It was sometime around midnight as we arrived to the industrial area west of the Mayor’s mansion. In my haste to save the Mascot from being eaten by whatever kind of Skinstealer Noah Sullivan had turned into, I hadn’t yet checked out the last two items we’d looted from the Regional Director.

  Around us were warehouses in various states of repair, as well as the remains of dead construction worker zombies. Normally, corpses didn’t stay around for long, as someone always came along to devour them, but it seemed this area was less populated by such scavengers. At least for now. The Humanbus and Man-Eater Metro also seemed to avoid the area. I wondered if it was because the Mayor was here or due to some other territorial World Boss.

  I rolled up the side of a lumber yard’s main building on my board, watching the abandoned trucks nearby for any sign of movement. As I landed atop the building after my gravity defying trick, I dismissed the longboard.

  Bee alighted next to me, bringing Panda with her.

  “Which way from here?” she asked.

  I pulled out the Soul Compass. It was indicating north, but the pointer was moving a lot.

  Panda looked down at it from atop Bee’s shoulder. “He must be close.”

  To the north of us lay the depot of some delivery company which had turned into a dungeon, a salvage yard full of cars, and a large truck stop with a gas station and grill. It seemed that one of these three places was our next destination.

  “Current Condition,” I said and a pop-up appeared.

  “How long will it take for me to heal to full?” I asked Panda. It seemed that I’d lost a lot more health from the Fiendblood Sickness than I realized, if, after all this time, I still hadn’t returned to full through natural recovery.

  “You’re at about 91.293% health right now, so it should only be 2 more hours.”

  “I can’t wait that long.”

  “You could always use your Undermine ability,” he suggested. “It’s no longer on cooldown.”

  “Good point. I can use it on one of the people tagging along with Noah.”

  “I thought you were against Gambit killing other Players,” Bee remarked.

  “At this point, what does it matter?” the plushie replied ambivalently. “They’re going to die either way, so might as well give some meaning to their deaths.”

  “Let’s check the Tarantula Wig and Observer’s Eyeball,” I decided. “Then we’re going to kill the Mayor.”

  Bee brought out the Eyeball first and I inspected it. It was made of pitted dark-grey stone, but emanated a faint tingle when I held it in my hands.

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  “It’s basically like my Rootkit,” I replied. It was still locked onto Bee, along with the Manhunter Badge.

  “You should keep it,” I told her.

  “Okay,” she replied, before clearly marking me with it. After shaking it, half of the orb turned into a projection of the world as seen through my eyes, but distorted with a fisheye lens.

  “That’s weird,” I muttered, looking at it only to see my own viewpoint but smaller. The effect was recursive until the depiction became so tiny that it was impossible to distinguish.

  After stowing away the Eyeball, Bee brought out a toupée made from the bristly black hairs of the Regional Director.

  “He only dropped one of these, so only one of us can unlock its power,” she said.

  “Didn’t even realize the Director was balding,” Panda muttered.

  “Meow.”

  “What’d he say?”

  “It’s genuinely too horrific to translate,” I replied.

  I was fairly confident that I wouldn’t gain anything amazing from it and I still felt that Bee could use some extra firepower, which it’d hopefully grant her, given that it came from a level 40 boss.

  “You should use it,” I told her.

  “Are you sure?”

  “Definitely. Besides, it’s probably some magic bullshit that I wouldn’t be able to use.”

  Bee put the toupée on her head and immediately shared the results.

  “Depending on what qualifies as a non-intelligent moth, the first option could be quite useful,” Panda remarked. “It also could work with Moth Malady that calls moths to your location.”

  “You have to pick ‘Killing Thread’,” I pleaded.

  Bee grinned, then swung her right hand in a pinching gesture. Immediately, a truck nearby was cleaved in half.

  “Holy shit!” I exclaimed.

  “Me-ow...”

  “Lordie thinks you’re scary. But don’t take it personal, he’s just afraid of spiders.”

  “It feels really good, but I need to get more Mana. Even with the 25% from Moth Mania, I’m only able to sustain this thread for 19 seconds.”

  She shared her Status screen with me, just to emphasize:

  “I think you should put more points into Defense and Vitality,” Panda advised.

  “She won’t need to if she can just kill anything before it’s able to harm her,” I said. “Alright, with that out of the way, let’s go find Noah before he eats our new friend.”

  “New friend?” Bee asked.

  “He’s talking about the Otter Mascot. For some reason he’s obsessed about befriending a mascot character…”

  “Let’s go!” I exclaimed eagerly, hopping down off the roof.

  I landed firmly on the squishy soles of my Schmonic Boots, cratering the compacted earth thanks to my quintupled body weight. My Skater Boy ability was back on cooldown, but it wasn’t far to wherever the Mayor was hiding.