Entering the Lollipop.

Safe room rules do NOT apply to this establishment.

A singer howling an off-key rendition of some 80s song I barely recognized assaulted our ears as we entered the crowded bar. I turned my attention to see an odd short creature with a flat head standing on a stage singing her heart out as cheap lights flickered on and off around her.

The creature was a monster type I’d seen a few times on the recap episodes. A kappa. It was somewhere between a naiad and a goblin wearing a Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles costume. Kappas had turtle shells and water-filled bowls for heads. If too much of the water spilled from their head bowls, they were immobilized. I remembered Elle once telling the story of how she’d killed several by freezing their heads.

This singer bounced enthusiastically onstage while she sang. She didn’t seem too concerned about spilling. When she turned her head to the side, I saw why. She had some sort of Saran Wrap–with-rubber-bands covering on her head, keeping the water in place.

Dekoki. Kappa. Level 84 Seductress.

One of four from team Yokai.

Two other creatures crowded the stage, dancing and shouting encouragement. One was a ghost with long white robes and the other was a red ogre-like beast. It was odd seeing such monstrous mobs acting so normal. I realized there was a third creature dancing with them. It appeared to be a sapient paper lantern, just floating there and bouncing through the air, spinning in circles, laughing with the ghost while the kappa sang.

Donut bopped on my shoulder to the music. Jurgen, who’d somewhat recovered from his vomit spree, stood next to us, looking ill. And next to him, Prepotente started moving his arms back and forth like he was cross-country skiing. I realized he was attempting to dance.

“Where do you think we sign up?” Donut asked.

“I don’t think we’ll have time for singing today,” I said.

“Carl, we always have time for singing.”

“There’re our people,” Jurgen said, pointing. I saw Imani’s wings in the very back. We started pushing our way through the crowd.

Other crawlers sat at various tables, all raising their hands in greeting. Most of the crowd were NPCs, and all were racers. The bartenders and the DJ were gremlins.

“That was ‘Tell It to My Heart’ by Taylor Dayne,” a surprisingly deep gremlin voice said as the song ended. “Thank you, Dekoki. I’m looking for the Minister of Blood-Letting. You’re up next, singing ‘Everybody Wants to Rule the World.’”

A skeleton wearing a pope-like outfit took the stage. The guy was wearing a necklace that appeared to be made of live bats. His name literally was “the Minister of Blood-Letting.” He was a level 98 Dark Ghoul Papist. His team was called the Bleak Congregation.

“Hi, Imani! Hi, Elle! Hi, Louis! Hi, Britney! Hi, Florin! Hi, Bautista! Hi, Chris! Hi, two people I don’t know!” Donut shouted at the crowded table. All around me, people smiled big and patted me on the shoulder, shouting congratulations for the end of Faction Wars.

Donut was watching the ghoul sing. “He’s a rather good singer. My goodness, he is very scary, though. That whole satanic look is quite disturbing.”

Imani laughed. She had a beer bottle in her hand, and I tried to remember if I’d ever seen her drink. She had a few drinks there, and she slid a beer over toward me. She also pushed a bowl toward Donut. It was just a regular Shirley Temple with extra cherries.

Elle grunted. “Yeah, that creep and his team are in our heat. The spooky doesn’t quite hit the same when you see their vehicle. They have that giant hot dog truck. The Wienermobile or whatever it’s called.”

Donut made a derisive snort. “Hardly dignified, but it’s not much better than our food truck. What did you guys get?”

Elle took a shot of something and slammed the glass. “Imani and I have some god-awful military vehicle that handles like a three-legged pig walking backward through a snowstorm.”

“You have a Mowag Piranha V,” Florin said, “one of the finest military troop carriers in the world. Amphibious already. You guys got lucky. Lucia and I have a goddamned tuk-tuk.”

“What the goodness is a tuk-tuk?” Donut asked. “That sounds like a monster from one of Carl’s nerd movies.”

“A tuk-tuk is also known as an auto rickshaw,” Prepotente said absently. He’d picked up a paper menu from the table and was reading it carefully. “They originated in Japan. The Mazda-Go was released in 1931. Before the collapse, it was one of the most widely used taxis in the world, especially in Asia. It’s an unfortunate choice for a vehicle. You two are in serious danger. I do hate it when they don’t list the soda choices on the menu. Where is our waiter?”

“How in god’s name do you know all that?” Elle asked Prepotente.

“Waiter!” Prepotente shouted at the gremlin behind the bar, who didn’t hear him. Prepotente made an exasperated snort, stood, and stalked over there, ignoring Elle.

“Shit, really?” I asked Florin, alarmed. Our food truck was bad, but it could’ve been much worse. A damned scooter was horrible luck.

Florin nodded. “Lucky we came in first place. Got a Golden upgrade, but we decided to go with three regular upgrades instead. We have a tech shield, all-terrain and vertical-climb tires, and a GPS upgrade. Hopefully we can win the next heat, too, and we can get some weapons for the thing.”

“How is Lucia?” Jurgen asked, leaning in. “And where is she now? How’s she acting?”

Jurgen had a pregnant wife named Heidi, who wasn’t really in the dungeon with us, even though he pretended like she was. She was up there somewhere in the kinder facility on the surface along with Katia and presumably the 120,000 children that were stuck in Lucia’s head. Jurgen was a great fighter and had been more than competent as a general, but getting separated from his wife had obviously knocked his marbles about.

Lucia had promised to take a deal. Clearly that hadn’t happened.

Florin sighed. “She’s at the garage. Honestly, I’m a bit worried. Now that the dogs are gone, she’s been flipping personalities a lot, and you never know what you’re going to get. About 70% of the time, she’s her usual charming self and is ready to skewer me. But the rest of the time, it’s a random kid. I couldn’t get the story out of her why she didn’t take a deal. It’s her turn to drive next heat, but I hired a mercenary just in case. It’s about to get tricky.”

“You gotta try to come in first for every race,” Jurgen said, leaning in, suddenly dead serious. The man was like that, constantly swapping between happy and scarily intense. The man had been a ruthless and efficient force on the battlefield. “If it comes to crawler versus crawler, you let me know, and I will make certain the other team knows what they’re up against, and they know what has to happen. I’ll make them understand.”

Florin met the large barbarian’s eyes, and after a moment, he nodded.

“Can I come out from underneath the table now?” a new voice asked. “I want to meet Carl and Princess Donut.” It was the familiar, breathy voice of a soother alien.

Donut hissed and jumped about three feet in the air.

“What does ‘out of sight, out of mind’ mean, Linus?” Elle snapped. “Stay down there and keep your trap shut!”

“Yes, ma’am,” the soother said.

“Uh,” I said, peering under the table, “who the hell is that?”

“Don’t mind him,” Elle said.

Sitting on the concrete floor of the bar, wrapped around the base of the table, was a tall, long-limbed soother alien. He held on to the pole like he was holding on for dear life. He wasn’t on my minimap, and he had a notification over his head that said Linus. Tourist. I couldn’t examine him further. I’d been hitting him with my foot, but I’d thought they were Louis’s legs. I pushed slightly, and I could tell his form wasn’t fully there, like with the adjutants on the previous floor.

My eyes first caught the T-shirt, which was a nude image of Elle with the words “Stay Frosty, Boys” across the top in Syndicate Standard. The second thing I noticed was the fanny pack. The third was the massive, poorly drawn tattoo of Elle’s face on his skinny arm.

“Hi, Elle’s fan,” Donut said after she recovered. She moved to the floor. “Why are you under the table?”

“Because that’s where little perverts sit when they ask stupid questions,” Elle said. She didn’t elaborate further.

“Hi, Donut,” Linus the soother said, waving shyly.

“Why is he here?” I asked.

Elle sighed. “Because originally there were supposed to be five hundred tourists on this floor, and after each heat, one lucky tourist would win ‘extra access’ with their preferred racer each day. And since E.T. here was the only moron to show up, guess who wins by default.”

“Elle is my favorite,” Linus said.

“Yes, we can see that,” Donut said, sniffing at him suspiciously. “Well, it’s nice to meet you. Is that shirt authorized fan merchandise?”

“Oh, yes,” Linus said, his voice a whisper. “I run the center system chapter of Elle’s Snow Cones, which has the contract for her fan merch. Now, you better stop talking to me, or I’ll get in trouble again.”

“Uh, okay,” Donut said, jumping back to the table.

“What about Zhang?” I asked. “He’s not here? Tran?”

“No,” Imani said. “Zhang says Li Na isn’t really talking to him. She killed almost all of the other teams in their heat. I guess we’ll see next race if Prepotente’s theory about having to race other crawlers is correct.”

“Tran is stuck in his garage,” Louis added. “He had a rough race, too, but I don’t know the details. Some of his spider legs got wrecked, but I guess his gremlin is fixing it for him. He said he has a hearse for a car.”

“What is Zhang and Li Na’s car?” Donut asked as she chewed on a cherry.

“Not a car,” Imani replied. “They went biological. Zhang says it’s an octopus-like creature.”

“An octopus?” Donut asked, crinkling her face. “That sounds absolutely revolting.”

“What about you guys?” I asked Chris, who sat stoically next to Imani. A pair of crawlers I didn’t know very well sat next to him. It was two women, both named Erin. His team name was “Chris and the Erins.”

“What is your vehicle?”

“A semitruck with a trailer,” one of the new crawlers said. Her name was Erin Stratos. She was a human. A level 66 Moodright, but I didn’t know what that meant. Some sort of mage. She was covered with glowing tattoos.

The other crawler was named Erin Ann G, and she was also human. She was a level 69 Swiftie, which, much to Donut’s dismay, was a dexterity-based knife wielder. I hadn’t met her, either, but I’d heard of her. She’d been one of Florin’s. She’d killed orcs by the hundreds during Faction Wars.

“A big rig?” I asked. I wasn’t so sure that was much better than the scooter.

“It’s big but slow,” Chris added.

Imani grinned up at Chris and bumped him with her shoulder. Her skin sizzled a little when she touched him, but she didn’t seem to notice or care. “Kinda like you.”

Chris’s rock face crinkled into something resembling a smile.

Donut: DID IMANI JUST NEG CHRIS?

Carl: I don’t know what that means, but she’s just teasing him.

Donut: OMG, IMANI IS IN LOVE WITH CHRIS!

Carl: Don’t you dare say anything.

“What did you guys get?” I asked Louis.

“Uhh,” Louis said, “it’s a truck. An SUV. An older Tahoe.”

“That’s not so bad,” I said.

Britney grunted.

“It’s a neon-covered lowrider,” Louis said. “There’s like two inches’ clearance from the bottom to the ground. We kept bottoming out. Our gremlin says that it’ll get put back every time, so next upgrade we get we’ll pick something that fixes it.” He sprayed water and then added, “It does have a great sound system.”

I laughed, imagining Louis, Britney, and Bautista in such a thing. “You didn’t fix it for your first upgrade?”

“No,” Britney said, her voice flat.

“We came in second-to-last place,” Louis said. “Britney got a little mad at me, kept saying I was driving like an American. There’s this hydraulic system, but I didn’t know how it worked. All our opponents have these superfast cars and animals, and we were late coming out of the gate. We would’ve lost if the tentacle guys hadn’t gotten eaten.”

“Oh wow.” A terrible dread was starting to seep in around the edges. Everyone here was acting happy, but this particular floor had an insidious rule set. It would be really easy to lose groups of friends at a snap of a finger.

“What did you get when the audience voted?” I asked.

“Wheel spinners,” Louis said. “They light up the road.”

“Shit,” I said.

Prepotente returned with a glass of something fizzy and a well-worn, stapled-together book of laminated pages. “Look, Donut. I found the karaoke list! I signed up to sing ‘Tarzan Boy’ by Baltimora!”

“Yay!” she said. Onstage, the ghoul guy was gone and replaced with a Bactrian camel. I was pretty sure it was the same camel who’d pushed me out of the way from the portal earlier. I could barely hear him and couldn’t tell what he was singing, but I could tell he was super flat.

“Hey!” Donut said a minute later. “These are all old people songs!”

“Yes, I believe the song choices are all from the 1980s,” Prepotente said. His tongue flicked out and tried his soda. He shuddered. “Delicious. It’s so much better when it’s from a tap.”

“I need to look at these drinks,” Jurgen said, standing up.