapped half brains sat firmly in their skulls, pulsing, their exposed sinuses nausea-inducing.

But then I had to turn my attention back ahead of me. I had to slow and ease over, allowing the spider legs to grab purchase along the wall of the next room.

“Turning sideways! Brace!” I called as I tightened my seatbelt. “We’ll be sideways for a minute, then we’ll be completely upside down! Donut, be careful!”

We entered the next room, scrambling on the wall. This wall was flat, but I knew once we got to the ceiling we’d only be able to travel along the designated track.

Everyone cried out and yowled as it all turned sideways. We’d properly stowed the pots and pans, but Donut clattered heavily as she fell over, crashing into Gregori, who suddenly found himself on his side in the crowded back of the truck. Dong, Corky, and Porky were all jumbled, guts and blood sloshing everywhere as spells desperately tried to keep them all together.

I didn’t want to turn the truck again, so I moved laterally up the wall, keeping the passenger side of the truck facing down.

“Be careful of the window!” I yelled. “We’ll be at the ceiling in a second, and we’ll be fully upside down!”   

As everyone scrambled to find footing, now standing on the overturned counter, waiting for us to turn completely upside down, I finally took a look about the giant room.

“Holy fucking shit,” I muttered, taking in the chaotic scene just as we fully inverted, the spider legs carefully shuffling to the side and lowering so our wheels attached to the track.

The room just went on and on and on, impossibly long.

There were multiple paths on the walls and ceiling, which we had to use. The rest of the ceiling and walls were criss-crossed with spikes and bumps, all for the purpose of not allowing us to drive upon them.

The channels were wide, flat conduits, not unlike the tracks I once used for my Hot Wheels cars as a kid. The tracks were not straight, crossing over each other, moving back and forth as they followed the ceiling and the wall. Most were on the ceiling, and this was where most of the vehicles, far ahead of us, were racing, but both sides had a pair of tracks on each wall.

I tentatively pulled the spider legs back and hit the accelerator. The Roller Limbo upgrade held true, and we stuck firmly to the ceiling. We didn’t have time to waste. We could very possibly be in last place, and we had to move.

At the bottom of the room, below me, the river of molten metal just went on and on.

Far ahead, I spied Prepotente’s Sweety, turned sideward, making their way along the wall track. Sweety moved as if going sideways was no big deal at all, and the square litter that held Prepotente and Jurgen had rotated on its own, keeping them both vertical. The tapir’s feet flamed, leaving a trail on the wall.

Despite this, it was clear they were not moving as fast as normal. I could now see several of the vehicles dotting the ceiling were moving much more slowly than usual, all of us with different types of upgrades to facilitate this part of the track.

All of the action figures had fallen off the hood save one. It was an orc guy with long hair and an eyepatch. He wore a camouflaged suit, but it was all painted orange. The thing had unusually large hands. His name was The Orange Strangler. He dangled off the lip edge of the hood, facing me, angrily screaming something I couldn’t hear.

And then I saw the monsters, deeper in the room. These were large, gorilla-like beasts made of molten metal, jumping from the river below, landing on the walls and ceilings, facing down the racers. They hurled globs of metal at the passing vehicles.

Oh shit, I thought. If these were like the action figures, would they be able to get through the shield? 

I hit the accelerator. Behind me, Grigori was yelling instructions to Dong and Donut. They were all now standing on the ceiling of the truck.

“Dong,” Grigori called. “I will remove the plastic wrapping and press the head together, and then you will wrap the whole thing! Quickly now!”

“What is that flapping around?” Donut called, her voice a shriek. “That looks like something that shouldn’t be flapping around! And my goodness, Gregori. Make sure their lips line up! He’s going to end up looking like Mick Jagger!”

Ahead, I watched as Jurgen screamed and hurled one of his battle axes toward one of the gorilla monsters, which was blocking their path. The axe went right into the metal and disappeared, not to return. But the beast fell off the wall and plummeted down into the roiling metal. Jurgen held out his hand, trying to get his axe to return. It did not.  

The ferret mount that passed earlier was on the same track as us, just ahead, attached to the ceiling, weaving back and forth as it made its way across the inverted track. It was only moving at half the speed it had been going before. We would pass it soon. 

One of the molten metal beasts, dangling upside down from the ceiling spied us and started galloping in our direction. I hit the accelerator even harder, determined to outpace it. I examined it. 

Slag Elemental.

Level 75 Neighborhood boss.

Warning: This is an infused elemental.

Warning: This is a regenerator. This boss will regenerate if its corpse falls into the molten metal below.

Warning: This is a contagious elemental. Other elementals may form in its presence.

The Coblyn Corporation, in their efforts to protect their burgeoning child drug empire from getting discovered and shut down, tried to put some protections in place.

They, however, tried to do it on the cheap, as new corporations often tend to do. The War Mage Elementalist they hired, having been paid half in gold and half in (adult) product, pretty much phoned it in when he cast the magic. He was supposed to create a single, Molten Ore Elemental province boss. He instead screwed the whole thing up and created a handful of neighborhood boss level Slag Elementals. Upon realizing his mistake, he attempted to recall the creatures but ended up overdosing, dying, and ultimately exploding halfway through the process. The Sapient Moment of Destruction—which is a type of elemental itself—that resulted after the war mage’s death is what gave these elementals their Infused and Contagious status.

So what we have now is wildly contagious, regenerating, infused, and very pissed off elementals all over the place. 

Note. It’s pretty much impossible to kill these things. You will not receive a boss box unless one is dead-dead. Good luck. 

“Okay, hold them together!” Grigori yelled.

“I got you, I got you,” Dong said as we raced along the track.

The slag elemental hurled a ball of metal at us, and we rocked as it slammed into the side of the truck, threatening to overturn us. The heat sink gauge flashed, moving all the way up before settling down.

We rushed up right on the ass of the ferret. It appeared to have slime creatures pressed onto its back.

Containment Warning! 

“I hope this works,” I growled as I pushed forward and slightly down with the steering wheel.

I felt us fold into the space under the ferret, going between its legs, only to pop up on the other side. The transdimensional upgrade had worked as advertised, though the moment we folded back to regular size, I felt my stomach lurch.

“Oh gods,” Gregori called from the back. “I’m going to be ill again. Dong, hold them with all your strength!”

“I have you,” Dong shouted. I looked over my shoulder to see the old man, clinging tightly to the mantaur’s lower torso while both halves hugged him back. “I have you, and I will never let go again.”

I leaned forward so my waist was better secured in the seat as all the blood rushed to my head. Despite us having stopped for a few minutes, we were now outpacing several of the other racers, many of whom were currently engaging directly with the elementals. We switched tracks at an intersection as Gregori started to chant. Ahead and across the room, I spied both Osvaldo—who was on the wall—and Team Free Love’s van, which was right-side-up, but still attached to the ceiling. They had some sort of device on their roof that allowed them to travel along the track. They weaved in and out of danger.

Prepotente: Everybody. I have discovered how to delay these elementals. It may sound counterintuitive, but if you add any non-molten metal to them, they will immediately collapse and return to the river and wait for it to melt before they can attack again. Physical, or possibly ice attacks, are the only ones that will work. But you will lose that weapon.

Osvaldo: Go fuck yourself, cabrão.

Jurgen: We talked about this, Osvaldo. Don’t be mean to my fuzzy buddy.

“The initial casting is done!” Grigori called. “Now we wait for the parts to fuse. This is the important time! Hold them together, Dong! Hold them no matter what happens, or it will fail!”

“What about his dingle dangle?” Donut shouted from behind. “Shouldn’t that be, you know, matched up together? They’re flapping in different directions! It’s going to end up looking like a hotdog that exploded in the microwave!”

“We will fix any inconsistences after the race,” Gregori said, panting heavily. “It’s the brain that’s important. And both hearts, though if you wish to hold them together while the spell works, you may.”

“I am not touching that thing!”

“Worry not about his lance,” Dong called, straining as he held the two men together, muscles bulging on his arms. “That is normal for the mantaur race. The windmill, it is called.”

“It’s normal for his penis to look like a hand after a fireworks accident?” 

Wham! A glob of molten metal slammed into the hood of the truck. The heat sink gauge again topped out, but not before a giant hole appeared in the hood, exposing part of the engine, which started to whir.

The elementals were everywhere, but a single shot of anything seemed to be enough to knock them off the wall. They’d fall the three stories to the river of metal below, and it would be a few moments before they returned.

The Orange Strangler action figure remained there on the hood, dangling, though he was no longer shouting. The little orc guy was just staring at me.

“Okay, I am casting the final part of the spell now,” Gregori called.  Up ahead, the exit to the room loomed.

“Dr. Metcalf! Does the track leave the ceiling in the next room? Will we flip again?”

I have no idea. I’m still freaked out about the mantaur penis thing.

I turned to see Corky and Porky, naked, smashed together like a grilled cheese sandwich, all wrapped up with plastic wrap in various places, multiple hernias bulging out, Dong holding them together with all his might, eyes clenched closed, tears streaming.

“I got you,” he cried, over and over. “I got you.” 

Dong’s health was much further into the red than I realized.

The two halves, Corky and Porky, still had health bars over each half, also in the red, but as I watched, the health bars joined, and they became one.

Their names disappeared and a single name reappeared. Corcunda. 

A massive notification materialized, blocking my vision, and I waved it away.

But then something new emerged above the mantaur’s head.

It was a marked for death symbol by a god.

System Message: Grull has entered the realm.

Chapter 67

“Are you fucking kidding me?” I cried.

The Scavenger’s Daughter has opened her eyes. You are in the presence of a deity.

Temporary effect from Grull: all four-legged creatures in your presence, friend or enemy, are temporarily given 2X power to their most powerful attack.  

“He’s behind us!” Donut shrieked.

Prepotente: Carl, this is most inconvenient!

“We don’t have time to deal with him right now,” I yelled. The end of the room loomed. “Donut...”

“I’m on it!”  

I looked in the side mirror just in time to see the giant, bull-headed centaur creature with the enormous axe standing in the midst of the molten steel.

The god cackled with glee.

“What do we have here?” he called, his voice shaking the walls. “Carl, where are you? I’ve been waiting for your dumb ass to accidentally summon me.” 

We exited the room, and the track abruptly ended. The next ceiling over was even higher, and I hadn’t prepared the spider legs. So instead, we just drove right off.

“Hang on!” I shouted. “We’re gonna...”

We flipped violently like a buoy. From behind, everyone cried out and fell heavily to the floor. Donut yowled, getting smushed between Corcunda and Dong.

 “...flip!”

Bubble Buddy activated. We continued our forward trajectory, now slowly falling through the air, like a glider coming in for a landing.

This room was another big one, and it was filled with more of the crates and what appeared to be a couple hundred mechanical, dwarven automatons. Not as big as the ones from Faction Wars, but these were still huge. They were glorified forklifts. The machines were all moving across the floor, attempting to fight the vehicles who were already in here.

The cars who were ahead of us were firing their weapons at the giant robots as they rocketed toward the distant exit, which appeared to be just a single door.   

I kept the Limbo upgrade activated as we slowly dropped, occasionally hitting the rocket to move past the line of automatons. The little action figure remained on the hood, but it appeared as if he’d melted in place, so he remained there in the same position as before, now looking like he was doing a handstand. 

“Hail! Grull has come for me,” Corcunda groaned as he helped Dong up. His voice remained the same as before, though his mannerisms were suddenly much more mantaur-like. “I thought I was free of the vile god when I split, but the moment I came back together, he sent me a message and told me I was to be punished for not being trooo!”

“Not being what?” Donut asked.

The giant wall behind us exploded outward as the god crashed through. Molten metal started to spill into the room. There were cars and mounts everywhere, falling and spinning, ignored by the god.

“I can feel you, Meat! You can’t hide from me. I made you a friend of my temple. Do you know what that means? It means I can find you even faster!” 

“Oh, yes,” Gregori said from the floor. He’d banged his head and bled profusely from a scalp wound. “I should have asked if you worshiped a deity before you split. I apologize for my oversight.”

We were still in mid-air, gliding downward like a slow-moving paper airplane. 

“He’s going to smite me,” Corcunda said. He turned to Dong, and he grabbed the old man’s hands with both sets of arms. The naked mantaur had a bright red, jagged scar right down the middle of his face and chest. He wasn’t perfectly aligned. Little bulges appeared here and there along the seam.

The man shook his mulleted head. “Fellow warrior, I fear this was all for nothing!”

“He’s not coming for you. He’s coming for Carl!” Donut cried, scrambling up. She was absolutely soaked in red gore from the joining and what I suspected was Gregori vomit. “We need to get out of here before...”

“There you are!”

Slam!

Grull swung his axe, and a wave of wind hit us just before we alighted, which crunched us heavily to the ground. We all stumbled anew. The roof crumpled in. The shield overloaded and winked out. One of our tires broke off, spinning away. We spun out on the ground, turning sideways, and we would’ve flipped without the gyro. The slow-moving wave of molten metal lurched toward us, overtaking the automatons. And walking in that wave were literally hundreds of the elementals. They roared as one and started charging, quickly outpacing the angry god.

Grull stood only ankle deep in the molten metal. It didn’t seem to affect him. Donut shouted an order, and Dong pushed open the back door.

I caught sight of Sweety, far to the side, still high in the air, gliding on wings, feet flaming and trailing smoke, trying to get past all this.

“As tall as a mountain,” Corcunda muttered, looking up at the god. 

Grull raised his axe over his head. “I’m gonna enjoy this, Meat!” Bubbles started to form around his shoulders. “After all this time, and you’re going to die like the little bitch that you...gah!”

Donut finished casting Laundry Day.

The orc was ejected from the god’s chest. He dropped like a rock into the river of metal below.

“We don’t have time to kill you now,” Donut shouted. “Maybe next time!”

The Maestro was not, unfortunately, dead. The orc, while not invulnerable like the god itself, could not die here on the 10th floor. He could only be killed on floors where the rules stated outside tourists could perish, and there weren’t any of those left. He could still get splattered, but he would just regenerate a few minutes later.

Still, it probably hurt a whole lot, and for that I was glad.

I knew from my discussions with Mordecai that he would appear in his quarters on the 12th floor. But because the AI’s new rules that everyone had to be wearing their soul armor no matter what, he’d come back to Grull, probably in just a few short minutes. This would be a problem if we ever made it to the 12th floor—though that floor had some interesting rules regarding soul armor—but for right now, it gave us a few minutes before the Maestro would be back.

The god, however, was still here. And Corcunda was still marked for death. 

I activated the spider legs, and we skittered off toward the exit, running as quickly as we could. We had to get to the last room and make it to the exit.    

Grull snorted indignantly and looked about as we started to pull away.

“Corcunda,” the god roared, his voice deeper and much more terrifying now. “You have failed in your faith, and now you must be punished. You cannot run. You cannot flee. Accept your punishment like the warrior you once were.”

Grull started casually walking toward us. The slag elementals were faster and would be on us sooner. The spider legs weren’t nearly as fast as the now-useless tires, and the howling monsters slowly gained. Ahead, all the survivors were attempting to queue up at the single exit to the room. This doorway, only wide enough for two, already had a wreck right at the entrance. A bulldozer-like vehicle was pushing it all through, but everyone was stopped, trapped, right in the path of the god and the elementals.  

Many had clearly lost their containment, and multiple vehicles were on fire. Everyone was bunched together.

“Go, go, go!” Donut cried. “I’m going to cast...”

“No,” Corcunda said, putting a hand on Donut as I swerved around a broken crate. The box was filled with screws. There were thousands of them, tens of thousands, millions, and they were just spilled everywhere in the chaos. The spider crunched over them like gravel.

“No,” he repeated. I watched over my shoulder as the mantaur reached down and encompassed Dong in a hug.

“You worried if I would no longer love you once I returned to this form. But how could I not? Even if you and Porky hadn’t made amends before we joined, how could I forget what we had? You have been nothing but a shining light in my life, and I want to thank you for always holding true. But now I have to go to Grull. The only way he will leave is once I am properly smote.” 

The naked mantaur removed the scarf from around his neck—the only thing he was wearing—and put it around Dong’s.

The elderly stripper, whose health was almost all gone, reached high up and put his hand against the cheek of the mantaur. “My love,” he said. “Do you really think I will ever leave your side again?”

He held his other arm out, and he pulled an item from his inventory.

The massive, unenchanted lance, which I hadn’t seen since the day I’d given him that damn sock, appeared in his hand. The man held it steady, straight with just a single hand, pointing out the back of the open door of the truck.

Pointing directly at the immortal god of war. 

“I’ve always wanted to tilt a giant,” he said.      

“Wait,” Donut began. “Dong, no. Maybe we can...” But she trailed off. She looked back at me, eyes shining.

We had completed the quest, but we weren’t out of this yet. Grull would leave once Corcunda was gone. And if we waited too long, the Maestro would return.

The elementals were now much closer than Grull, who continued his matter-of-fact walk toward us. They had all left the slow-moving wave of molten metal behind.

“Hail, my love,” Corcunda said. He turned, faced the open exit to the truck, and he fell onto his middle arms. His whole body glowed. “It will be an honor to be ridden one last time.”

What the fuck is even happening right now?

“Shut the hell up,” I snapped at the GPS.

Dong, still holding his lance, hopped easily upon the back of Corcunda.

Despite us going at full speed, the elementals would be on us soon. There were thousands of them in the room by now, stampeding, Grull pacing along behind them, patient, determined, inevitable. Nothing like the creature who normally controlled him.

“Wait, Dong, wait,” Donut said. “Let me cast this. It has to be cast on an object! I will cast it on your lance. It will activate right away, but it will increase in intensity for about 15 seconds after I place it, so make sure you’re far away from us or else the lance will get ripped from your hand! It will help you get through the elementals! It will stay active for thirty seconds or until I turn it off!”

“What is it?” Dong asked.

“It’s called Big Ass Magnet. It’s the spell we were going to use to capture Genesis and Rapture’s car.”

Corcunda snorted. “Posers,” he said.

We would have to slow down in a moment. The bulldozer had built a hole, and vehicles and mounts were streaming through. There was another hole in the wall now, off to the side, but it was a temporary one, the same spell Donut used. Other vehicles started to stream through it.

“Casting now,” Donut said as we approached the exit.

“Good bye, Carl. Good bye, Princess Donut,” Dong said. “Please tell the others that I will miss them, but I will see them again on the other side. Tell them it was my pleasure to serve with them all. Vale to you all. Vale.”

And with a terrifying, in-unison roar, Corcunda and Dong jumped from the back of the truck and galloped directly at Grull just as the magnet spell activated.

Every screw within two hundred meters of the lance jumped into the air and rocketed toward the charging pair.

But first the screws had to travel through the slag elementals.

All it took was a small handful of screws to stagger the creatures. A few more, and they collapsed into puddles of molten steel.

And through it all, Dong and Corcunda charged.

They charged, and they charged. Riding into battle one last time.  

They charged, and they charged.

Dong Quixote, now with his lance lowered, now getting peppered himself with dozens, then hundreds, then thousands of screws, roared in triumph as the weapon made contact with the god of war. 

“A good death,” Grull rumbled before he vanished, going back to the 12th floor. “A good death indeed.” 

~

We traveled through the hole someone had cast, and we skittered through the last room, not saying anything as we struggled to the finish line, passing a few other vehicles desperately moving toward the exit, all of us exhausted, terrified, and filled with rage at this damn place which was slowly killing us all.

Still, despite all that, I finally breathed a sigh of relief. We were alive. We had survived. But most importantly, we had won the quest.

Heat Five. Results.

First Place: Team Sparkles. (B)
Second Place: Team Free Love. (M)
Third Place: Team Flamengo. (B)
Fourth Place: The Royal Court of Princess Donut. (M)

Eliminated: Lady Dominators and the Gimp. (M)