Carl: How do hippies smell?
Donut: THEY SMELL LIKE ANGEL’S OWNER. THEY SMELL LIKE PATCHOULI MIXED WITH FARMERS MARKETS MIXED WITH SO-CALLED NATURAL BODY DEODORANT THAT JUST GAVE UP TEN MINUTES INTO THE JOB. THESE GUYS SMELL LIKE SAD, WET DOGS.
Carl: Yeah, but they never said they’re hippies.
Donut: THEY’RE WEARING TIE-DYE. THEY’RE CALLED TEAM FREE LOVE. IT’S FALSE ADVERTISING. YOU KNOW HOW I FEEL ABOUT FALSE ADVERTISING, CARL. I’LL BE NICE TO THEM FOR NOW, BUT I’M TELLING YOU, THERE’S SOMETHING SUSPICIOUS GOING ON.
“Is good to meet you both,” Radoslav said. “But now is a bad time for us.” He offered a cigarette to Donut.
“No, thank you,” she said.
“Thank you for stopping, friends,” Jasha finally said, looking between me and Donut. “There is nothing you can do for us. We can’t pass the finish line unless we’re in our van. You better get moving. You can’t come in last place anymore, but you can come in second to last. And there is a time limit.”
I turned to examine their van. My bucket was there on the ground, having finally run out of water.
“You’re one of them, no?” Radoslav asked. “A person from this world?”
It was my turn to pause.
“Yes,” I finally said. “We are. We’re crawlers, and everyone else in the current heat are NPCs.”
Neither said anything for several moments. They just smoked as they looked at their crashed van with their dead friend inside.
Jasha flicked some ashes. “She was so excited about all this. Thought we was going to win whole thing. Get this great prize.”
“Wait,” Donut asked. “What’s the prize?”
The two bugbears looked at each other and then at Donut.
Jasha let out a small sad laugh. “Don’t you know? If we win, we are given freedom. We are taken from here and moved to some other place where we don’t have to fight anymore. Maybe you get offered a different prize since you’re ‘crawlers.’?”
I immediately thought of Rory and Lorelai, the goblin shamankas from the very first floor. I remembered the forlorn quality to Rory’s voice when she talked about moving from the first to the second floor. And here we were on the tenth, and these guys were no different.
Donut swished her tail. “How do you know all this?”
“Because this is what they told us,” Jasha said. “We are all volunteers. Sort of volunteers. Last I remember, we were in the slime mines defending the air pocket, and we killed a guy like yourselves. He was a bune. A crawler. But before he died, he said he just wanted to go home. So Radoslav asked him where this home was, and the bune told us that this was all a game. And the moment he said this, it was like there was a click, and I just knew. I just knew what he was saying was right.” He indicated the other bugbear. “Radoslav here used to be my brother. Then my enemy. But usually my cousin. We were in the slime mines. We were on the submarine. We were in the rope city. Every time, a different place. And we didn’t remember. We didn’t remember until we did.”
“And there were other times, too,” Radoslav added. “When we weren’t anywhere. We’re not supposed to remember the cold, either, but we do.” He shuddered.
Jasha nodded. “It all came at once, these memories. And once we realized this, there was a voice. And then we were in a big room, and the voice gave us a choice. We could go back into the cold, or we could race for our lives. And if we won, fair and square, we could be free. That there was a place. A real place for us to live and never go to the in-between ever again.”
“And if we don’t win,” Radoslav added, “this is okay, too, because it means it will be over. Finally.” He sighed. “But Alevtina really wanted to win. She wanted to start a family. Maybe with me.”
“Or maybe with me,” Jasha said. He made a sad laugh. “But probably with you.”
Jasha took another drag, letting the moment hang. “Today is a bad day.”
Christ,I thought. “Listen, guys. You’re not out of this yet. If you were, you would’ve been disintegrated or whatever like that other team was.”
“Their mount died,” Jasha said. “Rules are different for mounts. Look at our van. We’re not going anywhere.”
I was already sifting through my inventory. I had the materials to build a flatbed cart, but I’d have to do it manually. I couldn’t remember if there was a tow hitch attached to the back of the truck. I assumed there wouldn’t be.
“We’re going to tow you to the finish line,” I said.
The two bugbears looked at each other and then at us.
“Why would you do this?” Jasha finally asked.