Chapter 21 of 26 · Book 2, Carl's Doomsday Scenario
Chapter 21 — Katia
Book: Carl's Doomsday Scenario · Previous: Chapter 20 — Manasa's last song · Next: Chapter 22 — The Mysterious Letter · Floor: Floor 3 — The Over City · Series: the series
Opening
We waited until sunset before leaving our hiding spot atop the building.
Summary
Sunset on a roof with a one-armed dwarf boy who says a skyfowl lady visits the temple and leads women away. Guards aggro'd, Puddle Jumper spent, rope down; Ricky Joe runs home to hold his mother's left leg. Smoke curtains and impact hob-lobbers from Pustule.
At the Narwhal, Hekla's friend: Katia Grim, level 9, Monster Truck Driver, a doppelganger with a badly sculpted face who has been using a health potion as a mirror. Carl gives her a shard of the gym mirror; Mordecai explains doppelgangers and juggernauts; Hekla, relayed, asks them to party her up. The recap manufactures a feud — Princess Donut Versus Cici and Gustavo 3 — and Lucia Mar promises to tear the cat apart in the dungeon. Mordecai reads the newsletter: Borant is warning shopkeepers, because the AI is making crawlers stronger to compensate for the short floors.
Late that night, past Shadow Leaks in the alley, on a roof across from the magistrate's building: the Mysterious Letter is a spy camera — Suppurating Eye, cast through blood on the scroll — so they overact a plan over it (a filing cabinet, burning beanie babies), feed it to a clockwork Mongo that leaps to the magistrate's roof, and Carl detonates the shelves.
Characters
- Katia Grim — Introduced; joins the party.
- Eunice and Ricky Joe — Ricky Joe's intelligence.
- Hekla — Via Katia: 'Please help Katia.'
- Lucia Mar — 'Cici and Gus will tear this puta apart.'
- Mordecai — Doppelgangers, wombats in buckets, the newsletter.
- Princess Donut — Cast by the recap in a feud with Cici and Gustavo 3.
Locations
- The One-Eyed Narwhal — Katia at the table.