The door to garage number three opened, and two creatures strolled out. We just gawked.

“Carl, what am I looking at?” Donut asked.

“Uh,” I said.

The female version of these mantaur things were . . . different than the male version, at least at first glance. The guys were just like a large buff dude with a second torso protruding from the neck area, giving them four arms. The women—at least these two women—had four legs, making them look much more like traditional centaurs, only somehow it looked even more fucked-up. The back half was two legs, a bent-over torso, and then two more legs where a regular person’s arms would have been.

Their backs were arched and rounded, swooping upward instead of down like a horse’s, making their gait seem uncomfortable and unnatural, like a regular person walking on all fours without bending their elbows.

The secondary torsos of both the women were as broad and as muscle-bound as those of their male counterparts. Their top arms bulged under their suits.

The men normally wore little loincloths on the bottom half and then a shirt on the top half, leaving their lower torso bare.

The women were dressed much different. They were both decked out in a sleek white racing suit with a red-and-blue stripe down the center, going all the way up to their necks. All four legs had long, slick black boots that went up past their knees.

“Fucking weird,” I muttered as they stiff-legged toward us.

“Wait until you see the third one,” Chiyome said.

I was starting to suspect my initial impression was actually wrong. The forward, or top, set of legs might actually have been arms, not legs. Arms shoved into boots. That would explain their strange gait and posture.

One womantaur had straight black hair, and the other had a mop of curly red hair.

Both wore cowboy hats. Massive, gleaming white cowboy hats. Both hats had a red-and-blue band around the center, matching their suits.

They paused in the center of the cul-de-sac, examining us, standing in the same place the razor foxes had just performed their dance or whatever. The two women abruptly stood to their full height, arching their backs, which cracked audibly as they stood. When they stood upright, they both left their forward boots on the road, proving my initial impression was indeed incorrect, and they did have a second set of hands like the male versions. Why they’d walk around with boots on their lower hands was beyond me.

The one with black hair was named Genesis, and she was a level 95 Lady Mantaur Dominator. The freckle-covered one with the red curly hair was named Rapture. She had the same level and class.

They did not worship Grull like every other mantaur I’d ever seen. Both worshipped someone named Enyo.

“Howdy,” Genesis said, looking us up and down. “Would you look at that, Rapture?”

She had a Southern-fried American accent. Kentucky, if I had to guess.

Rapture didn’t say anything. She just grunted and then spat out the side of her mouth. A brown glob hit the ground. Chewing tobacco.

“Hello, ladies,” Donut said tentatively. “It looks like we’ll be neighbors for the next few days.”

“Yeah, maybe,” Genesis said. She continued to stare at us up and down. Rapture crossed both sets of arms. It was like they were waiting for us to do or say something.

“Want a beer?” Radoslav asked, pulling one of the peach ones out of his cooler and offering it up. Next to him, Jasha let out another snore and turned over in his chair, causing the open beer on his stomach to finally fall. It hit the driveway and started to roll down toward the street, trailing beer.

Rapture’s arm shot forward, and a lance of metal appeared, shooting from her wrist. A harpoon bolt attached by a thin gleaming cable. The bolt skewered the rolling beer can and retracted, pulling the half-empty can to the upper hand of the womantaur. The harpoon fully retracted back into her wrist, loudly ripping a giant hole in the can. She raised the ruined aluminum can to her nose and sniffed it. She offered it to Genesis, who also sniffed it. She made a sour face.

Donut: THESE LADIES REMIND ME OF YOUR FRIEND BILLY MALONEY’S SISTERS. THE ONES THAT DID THE BODYBUILDING. WHAT DID MISS BEATRICE CALL THEM? THE WALMART SISTERS?

Carl: I remember. And that was a dick thing for Bea to call them.

Donut: DIDN’T THEY GET ARRESTED AT A WALMART FOR FIGHTING? LIKE, FIGHTING EACH OTHER?

Carl: Sort of. It was at a Target.

Donut: YES, THAT’S RIGHT. YOU LENT BILLY THE MONEY TO BAIL THEM OUT, BUT HE ONLY BAILED OUT ONE AND THEN EVERYONE GOT MAD AT YOU AND NOT BILLY FOR SOME REASON.

Rapture spat again, splattering more brown goo on the ground.

“You guys just gonna stare all day or what?” Chiyome asked.

“We came over here to check out the competition, but it don’t look like there is any,” Genesis finally said. “Come on, Rapture. Let’s go get some real booze at the Hairpin. We don’t drink with roadkill.”

Rapture spat a third time and then dropped the shredded remains of the beer can, but it landed inside her boot still on the ground. They both lowered their hands into the boots. I heard a slight crunch as Rapture stuck her hand in the boot, and she made a pained expression, but she didn’t actually remove the can. They both turned and started their weird lurch-walk toward the portal into town, Rapture trying not to put weight on the boot with the can inside. Just before the portal, Rapture stood back to her height and turned the boot upside down, shaking the pieces of aluminum out.

“My people have a name for people like that,” Radoslav said as we watched them go. “We call them dumbasses.”

“Don’t underestimate any enemy,” Chiyome said, her fox eyes narrowed. “They’re not as dumb as they look. They both practice domination magic.”

Carl: Mordecai, what’s domination magic?

Mordecai: Like Donut’s charm ability, but it usually saps energy or mana from the victim. Donut’s Love Vampire skill is an example. Your Mind Balance will keep you immune, and Donut’s high charm should also keep her safe.

A few spots over, the door to garage number three remained open. A figure stood there, mostly hidden in the shadows, staring at us. He, too, was wearing a bodysuit that covered his body and his head, but it was all black. Unlike the ninja suits of the razor foxes, this suit appeared to be made of shiny vinyl. A glint of light implied there was a zipper right at the mouth.

A gimp suit.

The creature raised his top hand and waved at us just before the garage door started to lower.

“What the shit?” I grunted as everyone else turned their attention to the other creature. “I guess that’s what a half-mantaur looks like. I should’ve known it would’ve been something stupid like this.”

This guy was, indeed, half of a mantaur. Half vertically. It was hard to fully see, but it appeared he was split right down the center, right between the eyes and all the way down through the groin. The creature stood upon a single leg—his right leg—with a right arm and second right arm above that. Even his suit-covered head appeared to be split in half.

“Halfsies gotta wear suits like that to keep their guts and brains from spilling out,” Chiyome the fox said, also watching the door close. She was spinning a ninja star on the tip of her fingers as she drank another beer, her fifth. “They don’t usually live long, but I heard this one has been around a while. Used to be a dancer or something.”

“Even his head?” Donut asked, incredulous. “What about his, you know? And where’s the other half?”

Chiyome tossed the ninja star up in the air and made a chopping motion. “There is a spell called Split Personality. Cuts you right down the middle.” She caught the star and spun it again. “They can come together and get reglued with a fleshmancer.”

Donut suddenly gasped. “So, do you think that’s Dong Quixote’s friend? The half-mantaur he’s always talking about? What was his name? Corcunda?”

From the garage, the song “Free Bird” from Lynyrd Skynyrd played.

“It’s gotta be him,” I said. I was already girding myself for whatever bullshit drama would come from this, especially since we were going to have to kill this poor guy as soon as possible.

“How could he be a stripper if all his guts spill out when he takes the porn suit off? That seems like it would really ruin the performance.”

“Some things are best left to the imagination, Donut.”

“When will we tell Dong?”

“Never, if we can help it,” I said. “If it is Dong’s long-lost partner or whatever, they put him here to fuck with us and the team. The best way to deal with this sort of drama is to avoid stepping into it in the first place. If we get involved, it’s going to backfire.”

“I suppose you’re right. Just like you giving Billy Maloney the money to bail out his sisters.”

“Exactly.”

“It seems kind of mean, though, not to tell him. What if we . . .” She paused. “Oh, uh,” she said, looking upward.

I felt a ripple to the air at the same time.

“Damnit,” I said, immediately regretting having spoken out loud.

New Quest! I have dreamed thee too long.

Part one of two.

NPC Dong Quixote’s best friend in the world, Corcunda, also known as Corky, has been located after so long. Reunite them.

Part one is practically a freebie, though with these races, NPCs are about to start dropping like toenails. Finishing part one will automatically trigger part two, which might be a little more difficult to pull off. Spoiler alert. It will require Corcunda’s second half, nicknamed Porky, who is also somewhere on this floor. After you locate this other half, you’ll have to find one of several fleshmancers wandering about. You’ll probably want to figure all this out sooner rather than later.

Reward: If you successfully complete this quest, two stand-ins of your choosing will be sent to the Arena on the 11th floor.

Jasha the bugbear grunted and shot awake, eyes wide as he looked around, eyes focusing first on the razor fox, then on me and Donut. He let out a snort and shook his head. The water from the kiddie pool at his feet splashed.

“Where’s my beer?” he asked.