Chapter 28 of 35 · Book 3, The Dungeon Anarchist's Cookbook

Chapter 28 — Plan C

Book: The Dungeon Anarchist's Cookbook · Previous: Chapter 27 — Physical · Next: Chapter 29 — The Bolt of Ophiotaurus · Floor: Floor 4 — The Iron Tangle · Series: the series

Opening

The second cart for the Mindaro line never arrived.

Summary

The Mindaro line's abyss cart never arrived — the second cart probably caught it and its portal threw it back, so the one cart Bautista's group saw, playing 'Rock of Ages', was the one they needed, and they could not know it. Sinopia and Grullo worked: eight hundred people through to yards and up to their station 36s; the returning carts flipped in dead-end bays and a group at yard M righted one and keeps a track clear with it. The four of them ride the Mindaro line on a battery-powered cart at five times train speed, portal set to the abyss, Katia explaining chartreuse. Elle's away team, with Tizquick's help, has found the blown station 72 — the ceiling down, the stairwells intact, no mobs — and crawlers are flocking to it; the wrath ghouls at 36 would have made another province boss; the Krakaren babies are staying at every 24. Five crawlers running from the cart's light are scooped to yard E ('Sorry'). At 433 a blinking railroad crossing with a stop sign sits across the track; two seconds too long, and the entire Terminus station mimic — a city boss — is teleported to trainyard E. 'Whoops.'

Bautista, level 28, and six hundred crawlers wait a hundred metres from the abyss gate. A screenshot through the cart's portal shows a blob the size of a city block filling yard E, disturbingly like Katia unformed, then reshaping into an administrative building whose ground floor is a three-hundred-foot mouth facing the portal. Mistress Tiatha, via Elle: you don't fight giant mimics; cut off half its mass at once or nothing. 'It's waiting for us.' Plan C: everyone through the abyss gate on foot with a hat, to yard H, where the Def Leppard cart sits wedged and harmless. Carl leaves thirty hats on the ground for stragglers — 'There's a fine line between being helpful and being a dumbass, Carl' — and drives through in his own hat, Donut with a key in her mouth. Fourteen hundred people brought from the end of the line to a chance. Silence, then six hundred people applaud, and at Katia's suggestion each one lays a souvenir hat at Donut's feet. 'By god, it felt good.'

Characters

• Carl — Diagnoses the Mindaro mistake; portals a city boss by accident; Plan C; the hats on the ground.
• Princess Donut — 'Millions of gold, Carl'; a key in her mouth; a tribute of hats.
• Katia Grim — Chartreuse; a middle finger made of tongue; suggests the tribute.
• Daniel Bautista — Level 28; six hundred saved; 'Thank god for plan B.'
• Elle McGibbons — The free stairwells at the blown 72; Tiatha's mimic advice.
• Tizquick — Helps Elle find the F line.

Locations

• The trainyards — Yard E now holds a city-boss mimic; yard H holds the rescued.
• Terminus — A railroad crossing on the tracks; the whole mimic scooped.
• The Abyss — The rescue from the rim, on foot, in hats.

Motifs

• Staying human — Fourteen hundred people; hats left for stragglers; six hundred hats returned.
• The interdiction carts — Two carts, one song each: the lesson of the delay.
• The stairwell rooms — The blown 72 becomes the free way down.