<Entry from Carl’s Book of Boom.>

Mehmet Or. Crawler #3,756,330.

Race: Human.

Class: Sipahi.

Final Level: 62.

Hello, Carl. My name is Mehmet, and we never met, but I still knew who you were even before you helped save my life at the end of the eighth floor.

I am a nobody. I used to own one of the most popular bowling alleys in Istanbul. I inherited it from my father, who had always dreamed that I would take over his business. It wasn’t a job that I loved, and it wasn’t something that made me a lot of money, but I stayed with it because that’s what we’re supposed to do. We honor the wishes of our parents. My mother was still alive that day when it happened. My wife was alive and pregnant with our third child, who would’ve been my first son. I killed her when she was in the hydra.

Please, I beg of you. Forgive my cowardice in taking a deal. I cannot risk fighting any further. I cannot risk dying. I do not know if this is the best choice, but I am so scared, so tired. I have too much to lose if I make the wrong decision.

My daughters, Azra and Yaz, were not in the hydra. They were with me outside when it happened, but they did not come with me when we stepped into the light. I believe this means they may still be alive in that place where they’re keeping the children. This knowledge is the only thing that has kept me going, and I pray that after you kill them all, you help me find them.

And if by some chance you can’t save those of us who took the deals, please find my Azra and Yaz and tell them that their father fought to save them and that he’s sorry he’s not there anymore, but that he will love them until the very end of time.

I was never the best fighter in my group, but our mage loved this spell because it helped focus the area of effect of his own spells. I hope it’s as useful to you as it was to our party.

Drawing: An amateur picture of a bowling alley

Associated Spell: Gutter Bumper. Casts at level 9.

“Your other left!” Donut cried as a clockwork Olga jerked the steering wheel. The truck crunched loudly and sparks flew as the side hit the edge of the tube, but we made it onto the correct path. If we hadn’t had the gyro upgrade, we’d have already flipped over a dozen times by now.

“Straighten!” Donut shouted, her voice going up an octave. “Straight! Straight!”

The original Olga had already timed out and spilled goo everywhere. The second clockwork sat on the floor of the truck behind me, groaning, back against the pile of weapons and chains, yanking on its own tongue as wet gore sloshed everywhere.

So far, the tubes were pretty much what I had expected, though way less steep than I had feared. The first part was a literal tube, but the second half was more of a wide half-pipe at a slight angle, more like the entrance to a sewer system. These half tubes were how we knew we were on the correct path, as all the enclosed tubes led straight to Satan.

The water was about half the height of the tires, and I worried about the engine, but we’d had Hedy put some protections in place, including a raised air intake. So far it hadn’t been an issue, and we hadn’t even had to inflate the tires.

I dropped a sticky hob-lobber out the window, and I kept my head out the passenger’s side as the group of axe-wielding gingers on inner tubes approached from behind. I counted and then hit the detonator as they passed.

Bam!

A red gurgle of liquid coiled up and over the edge as body parts swirled and sloshed.

“Blood ‘ell,” Satan commented from his spot at the far end of the park. The mountain-sized hedgehog yawned and then rolled onto his back. All the tubes attached to various parts of his body twisted with the giant animal’s movements. The fixed amusements on the ground, however, weren’t as flexible, and a distant roller coaster filled with riders broke apart and fell. Panicked screams filled the park.

“No refunds,” Satan grumbled.

“Carl,” Donut shouted, looking down at the distant destruction, “wasn’t that the path Florin was on? That idiot creature is ruining everything!”

The bottom section of the water park was part carnival with a few amusement rides and booths, all filled with “customers.” The customers were a mix of the gingers, who all carried axes and chainsaws, and level 40 splatter penguins, who were all water mages. A few demon-like pixies also flitted about.

From the edge of the half-pipe, a group of zipper shrews screamed as they rushed along the lip of the tube, keeping pace. They occasionally jumped toward the truck, only to get zapped by the shield. The little level 10 rodents were everywhere, infesting the park. They were like regular tiny shrews but had drills for heads.

Despite our shields, everyone in the cab was absolutely soaked, including Donut, who wouldn’t shut up about it. A wet slurry of gore filled the floor of the truck, making everything slippery. This new clockwork version of Olga no longer leaked fluid, but a spring or cog occasionally popped out of the open skull with a boing.

Florin: We gotta backtrack! Gonna try the loop. Unicorn doing it, too. I have the Denial of Service missiles, and I’ll hit the unicorn just as they start the loop. If they’re not going fast enough, they’ll drop right out and will have to start again.

Carl: Still no sign of the Lady Dominators?

Florin: Nope. Sorry, mate. I can see what place we’re in overall, so I know they’re behind us but ahead of you. Probably still in the basement.

Florin’s GPS gave detailed information on everyone in the race, but even the upgraded version only gave rudimentary info on the other three heats.

We still had a few minutes before we hit the ground level of the park. Dozens of the gingers and penguins kept attacking us from all angles, along with a constant rain of the zipper shrews, but our shield was more than enough to keep them off. We were mostly just ignoring and occasionally running over them, as we slipped and slided down the path, keeping steady thanks to our gyro.

While we had no idea for certain where the Lady Dominators were, we knew that Florin and team Sparkles had been harassing each other all the way down the track. Lucia Prime’s psycho personality had wandered back into the body, and she was the one driving. Florin was doing his best to keep her from actually killing the unicorn and the rodent.

The only surviving team from our own heat behind us was team Free Love.

We’d been going down this steep road for some time now, getting attacked left and right, but I could see the slide ended in a bunch of brambles. The clockworks were going to time out in a minute, and I pulled the large camel corpse out. This was the Bactrian who’d broken his neck against the ceiling of One Fine Pig’s garage. His name was Joel.

“Donut!” I called.

She cast Second Chance on the camel just as we crashed through the brambles.

“Brake! Brake!” Donut called as we jumped over a barrier and slid through the ground-level walkway, knocking over the sign that gave directions to the various attractions. To our left, the toddler splash pad loomed, and a mix of small gingers and pixie demons played as spikes randomly popped up in the air. One such pipe hit a pixie, and the literal words “SPLASH” appeared in neon over the dead creature. The others all shouted with glee and jumped upon the body as the spike retracted.

“You!” Donut said to the large camel. “Stay there and watch her drive until she times out, and then take over.”

The camel’s neck was broken and his head hung down at a sharp angle. A line of black drool speckled with green dangled from his mouth, but he groaned in compliance. The second clockwork Olga moved farther back to give him a better view. That one had accidentally pulled her own tongue out, and it sparked where it had disengaged from her body.

“Activate the spider legs!” Donut called, pointing at the lever. “Olga! No, not there. Yes, yes, that. Pull it, and then turn the steering wheel all the way to the right!”

The clockwork zombie toad pulled the correct lever, and we all rose up in height as the legs took over. We skittered awkwardly to the right as the blind zombie jerked the steering wheel, skittering us toward the large concrete wall.

“Quit your bellyaching!” Satan rumbled. He was talking to someone else. The very ground shook. He let out a satisfied squeak. “Oh yes, yes. This water is so refreshing, so clean, so pure. Right into my delicate bum.”

“I told you they were all perverts!” Donut yelled.

This next part of the track was a trick, but it was one that Prepotente had already figured out even though he’d only had clues from the first half before the pit stop. Florin, Osvaldo, and all the others had already gone through this area. Florin had deliberately allowed the trick to activate, which delayed everyone passing through by about an hour.

We were going to skip this part completely.

The trap was that as soon as one passed through this central area where one had to choose a path for the final approach to the exit, the ground would drop out, dropping everyone into the waterworks and pipes under the park, where all the racers had to make a long, twisting circuit in the dark, fighting off Sheol demons and baby versions of the hedgehog, culminating in a Garden Gnome Sprinkler borough boss. Once the teams made it through this part, they would pop back up on the path they had been on before.

Team Sparkles had one-shot and shattered the boss with one of their guns. They hadn’t even paused.

Our plan was to sidestep all of this, which would save us a good hour, helping us catch up. But we still wouldn’t be in the lead. We needed Florin to slow the unicorn down.

“Everyone, hold on!” I called as we hit the wall, then skittered up it. Just-replaced pots and pans spilled from the cabinets as we turned at a 90-degree angle, moving up the wall at the edge of the park. Thankfully, the system wouldn’t let us climb up and over. Donut shrieked at the clockwork Olga to steer as we rushed along the wall, moving toward the entrance to the lazy river. We just had to get past the entrance arch.

The driver’s-side door to the truck suddenly opened, and the clockwork Olga dropped away, leaving the driver’s seat empty.

“I told you to put your seat belt on!” Donut cried as the toad hit the road, causing the trapdoor to yawn open. The automaton disappeared into the darkness.