As the shroom-hopping race begins, the starter's pistol backfires, delivering a bullet straight through his foot. He hoots and curses, and the racers stall in the blocks, waiting for confirmation that the contest has really begun. I take the opportunity to grab an early lead, sprinting ahead into a field of oversized fungi. "It was a public service," Fallen London's silent narrator assures me. "One official's podiatric misfortune can't be allowed to disrupt the entertainment of the masses. He knew the risks."
At one point, as a Turkish girl draws alongside me in the race, I'm given the option to let her by—the start of a potential acquaintance, perhaps? But instead I bound between spongy umbrellas and step over the opposition to take first place at the podium. "Someone complains when you step on their face to spring into the lead," says the narrator. "Their diction was terrible. If they expect you to listen they're going to have to enunciate."
