Chapter 23 of 35 · Book 3, The Dungeon Anarchist's Cookbook

Chapter 23 — Rush

Book: The Dungeon Anarchist's Cookbook · Previous: Chapter 22 — The kebab plan · Next: Chapter 24 — Brynhild's Daughters is no more · Floor: Floor 4 — The Iron Tangle · Series: the series

Opening

Hekla flew back, eyes registering shock as she slammed into the sidewall of the car.

Summary

Hekla into the wall; Eva at Donut with her sabers; two mages and Silfa at the door; Carl kicks Eva off and takes a missile and a bolt. 'Hold!' Hekla clears the cab to the five of them while the thousand crawlers swarm onto the train and cargo containers and a rearguard at the top of the stairs turns to X's. 'I can’t take it back, but there’s no reason for it to snowball.' Donut, shaking: 'You pretend to be good, but you're not! […] You made her feel special and loved, but you just wanted to use her and trade her in.' Carl understands, with no time to deal with it now, why this is hitting Donut where it does. Katia wakes with no memory of the last minutes and insists Donut's missile was an accident. Hekla lights a cigarette — 'No harm, no foul? […] It was a stupid risk' — and Carl wants one more than anything. Eva, when Katia will not stop asking why: 'We weren't really going to kill you. We just wanted Carl's famous temper to flare' — and then the rest, in Katia's own voice: Fannar's student, the adoption, 'This is why I left you behind on the third floor […] this is why nobody likes you.'

Rush: Katia's once-a-day battering ram, unpredictable in distance and slightly in direction, which she hates. She aims at Eva, misses by inches, and becomes the first crawler this season to claim a top-ten bounty — Hekla, number two, 500,000 gold, splattered on the inside wall of the car. A golden skull forms over her name. She was level 24 at the front of the train; she is now level 37.

Characters

• Katia Grim — Amnesiac, mocked by her oldest friend; Rush; Hekla's killer; level 37 and a golden skull.
• Hekla — 'It was a stupid risk'; a cigarette; dead against the wall.
• Eva Sigrid — 'We just wanted Carl's famous temper to flare'; the cruelty that ends it.
• Princess Donut — The speech about pretending to be good; a rage Carl finally understands.
• Carl — Tries to keep it from becoming a fight; fails; sees the level jump.
• Silfa — Healed Hekla and was sent out.

Locations

• The Vermillion line — Station 101: a thousand crawlers boarding under a horde.

Motifs

• The leaderboard — The first bounty claimed: Katia kills number two by accident.
• Staying human — 'Why can't we trust anyone?'; Katia used as bait by the people who came back for her.
• Bea — Made special and loved, then traded in — Donut's words about Katia, and, Carl realises with no time to say so, her own story.