THE SPINE

A ROAD OF BONE

The fifth world is built out of the thing every world above it was resting on. Its road is laid in bone, pale and ribbed, and it curls into a four leaf clover around a column of stacked vertebrae. Each lobe of the clover is a tight turn, and the road runs through all four every lap, so there is almost no straight road left to rest on.

Like the Spore Hollow, the clover takes one lane away. It is also the fastest world so far, and it carries more walls, more bumpers and more drifters than any world before it. Everything the first four worlds taught you is on this road at once.

THE KEEPER'S HAND

The keeper reaches in about once a minute in every world, and on a road this crowded its hand is hardest to ignore. Its visit starts with an omen: the face rises out of the dark, the walls on the road come apart and the sky empties. Then a great hand comes down over the island. It hovers, and it thinks, and you can watch it choose. Then it lays a finger across the road and holds it there.

The finger speaks the language the drifters taught you. An X marks every lane it is about to block, and a ring marks the lane that will stay open. Read the ring while the hand is still thinking, get into that lane, and the finger comes down beside you instead of on you.

HOW TO PLAY THE SPINE

This is the world where a long line pays most and costs most. One hit scatters half of what you carry, so on the clover it is often worth releasing a little earlier than you would have in the Moss Ring, because the road gives you fewer quiet stretches to fill the line again.

When the hand comes, stop looking at the road ahead for a moment and look at the marks. The finger always tells you where it will land before it lands.