I had to slow and ease over, allowing the spider legs to grab purchase along the wall of the next room.
“Turning sideways! Brace!” I called as I tightened my seat belt. “We’ll be sideways for a minute. Then we’ll be completely upside down! Donut, be careful!”
We entered the next room, scrambling on the wall. This wall was flat, but I knew once we got to the ceiling, we’d only be able to travel along the designated track.
Everyone cried out and yowled as it all turned sideways. Donut clattered heavily as she fell over, crashing into Grigori, who suddenly found himself on his side in the crowded back of the truck. Dong, Corky, and Porky were all jumbled, guts and blood sloshing everywhere as spells desperately tried to keep them all together.
I didn’t want to turn the truck again, so I moved laterally up the wall, keeping the passenger’s side of the truck facing down.
“Be careful of the window!” I yelled. “We’ll be at the ceiling in a second, and we’ll be fully upside down!”
As everyone scrambled to find footing, now standing on the overturned counter, waiting for us to turn completely upside down, I finally took a look about the giant room.
“Holy fucking shit,” I muttered, taking in the chaotic scene just as we fully inverted, the spider legs carefully shuffling to the side and lowering so our wheels attached to the track.
The room just went on and on and on.
There were multiple paths on the walls and ceiling that we had to use. The rest of the ceiling and walls were crisscrossed with spikes and bumps, all for the purpose of not allowing us to drive upon them.
The channels were wide, flat conduits, not unlike the tracks I once used for my Hot Wheels cars as a kid. The tracks were not straight, crossing over each other, moving back and forth as they followed the ceiling and the wall. Most were on the ceiling, and this was where most of the vehicles, far ahead of us, were racing, but both sides had a pair of tracks on each wall.
I tentatively hit the accelerator. The Roller Limbo upgrade held true, and we stuck firmly to the ceiling. We didn’t have time to waste.
Below us, the river of molten metal just went on and on.
Far ahead, I spied Prepotente’s Sweety turned sideward, making her way along the wall track. Sweety moved as if going sideways was no big deal at all, and the square litter that held Prepotente and Jurgen had rotated on its own, keeping them both vertical. The tapir’s feet flamed, leaving a trail on the wall.
Despite this, it was clear they were not moving as fast as normal. I could now see several of the vehicles dotting the ceiling were moving much more slowly than usual, all of us with different types of upgrades to facilitate this part of the track.
And then I saw the monsters deeper in the room. These were large, gorilla-like beasts made of molten metal, jumping from the river below, landing on the walls and ceilings, facing down the racers. They hurled globs of metal at the passing vehicles.
Oh shit,I thought. If these were like the action figures, would they be able to get through the shield?
I hit the accelerator. Behind me, Grigori was yelling instructions to Dong and Donut. They were all now standing on the ceiling of the truck.
“Dong,” Grigori called, “I will remove the plastic wrapping and press the head together, and then you will wrap the whole thing! Quickly now!”
“What is that flapping around?” Donut called, her voice a shriek. “That looks like something that shouldn’t be flapping around! And my goodness, Grigori, make sure their lips line up! He’s going to end up looking like Mick Jagger!”
Ahead, I watched as Jurgen screamed and hurled one of his battle-axes toward a gorilla monster blocking their path. The axe went right into the metal and disappeared, not to return. But the beast fell off the wall and plummeted into the roiling metal. Jurgen held out his hand, trying to get his axe to return. It did not.
The ferret mount that had passed earlier was on the same track as us, just ahead, attached to the ceiling, weaving back and forth as it made its way across the inverted track. It was only moving at half the speed it had been going before. We would pass it soon.
One of the molten metal beasts dangling upside down from the ceiling spied us and started galloping in our direction. I hit the accelerator even harder, determined to outpace it. I examined it.
Slag Elemental.
Level 75 Neighborhood Boss.
Warning: This is an infused elemental.
Warning: This is a regenerator. This boss will regenerate if its corpse falls into the molten metal below.
The Coblyn Corporation, in their efforts to protect their burgeoning child drug empire from getting discovered and shut down, tried to put some protections in place.
They, however, tried to do it on the cheap, as new corporations often tend to do, and they got what they paid for.
So what we have now is wildly contagious, regenerating, infused, and very pissed-off elementals all over the place.