“I do not see why both of you must sit upon me at the same time,” Dorota complained. “You are exceeding my recommended weight capacity!”

Donut sat on my shoulder, but I was the one in the seat.

“My breathtaking princess, you should sit here,” Dorota whined. “Just you and you alone. Without you, I have no purpose. No reason to even exist. When you add the nude human, I am unable to function.”

“I am not naked,” I said.

“You are in your underwear. I worry you might get pink eye, my princess.”

“Does that thing have a mute button?” Finley asked from behind us. “It’s more annoying than the shark.”

“Dorota, do please stop complaining,” Donut said. “Nobody likes it when someone complains too much.” She turned to Olga, who was in the driver’s seat. “Anyway, can you believe that stupid gauge thing at the bar? It was clearly broken. It didn’t even move!”

I’d tried to stop her, but Donut insisted on attempting to gain entrance to the guild. She’d picked a Journey song, and she had not engaged her Auto-Tune. It had gone as one might have expected.

“I thought you did a fine job,” Finley said. “It was a great song. Don’t you think, Que?”

The fire fairy, who was hovering in the back of the truck, let out a noncommittal squeak.

“Thank you, Finley,” Donut sniffed.

I gave the fire fairy an uneasy look. She was acting strangely depressed. She’d stopped talking about us killing Hellik. I suspected this had to do with the conversation in the shop. All NPCs acted differently when they first came into contact with a fully awakened NPC like Akuma. She kept raising her finger, like she was about to say something regarding it, and then she changed her mind.

We had about ten minutes before the start of the race. Team Free Love pulled up next to us. Their van no longer had tires, and it now floated just off the ground, like a speeder from Star Wars.

The large, fog-covered jungle loomed. A wide dirt track sat in front of us. The track branched just before the tree line.

We hadn’t yet spied who the new team was. Nor did we yet see any sign of the other heats that would supposedly get combined with ours.

Three new lights appeared on our dash, each indicating our three newest upgrades. The gyro that would keep us from flipping. The Bubble Buddy knockoff edition that we could upgrade to the golden edition with another regular upgrade. This was a shield that we could electrify. After we upgraded it again, we’d be able to float with it. And finally, there were re-sizable all-terrain tires.

The loudspeaker crackled. Zev’s harried voice echoed. Her neutral tone filled me with dread.

Hello, racers.

For this race, you will have the survival containment activated. The containment system creates a rule change, so please listen carefully.

The survival containment is a translucent, indestructible circular bubble that surrounds your vehicle or mount. You will see it as soon as this message is over. It will not interfere with any existing shields or any other systems of your vehicle or mount. Spells and projectiles will pass through. Its only purpose is to protect you and your mount from the toxic, unbreathable air of your next heat.

Different tracks have different air hazards, but in all races, if this containment is removed, you will likely perish quickly if you don’t prepare countermeasures. All races this heat will have a required pit stop where one must stop for at least two hours. You will have access to your garage for repairs during pit stops. There will also be vendors who will be, uh, selling countermeasures in case you lose your containment.

Like I said, your containment bubble is indestructible. At least for this heat. However, there is a way for you to lose it. This is the rule-change part, so please pay attention. If your vehicle is destroyed or your mount is killed, you no longer automatically lose. You will, however, lose your containment. If you can survive this and you manage to cross the finish line before another team, you can still survive. How that might possibly happen, I don’t know, but it’s the new rule.

The team that comes in last place will still lose. You still cannot pass the finish line outside your conveyance if your conveyance is still intact or if you are missing any team members.

If this happens, however, you will not get your old vehicle or mount back.

Also, from now on, the team that wins is given a key. That key will open a single garage of a defeated team. Within, you may find additional supplies to upgrade your vehicle or mount along with other items possibly. And in some cases, you may find an entire vehicle or mount. If you do find a second vehicle or mount, you can add it to and expand your garage, and you may choose which to use for the next race. And yes, you may switch vehicles during pit stops.

And finally, this race you will see other heats racing alongside you on the same track. For this particular heat, containment stealing isn’t active. Take what you will from that statement.

Okay, everyone, good luck. The race starts in ten minutes. Your GPS or saddle units will have your maps now. See you at the finish line.

The whole vehicle buzzed, and a bubble appeared around us, barely visible except when it occasionally caught the light, like a real bubble. It spread about a meter in every direction outside the truck.

“Carl, did you understand all of that?” Donut asked.

“Yeah. We’ll need to stock up on more of those breathing potions Mordecai made.”

We had the back door open to keep an eye on all the approaching teams. I turned in my seat, craning my neck to see all the teams as they approached.

The tumbleweed of team Sparkles pulled up, sporting a pair of massive metallic exhaust ports that were new. Lucienne was driving this time. The little bug-eyed rodent creature was shouting something, but it wasn’t directed at us. I wasn’t sure it was directed at anyone.

The Lady Dominators pulled up next. I couldn’t tell what sort of upgrade they’d picked, but as usual, Corky remained passed out in the back.

Next up came One Fine Pig’s large APV, parking on the far-left edge of the track.

“Now that’s just offensive,” Donut muttered as I laughed.

These guys had come in last place, and it was clear how the audience vote had gone. The truck’s military desert tan painting had been replaced with a vehicle wrap. It featured an anime-style pair of Tigrans each kissing the backside of a fat pig, all covered with little heart symbols everywhere.

I laughed, but my humor went away upon seeing who our newest opponent was. I groaned. My heart sank. “Goddamnit.”

It was a pair of crawlers on a mount. They also had a dwarf mercenary with a crossbow behind them in a little basket. The mount was a heavily armored six-legged thing that looked like a wildebeest mixed with a triceratops. Little sparks flew with each step. It also wore a giant double saddle that was covered with spikes that glowed with enchantment.

Bruna the Slaughter Gnu.

This is the biological mount of Team Flamengo for the purpose of the 10th floor. As such, it is protected from most spells that would normally affect mounts.

Slaughter Gnus are six-legged beasts of burden that historically were used as war mounts by a race of creatures called Scads, or the Rascals by some. Scads are like orc-goblin things and are pretty rare nowadays, though that’s because after they stopped killing each other on battlefields, they upgraded to killing each other with nuclear holocaust before their postapocalyptic world got absorbed into the Syndicate.

ANYWAY, Slaughter Gnus are remarkably hardy, deceptively quick dumbasses. They have the ability to scale vertical surfaces with the alacrity of a horny mountain goat. Their hide is especially tough, making them perfect mounts for this floor.

And sitting on the back of the mount was Osvaldo. The small red-haired crawler was now level 72. He glared at us angrily as he approached the starting block. His race was something called a Curupira. He still looked mostly human, though I was pretty sure that red was not his natural hair color, and I wasn’t certain if his small frame was how large he’d been as a human, as he was barely five feet tall. There was something weird going on with his feet, too, but they were hidden by his large boots.

He was not driving Bruna. Another crawler, a level 63 human Strongman named Filipe L was holding the reins. I’d seen this guy quite a few times but had never spoken with or really examined him. This one was about my height and was all muscle. He looked huge next to Osvaldo.

I took a breath. This was not good. We had plans we were working on to hopefully save as many people as we could, but we were going to run out of time. It was going to be us or them.

Even though Osvaldo had been on and off the top charts, I’d only had limited dealings with him. He was a prick, but I only talked to him when terrible stuff was happening. I knew he was from Brazil, and I knew his now-devastated team had all focused early on only putting points into a single stat. For Osvaldo, it had been dexterity. For this Filipe guy, it was clearly strength.

That had served them well early on, but in recent floors, their entire team had been whittled down. They’d chosen to hide and not fight during Faction Wars, a fact that did not sit well with Donut. Or Elle. Especially not Elle.

Not that it had helped them. By the end, everyone had to fight whether they liked it or not.

Osvaldo had once had a pet stone hawk named Gimli. The bird had died at the end of the Butcher’s Masquerade, killed by Prepotente or, more likely, Bianca when they all started fighting over who got to loot the corpse of Queen Imogen.

The item Osvaldo had looted was the memorial crystal of Apito, whose existence was a big mystery because, supposedly, Apito wasn’t dead. That same memorial crystal was now in Prepotente’s hands. I didn’t know the details, but he’d been able to steal the artifact from Osvaldo during the chaos at the end of Faction Wars.

It seemed all three of us—Me, Prepotente, and Osvaldo—had quests related to the crystal.

Also, Osvaldo worshipped a god or goddess named Tupa. I’d never heard of that one. Filipe also worshipped the same one.

The realization that these guys did worship a deity was devastating. That meant they wouldn’t be able to go to the Pineapple Cabaret if we ever found a way to open the door. Which also meant we were now stuck with them.

I sighed. There has to be a way. There has to be.

Carl: Osvaldo, you’re in the same heat as us. Don’t do anything too rash. We have plans in motion to get as many people out as possible. Don’t kill any of the other racers. If you kill the pig in the APV, you’ll summon Taranis. If you kill the lady mantaurs, we’re all fucked. The bugbears in the van are our friends. The unicorn in that bush thing has really powerful weapons, and they’re the biggest threat. So be careful. We’re gonna try to take them out this race.

Osvaldo: Fuck off, Carl. I’m not talking to you. I won’t attack you during the race unless it’s you or us, but I don’t give a shit about any of the other teams.

Donut: YOU ARE ONLY ALIVE BECAUSE OF ME AND CARL, YOU STRAIGHT-TO-VIDEO, LOW-BUDGET LEPRECHAUN. YOU BETTER LISTEN OR ELSE.

“Goddamnit, Donut. Don’t antagonize him,” I said. “He’s not an enemy.”

“He’s not going to help us, Carl. He knows it’s us or him.”

Donut made a small, inconsequential shrug.

“It’ll be easier if we stay not liking each other,” she added, turning to look out the window so I couldn’t see her face. “It’s best not to dwell on it. We have a race to win. Let’s figure this map out before we start.”

Oh, Donut, I thought, doing my best to stave off the sudden wave of dismay. No.