Chapter 21 of 35 · Book 3, The Dungeon Anarchist's Cookbook

Chapter 21 — Brynhild's Daughters

Book: The Dungeon Anarchist's Cookbook · Previous: Chapter 20 — Planet Beautiful · Next: Chapter 22 — The kebab plan · Floor: Floor 4 — The Iron Tangle · Series: the series

Opening

» Time to Level Collapse: 4 Days, 9 Hours.

Summary

Thirty of Brynhild's Daughters in the Royal Palace: Hekla at level 33, nine inches taller than Carl with an iron handshake and an automatic crossbow, thanking him for her 'lost little lamb.' Katia whitelisted them. They came through the employee portal — Sadie's Glass Prison held the Kravyad — hiked to station 60 and found a switch there onto any of the twelve Homeward Bound platforms, which Carl broadcasts at once. Eva Sigrid, Katia's lunch friend, is a four-armed half-Nagini Nimblefoot Enforcer with skulls for thirteen kills, the only skulls in the room: 'This is the one who does her dirty work.' Donut wants to merge saferooms and thinks Carl should date Hekla for the views. Carl admits to himself why he never warned Donut or Mordecai about Hekla — he thought Donut might be better off with her — and, looking at Eva, stops thinking it. He moves the invisibility potion and Mordecai's Special Brew to his hotlist.

The ask: a thousand crawlers, Li Jun's group among them, are boxed in at station 101 on the Vermillion line, 150 kilometres from the stairwell at 72 with a ghoul generator there and something at 75; stage three is hours away. Hekla has a never-run Vermillion train — three passenger cars and ghoul containers, two engines, one at each end, the engineer shot for his map — but no cowcatcher. She has come for the one Carl already built: Katia. It was Katia's own idea; she widened the backpack while he was away and layered rubber in. 'You’re a… a backseat dungeon driver.' 'They came back for me […] That is more than anyone has ever done for me.' Zev, in chat, wants these moments out loud; Hekla laughs: 'Zev sounds like our Loita.' Katia stays on Carl's party for the ride and hugs him; Eva will drive. The Nightmare goes to 60 with Daughters clinging to its boiler like a parade float ('only one penis'). At station 60 Madison is being berated by dwarves; Tizquick, a Mango line conductor, weeps on the floor: 'My little girl was never real.' Carl kneels — 'One day, this pain you're feeling right now will matter' — and Hekla, who was Eva's psychiatrist, tells him he will give himself an ulcer.

Characters

• Carl — Faces Hekla in his own house; admits what he never said; hotlists the escape potions; comforts a conductor.
• Hekla — Level 33; Eva's former psychiatrist; asks for Katia as a cowcatcher; Carl thinks her 'as crazy as the rest of us.'
• Eva Sigrid — Half-Nagini, four arms, skulls for thirteen kills; drives the subway.
• Katia Grim — Whitelisted the Daughters; the plough was her idea; 'This is what I'm for.'
• Princess Donut — Worships Hekla; 'LIKE YOU’RE A CAN OF FANCY FEAST' about Eva.
• Li Jun and Zhang — Among the thousand trapped at Vermillion 101.
• Madison — Cornered by her former employees at station 60.
• Tizquick — A Mango line conductor whose daughter was never real.
• Zev — 'You need to be having these moments out loud.'

Locations

• The Royal Palace of Princess Donut — Thirty guests; a vestibule now joins it to the Daughters' space.
• The employee line — Station 60: a colony of NPCs and a switch to twelve platforms.
• The Vermillion line — Katia's guess: a Terminus Direct line that runs the whole way in about a day; power still on.

Motifs

• Staying human — Carl's unspoken wish to hand Donut off, and its end; Tizquick's tears.
• The mobs are victims — 'One day, this pain you're feeling right now will matter.'
• The leaderboard — Eva's thirteen skulls.
• Entertainment as machinery — Zev's complaint about private chat.