We found the Loot Arcade just a few blocks past the Greasefall. It was flanked by a pair of Burger Baron restaurants, and the flickering sign above the entrance read The Play Palace.

  Through the cloudy windows, I could just make out what lay beyond.

  A kaleidoscope of colorful slides curled up into the ceiling, connecting to a dizzying array of overhead plastic tunnels like giant intestinal tubes. A tangle of ropes sagged from the rafters, strung with faded plastic flags. Rows of flickering cabinets stretched off into the distance, their screens casting bright, gaudy colors across the gloom. Distorted arcade jingles warbled through the air, cheerful and comforting in the same way as a clown at midnight in a dark alleyway.

  “We sure we want to do this?” I asked, still eyeing the arcade through the glass. “It’s not too late to turn back. We could always call it a day and come back tomorrow. Make a pit stop at the store to gear up first?”

  “We didn’t come this far to stop now,” Temperance said, shoving past me then pulling open the glass door. A goofy, prerecorded laugh cackled through an unseen PA system.

  As we followed her in, a grinding click-whir filled the air as an animatronic creature lurched to life, lumbering toward us with rigid, inelegant strides. I almost blasted the damned thing on the spot, but held my spell when it became apparent that the robotic greeter wasn’t actually a Dweller at all.

  It was still creepy as fuck, though.

  Naturally, the robot was none other than the Burger Baron mascot—a grinning clown with tufts of matted red hair sticking out at jagged angles, thick white greasepaint caked across rubbery features, and a bulbous red ball on the end of his nose. The clown’s jaw clattered open and closed as a warped speaker squealed to life.

  “We-e-e-el-come… f-f-f-friends… to the Burger Baron’s Play Palace! So m-m-much fun… you’ll never leaveeeeeee!”

  The last word stretched too long, the clown’s canned voice faltering before snapping off with a harsh, static pop. The animatron froze mid-grin, its glassy eyes staring straight through us.

  “Well, I hate absolutely everything about this,” Harper muttered, eyeing the clown with clear unease. She extended her staff and poked the contraption in the chest as though testing to see whether it was fake or not. The robot toppled over, lying motionless on the carpeted floor.

  “Still not as bad as the Jungle Gym Jamboree,” Temperance said with a dismissive sniff. “But,” she added, “I’ll admit it’s a close contender.”

  In a lot of ways, the place did remind me of the colossal Loot Arcade up on the 7th floor, though it was far grimier.

  Everything reeked of mildew, grease, and old socks, while the carpets were disgustingly sticky and patterned with faded confetti swirls. In between bursts of neon color were pictures of the Burger Baron, grinning up at us with yellowing teeth. I glanced up at the tube labyrinth, which was coated in dust from years of disuse. Little portholes stared at us like watching eyes and I could hear the skitter and thump of things moving around above.

  “I don’t care what you say,” Croc chirped happily, “this place has slides, and you know how I feel about slides. Do you think we can go on a few, Dan? Can we? Pleeeeease?” Croc’s tail wagged happily in anticipation. “If we go, I might even be able to overlook the mean things you said about Breaking Dawn…”

  “I don’t know,” I replied, rubbing at the back of my neck. “I’m not sure these are the kind of slides we want to ride.”

  Croc snorted. “That’s where you’re wrong, Dan. There’s never a slide I don’t want to ride. Even the bad ones with trip wires and razor blades can be fun with a little preparation.”

  “I don’t like making promises I can’t keep,” I replied, “but I’ll consider it. Let’s take a look around first, though, yeah? See what other attractions this place has to offer.”

  “Dan’s right,” Jakob said, surveying the vast sprawl. “If it is like the Jungle Gym Jamboree, then there’s bound to be places to redeem Loot Tokens. Probably even a few games that will let us earn experience as well.”

  “Good point,” I said, nodding in agreement. “And I don’t know about the rest of you, but I’ve got a shit ton of Loot Tokens I’ve been saving up. No point sitting on ’em now. We need every possible advantage going into our fight against the Franchisor.” I paused and idly scratched my beard. “I wonder if there’s a prize counter? If there is, I bet there’s a ton of great shit.”

  I used Conveyor Logistics to claim the faulty clown mascot, sending it back to the store for repurposing, before we made our way deeper into the twisting maze of games and distorted fun house attractions. Machines blared and lights flashed, advertising everything a little kid could ever want. Except none of these were normal arcade games, and the prizes they offered weren’t stuffed animals or cheap plastic toys.

  We passed by various racing games and virtual reality simulators, claw machines with mechanical arms dangling over piles of Relics—most junk, but a few that gleamed with dangerous promise. There were multiple rows of Gashapon machines, filled with plastic spatial orbs that contained healing items, minor artifacts, or the occasional rare trinket. A bank of temporary tattoo dispensers sat beside them, the paper sleeves behind the glass depicting everything from cartoon skulls to demonic runes.

  Though only temporary, those tattoos all came with a wide range of buffs that could last for weeks, though there was no telling what exactly you’d get.

  The prize generally corresponded to the type of Loot Token you used—an Elemental Loot Token might get you enhanced Fire Resistance, while a Medic! Token might earn a tattoo that granted a buff to Health Regen—but it all came down to the luck of the draw. More powerful Loot Tokens, Silvers or Golds, would earn you more powerful buffs, but it was still a crapshoot.

  That’s why I preferred the prize counter. Sure, it ultimately cost more to earn enough tickets to redeem the prizes, but the benefit was that you always knew exactly what you were getting.

  Still, I had more Tokens than I knew what to do with, so I decided to try my luck.

  I fed a Silver Scuba Token in first, followed in short order by a Silver Gambler Token, the Gold Chew Toy Token, the Gold EOD Loot Token, and finally the Gold Blight Killer Token. The Gashapon machine rattled, gears clanking as I turned the knob. Plastic orbs dropped through the metal flap, and I quickly collected my prizes before popping the lids on each of them in turn.

  The Silver Scuba earned me an Uncommon-grade rebreather called the Last Gasp that allowed the user to breathe under water for up to an hour. After using it, the rebreather had a ten-minute cooldown as it magically refilled with more oxygen. Good but not great, though I imagined something like that might come in handy down the road, especially if we ever stumbled across an actual water-themed floor.

  The Silver Gambler Token came with a cheap plastic ring, shaped like a green shamrock. Sure, it wasn’t much to look at, but it granted the wearer a 25% chance to gain upgraded items from all Loot Arcade vending machines. I slipped it on without a second thought.

  The Gold Blight Killer Token got me a single, one-time-use elixir that cured Stage-1 Blight. Even through the bottle, the brew smelled like rotten cabbage, and I doubted it tasted any better, but if the other option was growing tumors or tentacles, it seemed like a good trade-off.

  The Gold EOD Token netted me something I’d only seen once before—back when I first Noclipped into the Backrooms and had a front-row seat to a knock-down, drag-out death match between the Boundless Wanderer and the Flayed Monarch. It was a single-use Artifact called Trump Card that looked like a run-of-the-mill ace of clubs. When activated, however, the card expanded to the size of a shield and absorbed 100% of the damage from any single target spell, regardless of the spell’s level.

  The narrative has been taken without permission. Report any sightings.

  A literal ace in the hole for when shit hit the fan.

  As for the Gold Chew Toy, that one came with a twenty-five-count bag of Chimera Kibble Treats – Now in Sheep Spleen Flavor! The treats were shaped like dog bones and feeding one to any pet companion granted them a temporary, random elemental buff that lasted for ten minutes.

  I was pretty sure Croc counted as an animal companion—though the term was pretty loosely defined, so I wondered if they would work on people as well. Technically Jakob wasn’t human, so maybe the system would count him as a hyper-intelligent lizard.

  Croc immediately started sniffing at the bag, tail thumping.

  “What you got there, Dan?”

  “Pet treats,” I replied cryptically. I opened the bag and a rancid cloud of eye-watering stink wafted out. “But they’re only for good dogs.”

  Croc’s ears perked up. “But I’m a good dog, right, Dan?”

  “You did try to eat us all,” Temperance grumbled.

  “Hey, I already apologized for that,” Croc replied. “And I bet if I had a delicious spleen-flavored pet treat I wouldn’t be nearly so hangry.” The dog’s sniffing intensified tenfold, its tail waggling so hard I thought Croc might lift off the ground.

  I frowned, lips pursed into a thin line. “We should really save ’em for emergencies. They grant elemental buffs, which could be useful in a fight—though, admittedly, the bag doesn’t really specify what exactly that means.”

  “Then we should experiment,” Croc said resolutely. “For science. I mean, we should probably know what exactly they do before we use them in battle.”

  That was actually a pretty good point, even though I knew in my heart that Croc didn’t give two shits about science. The only thing the dog cared about was the spleen-flavored treatos.

  “Plus, there’s a whole bunch in there, Dan. Surely I could have one, right?”

  “Fine.” I reached into the bag and fished one of the bones free. “But just one, okay? To see what it does. But that’s it. We’re saving the rest for later.”

  I tossed the bone to Croc and the mimic snatched it out of the air, devouring it in a single bite without even bothering to chew the damned thing.

  A second later, the dog burst into literal flames. They crawled over its back and head, leaking through the circular holes dotting Croc’s body. The dog didn’t scream or shriek, though, and the flames didn’t seem to be scorching the carpets or arcade cabinets. Instead, its googly eyes widened in delighted surprise.

  “Would you look at that?” Croc said, swishing its tail back and forth, smoke trailing up in curling plumes. “I’m a fire elemental! Neat!”

  I grunted and smiled. “Okay, fine. That’s pretty badass. And it doesn’t hurt?”

  “Not at all,” Croc said. “I can hardly even feel ’em. It’s sort of like a warm hug.”

  I hesitantly reached out, preparing for a flash of pain, but found the flames didn’t burn me either. If anything, they tickled. So not only was Croc a flame elemental, Croc was a flame elemental that only dealt damage to enemies.

  “Double badass,” I muttered.

  I stowed the rest of the Chimera Treats in storage before we finally moved on.

  We walked for a while, examining the other games in passing, and there were a few that immediately caught my eye. Among them was a spin to win game that cost a Silver Loot Token to play, but instead of earning tickets, you had the chance to win extra Stats. The wheel was full of potential prizes—+10 Athleticism, +5 Perception, +15 Free Stat Points—but there were just as many penalty spots that took away stat points as well. There didn’t seem to be any skill involved, which made it high stakes gambling at best.

  Still, I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t the least bit intrigued.

  But those weren’t the only games that offered a chance to artificially boost stats—a feature I’d never seen before.

  A row of Skee Ball Machines promised to increase Athleticism… assuming you survived the ordeal, which was rather ominous. But for only a single Silver Loot Token, I had to give it a shot.

  When I slipped a coin into the waiting slot, the world blurred around me, and I instantly found myself reduced to the size of an action figure.

  I stood at the base of a steeply sloped wall studded with gaping holes, each stamped with a glowing point value—10, 20, 50, 100, and way up in the corners, the elusive 500s. Before I could even wrap my head around what in the hell was going on, a system prompt flashed across my vision, warning me that I’d entered a Runic Suppression Field for the duration of the game, which meant no access to any of my Mana-based abilities.

  A rubbery lane, edged by towering walls, stretched out ahead of me, which gave me a perfect view of the comically large, Indiana Jones-style ball speeding toward me. Only this one wasn’t smooth. It bristled with spikes, each one long enough to skewer me like a cocktail olive.

  The spiked boulder thundered closer, locking onto my every movement like a heat-seeking missile. There were no instructions on the game itself, but it didn’t take a brain surgeon to figure out what I needed to do. The balls were trying to flatten me, and the only way to avoid that was to redirect them into the holes, scoring points in the process.

  “Ah, shit,” I muttered, legs already pumping as I sprinted toward the wall.

  There were tiny grooves carved into the surface behind me, forming a crude climbing wall. I grabbed hold, scrambling hand over hand as the incline steepened under me. My boots squeaked against the surface, slipping more than they stuck, but the sound of the rolling death-ball was all the motivation I needed to move my ass.

  The wall angled sharper with every foot I climbed, until it felt like I was scaling the side of a cliff. The ball wasn’t slowing either—if anything it was moving faster, adjusting course to better track my movements. As the ball drew closer, I lunged sideways toward a narrow notch in the wall, aiming for the closest hole, labeled “20.” The ball swerved, overshooting me by inches before dropping into the hole.

  The wall shuddered with the impact, threatening to shake me loose, and the number above the hole flared brightly.

  A cheerful, disembodied voice rang out overhead. “Twenty points! Keep it up, champ!”

  Another ball immediately spawned at the far end of the lane, already tearing toward me. This one was moving even faster than the one before it.

  My lungs burned as I kept climbing, trying to angle myself toward the 50-point hole higher up. With every step, the incline grew worse, and the wall grew steadily slicker as though covered in a fine sheen of sweat that was actively trying to peel me off and drop me into the path of the next incoming missile.

  The second ball slammed into the wall just beneath me, and I hurled myself sideways, boots slipping, fingers barely catching another groove in time. My shoulder screamed as it was nearly yanked from the socket. The ball grazed my leg, one of the spikes tracing a shallow line across my calf before careening toward the hole.

  For a half second, I thought I’d nailed it—lined up perfectly for the 50-pointer. But the damn thing clipped the rim and bounced downward, plummeting into the 10-point hole instead.

  “Ten points!” the too-cheerful voice shouted. “Good hustle, sport!”

  I bit back a curse, teeth clenched, and kept climbing. Another ball spawned. Then another. One came so close I felt the wind of its passing along my neck. I ducked and flattened myself to the wall, and the spiked monstrosity thundered past so close it nearly shaved my ear clean off before vanishing into a 30-point hole with a satisfying plunk.

  After that, I stopped trying to aim.

  My whole world narrowed to climbing and dodging, scrabbling for handholds, throwing myself left or right at the last possible second, just trying to keep the meat grinder from claiming another victim. The announcer kept tallying points in that cheery, sugar-fueled voice, but I barely heard it over my hammering pulse.

  Two minutes of frantic scrambling later, the world blinked white. The spikes, the wall, the howling death-balls—all gone in an instant. I staggered drunkenly, suddenly back to full size in front of the machine, gasping like I’d run a marathon after a hard night of drinking. My stomach lurched and, for a second, I was pretty sure I was going to puke all over the carpet.

  Probably wouldn’t be the first, and I somehow doubted I’d be the last.

  Still, I managed to resist the urge and kept the contents of my stomach on the inside.

  Final Score: 150 points!

  Athleticism +1

  Not exactly impressive, but I’d take whatever I could get. I bent over, hands on my knees, sweat dripping down my face. “Yeah,” I wheezed. “Not doing that again. Clearly, I’m not built for this level of bullshit.”

  Temperance, on the other hand, was practically bouncing on her toes in excitement. She cracked her knuckles, stepped forward, and slipped a silver Loot Token into the slot like she’d been waiting her whole life for the chance.

  The world blurred for her just like it had for me, and we watched her shrink down to action-figure size inside the lane. The suppression field locked her abilities down, but that wouldn’t affect her nearly as much. Her build leaned into Athleticism, and her most powerful Relics were fueled by Stamina, which wouldn’t be impacted by the suppression field.

  Where I’d flailed like a rat in a flood, she moved with crisp, precise steps, darting up the wall with ease.

  All of us watched in awe as she juked, spun, and climbed, redirecting balls with almost surgical precision. She made it higher than I’d ever dreamed of going and even managed to send one of the spiked balls into a glowing 500-point slot in the corner. The machine screamed in delight, showering confetti from some hidden compartment.

  When the game finally returned her to full size, she was standing tall, flushed but not winded, brushing bits of clinging confetti from her shoulders.

  Final Score: 770 points!

  Athleticism +5

  She grinned like a kid who’d just cheated death and gotten the prize from the bottom of a cereal box for her trouble.

  “Okay,” I muttered, still trying to steady my breathing, “that’s just unfair.”

  Temperance smirked and adjusted her gloves. “Seems like a skill issue to me…”