The storm moved quickly, far more quickly than either Pete or Sam had anticipated it would. It had also grown so large that they were having to drive much further to the east in order to avoid the lethal showers of twisted Belch Buck coins and other detritus being whipped around by the tempest.

  “It’s gonna be close!” Pete said, looking down at the map hovering in front of them and noting the large mass of red shading that was just about to swallow them up.

  “Going as fast as I can here,” Sam barked above the roaring of the storm.

  Lightning flashed, and a bone-shuddering crash filled the air as Sam swerved to avoid a parked car, not seeing that its front driver-side door was open. The RV smashed through the door, ripping it off its hinges and swerving on the road as Sam fought for control of the vehicle.

  “Shit!” she blurted, arms straining to hold on to the steering wheel as the RV fishtailed down the road, its high beams illuminating a confusing scene up ahead.

  The road was scattered with parked cars and other objects, so they had to swerve their way through the obstacles all while maintaining as much speed as possible. In hindsight, the Winnebago wasn’t the best choice for a sprint like this, but it was too late to change that.

  Pete was clutching the handle above his door and clutching the left side of his seat, trying to hold himself in place while the Winnebago rocked and slid about. Outside, individual pieces of twisted Belch Bucks peppered the ground, hitting so hard that they cracked the asphalt or ripped through the panels of parked cars. The haphazard clinking of the metal projectiles slamming into the ground sounded like gunfire ricocheting off stone, loud enough to cut through the din of the storm as it rumbled toward them.

  Pete glanced down at the map. The storm was heading directly toward the decoy just as he’d hoped, but it had grown so large that they were going to get caught in the edge of the tempest anyway unless they could think of some way to increase their speed.

  “We could find a car park?” Sam suggested.

  Pete shook his head. “We need to keep moving. If we stop, we’re just delaying the inevitable. We’ll need to get to the novice arena entrance at some point, and the longer we stay here, the more likely the damned storm will figure out that the Baron isn’t here and head back. Then all of this will have been for nothing.”

  Sam nodded, gritting her teeth as a series of falling coins slammed into the road up ahead, embedding themselves in the asphalt and sending splinters of rock flying. Pete checked his abilities to see if there was anything he could use to assist them. The ability to stealth or go berserk wasn’t going to help them, and he couldn’t shoot the storm with his bow or stab it with the machete.

  “Damn it!” Sam shouted, as another flash of lightning split the sky.

  At the same moment, a barrage of coins tore through the RV, some of them biting into the bonnet and the engine, while others ripped through the roof of the vehicle as though it were made from tissue paper. Pete heard a squeal of alarm from the rear cabin and turned to look back just in time to see Torgo flying from one side of the RV.

  The little goblin slammed against the side of the cabin and hit the floor, having been thrown across when Coop had triggered one of her shield abilities in an attempt to protect them from the falling coins that had cut through the roof. The little ferret looked over at Pete in confusion while Torgo recovered, rubbing the back of his head as Grizzle helped him to his feet and the RV continued to swerve.

  [Nero] You will need to upgrade your shield in order for it to surround others, Coop. As it is, the shield will only protect YOU from harm.

  A quick look around the cabin confirmed to Pete that everyone was more or less unharmed. He turned back around just in time to see something very large and black fall from the clouds above and slam into an abandoned motorbike on the road up ahead.

  “The fuck!”

  In the middle of the storm, with just the RV’s headlights and the occasional flash of lightning to see by, it was difficult to make out what had just landed on the road ahead of them. But as the giant creature turned its huge yellow eyes toward them, Pete saw that they were heading toward a monstrous beast that appeared to be an amalgam of octopus, wolf, and some kind of demon creature.

  It stood at least ten feet high, bristling with spiky fur and horns, large oily tentacles whipping out on all sides while it stared at the oncoming Winnebago with huge almond-shaped eyes. The creature was clearly never meant to exist. It seemed to labor under its own weight, as though the combined components of the beast worked against one another: tentacles whipping against horns, undersized lungs struggling to draw breath, a mouth filled with so many teeth that the thing couldn’t close its maw.

  Pete absorbed all of this in the split seconds between the baffling creature falling from the sky, slapping down against the road, and buffeting the RV as it went skidding past, one side of the vehicle raked by horns and suckers. The Winnebago recovered, settling once more on the road, but before Pete could ask why abominations were falling from the sky as well as coins, another warped beast slammed into the ground nearby, shuddering horn-first into the asphalt, its feathered rear sticking up into the air, a puckered sphincter yawning open to reveal the swollen eyeball within.

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

  “WHAT THE FUCK!” Pete barked.

  [Nero] Goodness. It seems that the Coinflayer Storm has picked up more than inanimate debris and sundry objects. There seems to be a large number of Warpspawn being deposited all around the area.

  “No shit, Sherlock!” Sam shouted as another of the monsters landed off to the left, bouncing off a green shield that covered the house beneath and flying off toward the road.

  [Nero] This is most unusual. There are not normally so many anomalous creatures this early in the contest. They are also not typically picked up by Coinflayer storms as the rogue code that comprises each of these entities tends to be antithetical. They usually repel one another, in the same way that like poles of a magnet are driven apart.

  Pete looked down at the map, which now showed that they were right on the edge of the storm. Worse, he could see that they weren’t going to be able to outrun the storm because it had grown even larger as it approached the decoy, making it almost impossible to outrun.

  A large Belch Buck shot down from above, ripping through the bonnet of the Winnebago right in front of Pete and tearing into the engine. Steam immediately started hissing, the sound swallowed up by the roar of the surrounding storm.

  One of the windows in the back cabin was shattered as more of the coins began to penetrate the vehicle, and a second falling coin ripped into the engine, followed swiftly by a third.

  “We’re not gonna make it!” Sam shouted, whipping her hand back as a burning hot coin came down through the roof and hit the side of the steering wheel before burying itself in the floor below.

  Pete’s mind was racing. No matter which way he looked at it, they were screwed. He summoned his Pauper’s Ward, leaning slightly to the left to try to protect both him and Sam from the falling coins, but the shield burst almost immediately as several coins hit the front cabin at once. One of those coins cut right through the seat an inch from his hand, while another grazed his shoulder on its path downward.

  Once again, he searched for something in his ability list that he could use to change the situation in their favor, or at least buy them some time before the RV was ripped to shreds by the falling rain or the chimera that seemed to be dropping from the skies.

  As a blood-curdling shriek rose from a warped bird-snake creature that landed just to the left of the RV, Pete found something that he thought might help. He hovered over the Pawn Shop Portal ability for a second, noting that the cooldown had finished and wondering if it would be possible to throw the portal out ahead of them.

  His memory of their previous trip through the portal was still vivid, and he thought there would be enough space for the RV to get through if he could just throw it far enough ahead so that they could head right for it. As the Winnebago swerved to avoid a falling Warpspawn creature, he shouted to Sam.

  “I’m gonna try to open a portal back to that Pawn Broker!”

  She turned to face him, her expression a mix of confusion and desperation as she wrestled with the steering wheel.

  “Just aim for the portal when I throw it out front!” Pete shouted.

  “Okay!” she replied, turning back to the road as more of the coins fell all around them, tearing through the exterior of the RV and bouncing off the road in front of the vehicle.

  There was no time to think the matter through more carefully, no time to ask Nero whether this was even possible. Pete triggered the ability, throwing the portal up into the darkness ahead and hoping Sam could clearly see it and steer the RV to safety rather than miss or slam into the side of the portal.

  As the ability was enacted, time seemed to slow. Pete saw a semi-transparent path stretch out ahead of him, illuminated by orange light. He was familiar enough with the concept to know that the System was showing him where the portal would open and that he could alter the distance by moving the endpoint with his mind.

  He positioned the portal far enough ahead that Sam would have at least a second or so to react and head to the entrance and then triggered the ability. Time sped up again and the portal appeared, opening quickly directly ahead of the RV and showing a vivid desert landscape with Orin Tithebreaker’s faded crimson tent sitting in the distance, illuminated by the firelight of dozens of torches.

  The Winnebago lurched as the left front tire was punctured, and Sam struggled while the vehicle skidded to the left, suddenly heading sharply away from the open portal just ahead of them. Pete lunged for the steering wheel, halting its spin and wrenching it back with as much force as he could manage while the RV bucked and tipped, sliding toward the large triangular portal entrance.

  Coins rained all around, and the air was filled with the roar of Warpspawn monsters while the RV skidded wide of the mark. Time seemed to slow once more, and Pete saw their fate come crashing down around them as he knew with certainty that they weren’t going to head through the portal but would miss it by a foot or so, given their current trajectory.

  Grimacing in pain and concentration, Sam shouted something, and silvery words began to appear in front of her mouth, given by some strange magic derived from her Woe Binder class. A dark figure appeared on the road ahead of them, and at first, Pete thought it was another Warpspawn creature.

  A moment before the RV was shoved back on course, he realized that it was, in fact, the hellhound that Sam had summoned and sent ahead of them. The beast was twice its usual size, however, and used some ability Pete had never seen before, butting its head into the vehicle with a percussive burst and sending it shuddering away, the driver's side door crushed, window shattered, as the Winnebago was sent sliding through the portal and out into the night of a foreign world.

  The RV slid onto dark sand, coming to a rapid halt a few feet inside the portal. Pete and Sam were both thrown forward, and judging by the grunting and groaning coming from the rear cabin, Coop and the goblins were having similar issues.

  The RV shrugged backward, and Pete slumped back in the seat, muscles starting to relax a little as he gave himself and Sam a quick appraisal to check if either of them had been hurt. She turned to face him, her eyes wide, a broad grin spread across her mouth.

  “Now, that was some Fast and Furious shit right there!”