Chapter 24 of 35 · Book 3, The Dungeon Anarchist's Cookbook

Chapter 24 — Brynhild's Daughters is no more

Book: The Dungeon Anarchist's Cookbook · Previous: Chapter 23 — Rush · Next: Chapter 25 — Seven hundred hats · Floor: Floor 4 — The Iron Tangle · Series: the series

Opening

Hekla’s body peeled off the wall and collapsed into a heap.

Summary

'A champion has fallen. A bounty has been claimed.' The Daughters pour into the cab; a missile takes a quarter of Carl's health through Wisp Armor; Eva goes for Katia and Hekla's corpse catches the saber in its palm — Donut has cast Second Chance on Hekla and Clockwork Triplicate on the minion, and three Heklas throw Eva out of the window and push the Daughters back through a car of a hundred terrified crawlers. 'It was fucked up, but it was brilliant.' Katia cannot loot a minion; stage-three monsters — bear-sized, tentacled, 'Very… Krakaren-like.' — come down the stairs; the last minion falls in the gangway blocking the door, and Carl drags in only the legs and half a torso. The breastplate and the crossbow are on the other side of a locked engine door. He reverses the whole train out of 101 with a thousand people aboard and the Daughters hammering on the door. Carl 34, Donut 32; Katia, at 37, is probably the highest-level crawler in the dungeon. 'Goddamn it, there's nowhere to sit down and have a breakdown in here.' They laugh.

Silfa was hiding in the mantaur's apartment. Carl, holding her in one hand, works it out aloud: Eva told her to stop healing; she was told to hide, not leave — she was the bait. Carl was meant to attack her, and her two daughters outside had orders to kill him first; with Carl and Katia dead, Donut and Mordecai would have had nowhere else to go. 'She was a shrink. She probably had some big plan worked out.' Silfa owns a bakery; with Eva as leader the party is dissolving; their sponsor, a crab ranch, never sent anything. 'Brynhild's Daughters is no more.' 'It's exactly what they want to happen, and it breaks my fucking heart.' Then Katia forms the crossbow in her hands: she looted it after all. Warning: You have a dick. The Enchanted Repeating Crossbow of the Scavenger Mother of Mothers — Nekhebit's, the vulture goddess abandoned for Apito, who cursed the high-elf court's seed into the Fae Diaspora; female only; +25% per woman in the party up to thirty; Birth Defect against generators. 'No wonder she had surrounded herself with women.' Li Jun, human, level 28, comes to pay his respects, learns to drive the train, and will take it to station 36 for the stand. Carl is going the other way: 'Each and every one.'

Characters

• Princess Donut — Three clockwork Heklas; drowns Silfa in gore; 'I've done it before.'
• Katia Grim — Level 37; loots the key and, quietly, the crossbow.
• Carl — Reverses the train blind; unpicks Hekla's plan for Silfa; 'Fuck you, Mordecai.'
• Silfa — A baker with two daughters; the bait; the party's end.
• Eva Sigrid — Thrown from the window; alive; the new, unwanted leader.
• Hekla — Half a corpse; her crossbow and its goddess.
• Li Jun and Zhang — Twelve in the party now; Li Jun takes the train to 36.

Locations

• The Vermillion line — Reversing out of 101; the mantaur's apartment with metal posters.

Motifs

• The leaderboard — 'A champion has fallen'; Katia at 37, which Carl guesses is the highest level in the dungeon.
• Staying human — 'Is this what we've become?'; 'each and every one.'
• The gods — Nekhebit and Apito on a weapon's card: the vulture goddess and the Fae Diaspora.
• The crossbow of the Scavenger Mother — A unique weapon that only a woman can wield, now Katia's.