Motif · Book 8, A Parade of Horribles

The tenth floor

The floor where, the first announcement says, 'additional rules come into play.' Odette reached the thirteenth floor's stairwell and never went down: 'I'd struck a deal. That's a long story, and it's not for today.'

Segment appearances

• Chapter 1 — Chandra; the garage
• Chapter 2 — The wheel; a food truck
• Chapter 3 — Heat one; Prepotente's warning
• Chapter 5 — Team Sparkles; the tow
• Chapter 9 — Radiant claws; the crupper's rant
• Chapter 23 — Plenty of Plenty; Zev reads the script; a note from C&W&U
• Chapter 24 — Akuma's note; half a prayer, half a song; the sock
• Chapter 40 — Heat four: survival containment; Team Flamengo
• Chapter 52 — Interlude: Minus; the key, the upgrades, and Chachi
• Chapter 66 — Grull; Dong tilts a giant
• Chapter 69 — The stables: who may leave; the Scavenger myth
• Chapter 73 — The Garden of Deliverance; the ducts
• Chapter 74 — Human shells; Ad Infinitum
• Chapter 85 — The Wheel of Fortune; 'Nothing' in quotes
• Chapter 88 — Interlude: Quasar; the eleventh floor — twenty-three crawlers; Chaco's parade
• Chapter 94 — Dungeon Boss; the pig in the harness

Progression

Don't Come in Last: seven heats of nine teams, a driver a heat, an upgrade a heat, 'if more than two teams don’t make it to the finish line' (ch. 2). The wheel gives a food truck (ch. 2); heat one is a tow (ch. 5); heat two a pouch and last place (ch. 21, ch. 22); heat three a skull and first (ch. 32). Containment, pit stops, garage keys, tracks that reroll (ch. 40, ch. 47); heat five two-wide with theft enabled (ch. 51); heats six and seven back to back in an apartment building, three teams to one (ch. 67, ch. 68). The gaps shrink (ch. 33). 'a drain designed to catch those of us who’ve been spat out of the bottom of Faction Wars' (ch. 60); 'What a goddamned floor' (ch. 87).