Chapter 18 of 35 · Book 3, The Dungeon Anarchist's Cookbook

Chapter 18 — The PVP coupon

Book: The Dungeon Anarchist's Cookbook · Previous: Chapter 17 — Station and Repair Hub E · Next: Chapter 19 — Frank Q at the bar · Floor: Floor 4 — The Iron Tangle · Series: the series

Opening

» Bautista: Yeah, you’re a little late there, buddy.

Summary

Bautista, too late: Terminus is a city boss that swallowed twenty of the four hundred crawlers he gathered; they are back on the train. Madison, interrogated: the Kravyad are not bosses but Human Resources — blue six-armed naga who hypnotise conductors and porters into a 'pre-production stupor' between shifts (productivity up 35%) and are paid in one or two dwarves a shift; the gold armband she invented marks troublemakers as safe to eat; the employee portal is lifebound to them, so kill one and it closes. The ghouls are Doris's fault — a rival at Substation B who cheaped out on the conveyor and stole Rod. Elle and Imani have found the conveyor: automatons cage the ghouls and roll them onto a carless roller coaster back to the yards ('You were never in the military, were you?'); Wrath Ghouls, Imani thinks, are what stage two becomes; Meadow Lark may ride the carts. Brandy and Madison fight over who can fire whom: 'You are ze boot, not ze foot.'

Station 24 is a rock-hidden trapdoor into a warehouse room with five humming stairwells in a circle and ten platforms, one of them Escape Velocity III. There, alone with Carl, Katia — who has grown a third eye and can watch behind her, and feels less human for it — hands him a black ticket she saw Donut hide under the track: a PVP Coupon, gold boxes and a level for killing the crawler named on the back. Crawler #4,122. Carl. Hekla — who has it from Katia's friend Eva, who took a skull and the book killing a man who grabbed Katia — says the Savage box holds one per party member, and Katia's was not the one Donut threw away. Imani confirms — she left hers on the first floor; Elle got none, so she thinks only the first in a party to take a skull gets the book — and adds that Donut came to her about them: 'She's like a child, Carl. She doesn't process things the way a person does.' Stations 36 and 48 match; 50 and 58 are tiny and unvisited; 59 is a real transfer station with twenty-seven platforms. Carl decides to raise it in the production trailer, off the feed, and thinks, with Odette's warning about Hekla in mind, about cutting Katia loose sooner rather than later — and about Bea in the car, giving Donut away for the breeder price. Station 60, the employees' town, is cobwebs and an empty platform: no families, no dorms, no Homeward Bound. 'Now you know why they made you give everyone mandatory overtime.' Madison sits down to wait for Rod. 'Right back at you, boxer boy.' Donut: she reminds me of Miss Beatrice's mom.

Characters

• Carl — Learns the Kravyad rule; finds the stairwell rooms; is handed a coupon with his own name on it.
• Katia Grim — A third eye; the coupon; 'I feel less, I don’t know, human when I do it.'
• Princess Donut — Hid a PVP coupon for Carl; kept, perhaps, the one for Katia; talked to Imani about it.
• Madison — The Kravyad, the armband, Doris and Rod; left at a station that was never built.
• Daniel Bautista — Twenty of four hundred eaten at Terminus; retreated to the train.
• Imani — Confirms the coupon book; 'She's like a child.'
• Elle McGibbons — The conveyor is a roller coaster; wants to ride it.
• Fire Brandy — Refuses to be fired: 'I only deal with Portia.'

Locations

• The stairwell rooms — Stations 24, 36, 48: five stairwells in a circle, ten platforms, Escape Velocity III.
• The employee line — Stations 50, 58, 59 and the empty 60.
• The trainyards — The employee portal at 435, lifebound to the Kravyad, goes 'Straight to the platform,' Madison says.

Motifs

• The leaderboard — The PVP coupon: 'Ah, betrayal. Sweet, delicious betrayal.'
• Staying human — Katia's eye; Donut 'like a child'; Carl weighing whether to cut Katia loose.
• The mobs are victims — HR, mandatory overtime, an armband that marks you as edible; a town of false memories.
• Bea — Giving Donut back to the breeder, remembered in a car on the way to a party.
• Terminus — A city boss; the employee portal a second trap.