Chapter 5

Carl and his team finish constructing their race vehicle while dealing with interruptions from other teams. They encounter Team Sparkles—a unicorn named Dwight and a mandagot named Lucienne—who antagonize Donut before their mount accidentally charges ahead. Carl's group finishes the fifty-kilometer race in seventh place, avoiding elimination, while reflecting on the moral complexity of helping NPCs they will later have to kill.

Carl works on reinforcing and equipping their race trailer with wheels while Rend the meatball sits on the cart and Mongo the rat repeatedly triggers the food truck's unusual horn in the background. The bugbears, Jasha and Radoslav, explain that Team Sparkles—consisting of Dwight, a level 87 Sparkling Unicorn Enchanter with a Boston accent, and Lucienne, a level 81 Mandagot Fink with a French accent—are approaching. Both creatures insult Donut, who threatens retaliation. When Mongo's horn startles their Avernus Creeper mount, the tumbleweed-like plant creature charges uncontrollably, running over the trailer and van before disappearing down the road. Rend is run over but survives, collecting multiple thorns from the plant that Mordecai later expresses interest in for a Botanist's Table upgrade. Carl's team slowly travels through the cave tunnels, finding corpses of manatees killed by Old Shuck, the Jugglers' mount. Along the way, mysterious notifications alert crawlers that Otto the slime has been voted to be a manatee stand-in in an arena, and Elle receives an awkward visit from an overzealous fan during a fan meet-and-greet. The team reaches Hungry Eyes Village and approaches the finish line with multiple roads converging there. Radoslav thanks Carl and Donut for their help before returning to the minivan to cross the finish line with them. Carl's team finishes seventh place out of at least eight teams, avoiding elimination, while Donut expresses her discomfort with the eventual necessity of killing the bugbears in future races.