We sent Rosetta and Tipid into Hungry Eyes to grab a mercenary—if any were left—while Donut and I returned to the safe room to quickly open our boxes. My blood bar had refilled with the death of the kangaroo, but Donut’s had barely budged up, and we needed to make sure it didn’t run too low.

We only had a few hours. We didn’t have time for any of this.

The safe room was completely spotless now that the cleaner bot had finished sorting through all the crap I’d received from my fan box. He’d sucked up most everything, but there was a small pile of items of interest that we had in the corner. One was a broken communication device. There were multiple items of makeup Samantha had already rooted through, a few random odds and ends, and a pile of papers that looked like legal documents. Some were scorched and in a language I didn’t understand. Tipid had been in the process of sorting through them when we sent him and Rosetta into town.

A group of strippers, NPCs, and sluggalos circled around the view screen. They were taking turns playing the Wii version of Mario Kart, all screeching, laughing their heads off, as they had four players on at once. Bucket Boy sat on the couch with Dong, watching with an unreadable look on his face. Bigs was in the corner vomiting while the cleaner bot shrilled at her. Mongo and Rend remained in the garage, guarding. We also left Jamal out there as an extra guard until the two pets sobered up.

Samantha was controlling one of the cars. She was playing Princess Peach on a pink motorcycle. She had the controller in her mouth and was hovering just a foot off the ground, spinning back and forth. She was literally pressing buttons with her tongue. She made muffled zooming noises as she played.

She was also dominating. It wasn’t even close. Apparently, Tipid and one of the larger sluggalos were the only ones who could come close to beating her. I just sat there and watched for a few minutes. Right now it was Samantha versus Doctor Bones, Splash Zone, and a pair of smaller level 10 slugs who worked in tandem with a classic controller. They were playing Wario and cursing up a storm as they kept running off the road and hitting the wall.

We had another game system hooked up in the main guildhall. Bodi, the quiet, deadly colonel who’d dominated Land War, was currently with Louis in Katia’s former safe room. He was supposedly taking very well to one of the Forza games on the Xbox.

“It’s absolutely appalling,” Donut was saying as I tried to grab something out of my broken food box. She was talking about the lack of good prizes in her loot boxes.

“You’re already pretty strong,” I said, trying not to choke. I still had to eat something at least once a day to keep the buffs, but the systems were completely broken. Every time we received an “optional” food box upgrade, it wasn’t really optional. Everything that came out of the boxes now was liquefied, fish-smelling, and burned to a crisp. To make matters worse, I wouldn’t be able to reset my foot buff in the kangaroo suit, so it would expire. Nor could I brush my hair, as the hood was firmly attached to my head.

I could, however, pee. I didn’t even look. I just hopped into the bathroom, pulled down the boxers, and prayed I wasn’t wetting myself.

I didn’t want it to work because that came with a ton of really uncomfortable implications. But it did.

Or, at least, it worked once I hit level 5 in my new “Fursona” skill.

With each new skill level, the sensation that the suit was my actual body increased, which was terrifying.

Even now as I ate and watched Donut hiss her way through her loot boxes, it kept increasing on its own.

Your Fursona skill is now level 8!

Yiffing is unlocked!

I didn’t know what “yiffing” was, and I didn’t want to know.

I still had to hop everywhere.

We’d replaced the broken kitchen table with a bar counter that Elle had in her inventory. We sat at it now as Donut powered through her boxes. She’d received multiple achievements and prizes, including a “Last Place” achievement she was grumbling about. Most of the scrolls we received were more of the Emergency Gremlin ones, and there wasn’t anything else very good.

Imani sat with us. She said she couldn’t handle another minute of Elle’s fan group guy Linus hanging around their garage and wanted to stay here. But as usual whenever Imani was around, multiple sluggalos had come out to say hello.

“Victorious again!” Samantha announced, spitting out the Wii controller. She turned to the two level 10 slugs. “We had a deal. I now own you both as slaves, and you must do my bidding for all of eternity.”

“Yo, that wasn’t the bet,” one of the sluggalos said.

“Yeah,” said the other. “You said the loser has to pay the winner a sick compliment.”

“Oh, yes, yes, that is correct,” Samantha said. “Well?”

“Uh,” the first said. “You’re not as psychotic as I first thought you were.”

“Yeah, you smell good, too. If you was a strawberry, I’d nibble you right up,” the second said.

Samantha made a little grunt. “There’s a difference between complimenting and shameless flirting, but I suppose it will do.” She turned to Splash Zone. “And you?”

“I didn’t make a bet,” he said, crossing his arms.

“Nor did I,” said Doctor Bones.

“Well, I didn’t promise not to kill your mothers, either, then,” Samantha said.

“Samantha,” I warned, “no threatening.”

Behind me, a new race started with two more sluggalos and Gluteus Maxx playing. The fuzzy Gluteus was playing Luigi, and he was pretty good.

“Yo, you gonna give it a go?” one of the sluggalos asked Imani. He’d climbed up the side of her leg and made it all the way to her waist. This one had a bunch of little daggers sticking out of his eyestalks.

“No,” she said, flicking the slug off. “I played enough against my brothers back home.”

“Brothers?” Donut asked. “How many do you have?”

We all cringed a little at Donut’s use of the present tense. I remembered that moment when I was briefly connected with Imani’s mind. I remembered how invasive it’d felt that I could see her thoughts. But I also remembered that deep sadness she had when it came to her own family.

“Good question,” she said to Donut. “But full siblings. I had two. I was the youngest and only girl.”

“I have multiple older brothers, too,” Donut said. “All were scattered all over the place. The Queen Anne Cattery sure loved selling off the boys to other families. Miss Beatrice’s mother always said boys were meant to be used as a means to an end and never as the end, whatever that means. I had this one brother Charleston Chew, who got sent all the way to Australia, and the people who bought him used a private jet to⁠—”

“Carl,” Imani said, interrupting, “you should open your boxes. We don’t want Donut’s blood bar to drain too much. You know what? I think I will play a round or two before I go back. Guys, move aside. We gotta unlock Funky Kong if you want to beat Samantha.” She moved to the group while the sluggalos started chanting her name.

Donut: DID I SAY SOMETHING TO MAKE IMANI MAD AT ME? I DIDN’T MEAN TO.

I reached over and gave Donut a pat.

Carl: No, it’s okay. I don’t think she likes talking about her family. That’s all.

Donut: I WONDER WHY.

Carl: Sometimes we don’t need to know someone’s full life story to understand them. With her, I think it’s something she’d rather leave buried. I don’t think she wants to be defined by her past.

I turned my attention to my achievements and boxes. I was a little hesitant to open this batch because of the whole kangaroo incident, but Imani was right. We didn’t have much time. As expected, I received a few disturbing ones, including three in a row that were especially unhinged.

New Achievement! Weaseler!

You’ve donned the corpse of an enemy in an attempt to fool another creature! And then you ENTERED that creature.

Oh my goodness. Oh my goodness. It’s like transitory vore. This is fucking delectable.

Don’t get me wrong. The main show is on pause because of that suit you’re wearing. But it’s okay to order the hamburger every now and then at the Chinese place.

Reward: Temporary classes while wearing corpse suits have been unlocked! You will now receive benefits and buffs associated with the suit you are wearing. These skills will go away once the suit is removed.

Current temporary class: Fursuiter.

This next one, I assumed, was for going into the pouch. The AI didn’t actually say anything other than the name of the achievement, the “reward,” and a few random words. I sighed.

New Achievement! Slip-’n’-slide.

Ungghh. Warm. So warm. So tight. Unghh.

Reward: Why, yes. That was rewarding, wasn’t it?

The AI’s voice in my head glitched out a few times while giving that one as well, which was doubly concerning. It had been doing that more and more lately.

New Achievement! Brotein!

You gently caressed the nipple of a male boss in the middle of a boss battle.

All right, dude. You need to calm down. Boss battles are serious business.

Reward: We don’t reward deviancy.

“That is not what happened!” I exclaimed. “I barely touched it. With my hand, in this damn kangaroo suit!”

“Carl, what are you yelling at?” Donut asked.

Everyone paused to look at me. Nobody else had heard the achievement other than myself, so I knew I had to look absolutely insane.

New Achievement! ’76 Buccaneers!

So . . . you’re not dead. But you came in last place in your heat.

You’re not doing so great at this racing thing. You do remember this is a death game, right? Is it too late to consider a career change?

Reward: You’ve received a job application for a Big Shot Chicken location in Tucson, Arizona!

The reward was literally a non-magical, bent, half-shredded, and stained job application for the same fast-food restaurant we had the food truck for. At least I still had the Platinum Boss Box.

That ended up being an upgrade potion.

Skill Potion. Platinum Hotlist Expansion.

Drinking this potion will expand your 20-space hotlist into 25 spaces.

It also unlocks the Contingency skill, which allows multiple actions and reactions for items in the hotlist based on a predetermined set of circumstances.

I sent the description to Mordecai, and then I drank the potion manually. I still had the tang of burned sausage and fish in my mouth, and I could barely taste it. Behind us, the crowd cheered as Imani won a race.

A new tab is available in your interface. Hotlist contingencies.

“Huh,” I said, moving to the new tab. I already had something similar with my Heart Balance skill, which allowed me to set a potion to get automatically used when my health reached a certain level. This was much better and more programmable. I was pretty certain Lucia Mar already had this. Digging deeper, it appeared I could add up to ten automations, but those automations could utilize multiple items in my hotlist at the same time. I would need to spend some time playing with this.

The door to the garage opened, and Mongo stumbled in, screeching. He was still hammered.

“Mongo, no!” Donut called. “You’re supposed to be guarding Hedy!”

“No, Mr. Mongo,” Jamal called from behind at the same time. “You need to remain in the garage. We have been tasked with—” He grunted as he was pushed aside by Rend, who also entered the room, giggling.

And that’s when Mordecai entered the room, holding an armful of empty potion balls. “Carl, I need you to go to your bomber’s studio and . . .”

The reaper paused, dropped all the potion balls, and rose up in the air. He turned toward Rend, his voice turning deep and ominous. “And now you perish once again. The next time will herald the beginning of the end.”

Rend dropped dead right there in the safe room.

Your pet has died!