How many NPCs had we killed at this point? What were two more?
That was the logic, but it wasn’t reality. They were our friends, and I felt like an utter piece of shit. That was the point, of course. But it still hurt.
At least it’s not another crawler,I thought.
“Come on,” I said. “Let’s go help Prepotente.”
[ 77 ]
We had aboutten minutes before the race would time out. I knew from the chatter that there were multiple teams still stuck on the higher floors. There was nothing we could do about that.
We left Marjory and Alicia still on the couch, still chatting. Gravy Boat never woke up.
I did notice something odd on the way out, however. A minor mystery. There was a small bag of the expensive Royal Canin cat food on the counter. This was the specific dry cat food we’d get for Donut, and it had to be special-ordered. The little pebbles of food were shaped in a way to allow flat-faced cats to crunch on them more easily. I remembered that ripped bag of charity cat food I had in my inventory. Whatever fucked-up timeline this was, it had resulted in Marjory having a bag of Donut’s food.
If Donut had noticed, she didn’t say anything. We rode in silence, with us just giving directions to Pontiff.
“We never did get to play music with them,” Donut finally said as we moved to the hallway.
“No,” I agreed. And then I added, “Speaking of music, we might have to pop Miriam’s head. That’ll cause the bugs to leak. That’ll slap him out of it. He’ll be pissed, but he’ll have to get over it.”
“We need to be nice to him. He’s been having a hard time lately,” Donut said.
Donut castHoleon the front door in the hallway, and we dropped, landing right in front of apartment 130. We cast aHolein the door and drove inside.
I heard and recognized the music the moment we entered. I didn’t know the name of the piece, but it was from Beethoven. It was a familiar melody.
The gate was right there in the hallway. We passed through it.
Gate Seven of Seven cleared. You may now proceed to the exit.
Sweety the tapir stood stopped at the end of the hallway. We slowly pulled up next to them.
Containment Warning!
“Shit,” Pontiff said, backing up.
Jurgen stood upon the back of the animal, shouting with his hands cupped in front of his face.
Carl: Where is he?
Jurgen: He’s sitting on the floor, his head leaned up against the leg of the piano. He told me he was going to kill me if I drove Sweety in there or interrupted her song. We’ve cleared the rings, but we only have ten minutes left. It says we’re still in first place, but I don’t know how long that will last.
I sighed. The smart thing to do would have been to drive in there and have Donut blast a hole in Miriam’s head, which would have forced Prepotente to react.
That would have been the smart thing.
I pulled a full cup of the splooge from my inventory, swallowed, and drank it down. I gagged.
“Oh god,” I gasped.
The potion tasted worse than I had been expecting.
You’ve been Splooged! You are protected from environmental hazards. You took a good ol’ gulp, too. You’re protected for an hour! Awfully bold of you when there’s only nine minutes left before this race times out.
“I’ll be right back,” I said. I jumped and pulled myself out of the truck through the ceiling, hopped off the hood, and jogged into the living room, using my speed ability to race to the piano. I spotted Prepotente sitting there crossed-legged on the wooden floor.
I gasped the moment I left the protection of the truck. There was a brief moment where I couldn’t breathe, and my eyes burned, but then the feeling sort of settled in my chest. The wordSploogestarted blinking in my interface with a countdown timer.