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

Luca Di. Crawler #10,284,471.

Race: Human.

Class: Pastamancer.

Final Level: 62.

You probably don’t remember me, Princess, but I was one of the ones to give you my train hat on the fourth floor. You not only saved my life, but you saved the life of my mother, Giulia DiMarco, as well.

My mother and I never got along growing up. When she started to suffer from dementia, we placed her in a home. Guilt finally got the best of me, and I went to visit her on that day.

I felt as if I needed closure for all the terrible things she had done and said as I was growing up. I never got the chance, as we found ourselves in the dungeon soon after I’d wheeled her outside.

I protected her until we got to the third floor, where she took the only race that would save her mind, a Benevento, which is basically an elf-like witch creature. I don’t know if you remember her, but she said you were beautiful.

With her mind repaired, I finally found the closure I was seeking.

I know you don’t know what I’m talking about. Maybe one day, when all this is done, I can tell you the full story of myself and my mother. For now, I just want you to know I was able to talk to her again. I was able to tell her how I truly felt about some of the things she had done, and she was able to tell me some of why she was the way she was.

As terrible as this place is, I found forgiveness in the dungeon, and I found a peace I never would have been able to find if I’d simply unloaded my feelings on a dying woman who could no longer understand me.

My mother fell during the bubble level. But I will forever cherish those last few days I had with her.

And it’s because of you and Carl that I got that.

I can’t imagine what toll that War Crime spell took on you. But I want you to know it’s okay to forgive yourself. Sometimes there are no good choices, and we just do what we have to.

You saved me, and by saving me, you also saved the memory of my mother and all those I have loved, and for that, I love you, Princess Donut. Even though you don’t know me, I love you with all I have.

Keep up the good fight, and should you fall, I want you to know you will never be forgotten.

Drawing: A bent tube of pasta.

Associated Spell: Temporary Macaroni. Casts at level 14.

The light turned green, Gluteus hit the accelerator, tires squealed, and we were off.

We had twenty minutes to go thirty kilometers.

I fell backward, my back smashing into the closer of the two ghoul cages. The ghoul within shout-groaned as the truck started to buck and bounce.

Crunch, crunch, crunch, crunch.

We shook heavily as we plowed over and through the rushing sugar skulls. We quickly outpaced them.

The engine roared, the gauges maxed out, and we kept accelerating. The entire truck started to shimmy.

If Gluteus so much as tweaked that steering wheel, we were going to flip.

“Keep it steady!” I yelled.

“You know it, baby! Like fucking a needle! Faster! Faster!”

“Dr. Metcalf,” I bellowed as I pulled myself into a standing position, “shout when the invulnerability is about to run out!”

“And play some fucking music!” Gluteus hollered. He leaned forward so his chest was pressed against the steering wheel.

“Slow down!” Donut shrieked. “Gluteus, you’re going too fast!”

“Mayhaps you’d like a calming massage, my princess?” Dorota asked.

“Not now, Dorota!”

You know what? I do think we need music. This feels like an appropriate song. Anything to shut that chair up.

Some Halloween-sounding techno heavy metal song started to blast. I’d definitely heard it before, but I couldn’t remember the title. It was a car-racing song about witches and ditches.

Gluteus started pounding the dash with his hairy hand. Donut shouted something as we bounced up and down.

“Shut that off!” I yelled, but nobody could hear me. We didn’t have time. I turned toward the back of the truck to prepare the cages.

Donut: HOW IS THIS EVEN PLAYING? WHERE ARE THE SPEAKERS?

“Okay, guys,” I shouted at the two ghouls. They looked at me blankly, likely unable to hear me over the music. One had his hands over his ears. “We’re doing this!”

I grabbed the first lever we’d built into the floor of the truck, and I yanked. The back door burst open as the first cage popped out, suspended over the road on a reinforced beam like a fishing pole. I pulled the chain on the ceiling, which swung the beam toward the driver’s side of the truck, moving the cage so it hung outside over open road, just behind, shaking and dangling like a lantern. I quickly secured the chain on the embedded hook. I shoved the second cage, and it glided smoothly out. I pulled this second chain, and the arm pivoted, swinging the second cage out to the opposite side. I secured the chain, locking it all in place.

I rushed back and slid out the door stabilizer, which kept the back door from swinging back and forth.

Both ghouls were now suspended in cages that dangled on either side of the truck, making it look like we had wings. The ghouls within dropped the front trapdoors, which would allow them to lean out and toss their potion balls. I could yank on a third chain, which would raise the driver’s-side cage like it was on a crane, bringing it up higher than the height of the truck.

This whole pulley-and-lever system was an engineering marvel cobbled together by Hedy, and it allowed for the deployment and quick retraction of the twin defensive positions while not changing the integrity of the truck itself. The entire system was secured inside the kitchen.

With that done, we still had a good forty seconds left on the invulnerability.

We’d left One Fine Pig far behind, but the Lady Dominators’ car was right there, zooming up behind us. Team Free Love’s van was also bouncing along behind the Dominator team. Both the armored dog and the bear were way back there, as far back as One Fine Pig. If they didn’t get free soon, they’d both get taken out by the little monsters.

I couldn’t see team Sparkles anywhere. I leaned out the back, straining, but there was no sign of them.

I started to shout, but nobody could hear me.

Carl: Do you see team Sparkles?

Donut: THEY’RE WAY AHEAD. THEY HAVE SOME SORT OF ROCKET THING ON THE BACK OF THEIR STUPID TUMBLEWEED, AND THEY’RE ROLLING. WE’RE IN SECOND PLACE!

“Shit,” I grumbled. I pulled the eight-pack launcher from my inventory, aimed it straight up in the air, and I fired out the back of the zooming truck. Thwum, thwum, thwum. thwum. The eight missiles spiraled off one by one. Four moved toward the heavily armored One Fine Pig, and four moved toward team Sparkles.

We still had thirty seconds, but that was okay. The missiles weren’t designed to explode.

I caught sight of Rapture in the passenger’s seat of their muscle car. She flashed a pair of devil horns. I moved to the front of the truck.

The music abruptly stopped before the song finished.

Invulnerability is about to time out, and the next wave comes.

Above, the rockets corkscrewed down toward the distant unicorn team. A new shield appeared about them, this one glowing purple.

Bang! Bang! Bang! Three of the four rockets slammed into the bush, which immediately veered off to the side and started spinning in panicked circles.

The Denial of Service missiles weren’t meant to kill the vehicles directly. Each impact caused a chemical reaction that triggered a thick, mucus membrane to form over a wide area. In this case, the three missiles utterly covered the round shield with a thick goo, making it so they couldn’t see. They were now encased in the green slime. They could turn off the shield, but the sludge would just fall upon them and get stuck in the vines, which Mordecai insisted would slow them to a crawl.

Invulnerability has timed out.

“Casting Shield!” Donut shouted.

Donut: IT SAYS THE SHIELD DOESN’T COVER THE TWO GHOULS OUTSIDE THE TRUCK!

Carl: Okay. We thought that might happen. Stick to the plan.

“Oh, fuck!” Gluteus shouted. “Would you look at that!”

Up ahead, two literal waves of skulls appeared out of nowhere, coming from both sides of the road, zooming toward the track like twin tsunamis. Each wave was about twenty feet tall. In a few seconds, we were going to be buried in the sugar hermits. The wave on the right side was much closer and would reach us first. I quickly returned to the back of the truck.

“Ghouls, get ready!” I yelled. “You,” I shouted, pointing to the ghoul dangling off on the driver’s side. I pointed upward.

I yanked the chain, raising him up in the air. The ghoul would have to open the cage all the way and climb to the roof of the truck. There he’d move forward to deal with the enemies coming from the front. But it would take him a few moments to get in place.

I returned to the back door as the other ghoul started hurling his potion balls at the approaching waves of colorful skulls.

This was a potion similar to the Denial of Service missiles, but much thicker. These were called Biscuit Packs. Each potion ball caused a round-ish foam-filled explosion about three meters in diameter that hardened in seconds. It was the same basic principle as the polyurethane expanding foam they used in construction and boat repair, but this stuff hardened instantly and had the consistency of rock once toughened.

The ghoul hurled the potion balls one after another at the rapidly approaching wave.

Each explosion made a loud pop as it hit the ground or one of the skulls, and the results were instantaneous. It’d explode and poof out, popcorn-like, snagging dozens of them at a time while also creating a barrier. The ball would then either veer off the road or start to roll alongside us. The screams from the sugar hermits went up in pitch, even louder than the engine, as the little tentacles reached out from the giant foam balls.

We hadn’t known what sort of mobs we’d be facing. This was the best solution we could come up with that would be effective with the widest possibility of enemies. It wasn’t perfect and plenty were getting through and around the foam balls, but it was keeping us from getting overwhelmed. For now.

We passed team Sparkles, who were all the way on the other side of the wide road. The slime-covered vine floundered.

We didn’t have time to celebrate.

“Hold on!” Gluteus shouted as the skulls flooded the streets ahead of us. They were hitting the asphalt and immediately turning toward the finish line, leaving an increasingly narrow path ahead. The ghouls were doing an admirable job, but we were quickly losing ground.

Donut leaned forward and cast her level 15 Wall of Fire, which had been powered up to level 16.

On the passenger’s side of the truck, a line of flames materialized. A wave of heat radiated over us.

“Whoa, shit!” I shouted as the wall appeared, running parallel with the side of the truck. There was a good thirty feet between us and the flames, but it still felt like we were way too close. I gawked as the wall rapidly raced ahead, reaching far into the distance. The flames went straight up, easily a hundred feet into the air. The line had to be a mile long.

“Heavy fucking metal!” Gluteus screamed.