Chapter 31 of 35 · Book 3, The Dungeon Anarchist's Cookbook

Chapter 31 — The Iron Tangle, signing off

Book: The Dungeon Anarchist's Cookbook · Previous: Chapter 30 — The Syndicate logo · Next: Chapter 32 — Prepotente · Floor: Floor 4 — The Iron Tangle · Series: the series

Opening

Immediately after the revelation, we jumped into action.

Summary

Carl broadcasts: abandon every stairwell station. Some laugh at him; Bautista pulls his people back from the crowded 72 to station 60. Elle, Katia and Donut grind on Krakaren Juvenile Clonelings (level 14–17, monkey-sized, caustic blood, burning tentacles, screaming) outside 24: fire works, bolts to the centre work, lightning does nothing. Carl spends five hours bringing the Def Leppard cart to the station 36 that Meadow Lark and Li Jun hold; it will not fit the tunnels until Zhang, a level-28 Earth Mover, spends the last charge of a shrinking wand on it. In the centre of the room, on a floor etched with the Syndicate logo, twenty crawlers build a five-legged crane, an arc-welding spell joins the pieces, Imani's chain scrolls hang the cart nose-down over the circle of stairwells, and Carl tunes its portal to the abyss. Then everyone leaves the room.

At one day left the system speaks: the Iron Tangle has broken down, 'betrayed by the Krakaren,' the self-destruct is initiated, escape tunnels are opening with 'possible gravitational shifts,' the stairwells open in eighteen hours for six. The centres of the stairwell rooms fall away and the Krakaren pour up out of the floor — everywhere except here, where thousands of them fall into the hanging portal 'like the hole in the ground was actually in the ceiling.' Then they come from the tunnels too: the party guards four chokepoints with flamethrower squads, Katia's sentinel form, Donut's zombies; the corpses clog the halls and their acid melts them; Elle freezes the pools. Donut picks a fight with Tserendolgor, a Dog Soldier with a flamethrower. Fire Brandy, visited earlier, has learned it is all a construction: the dwarves and gremlins built a gallows and hanged Madison, and 'Only those mantaur creatures are holding the faith.' Bautista is pinned between mantaur bosses at 60 and the tunnels; groups near yard E are being squeezed by the mimic's minions. When a chokepoint breaks, 'Ludacris': Katia's Crowd Blast down the hall, two boom jugs at the T, Donut's last Puddle Jump home. Two explosions shake the walls — station 12's soul crystal and its twin 'on the other side of the noodle.' Mordecai: the generators' crystals pop under too much local stress, like fuses. 'Holy shit I have a glorious idea.' 'No.'

Characters

Carl — Hangs a portal over the hole; holds a chokepoint; the idea about the crystals.
Katia Grim — Crowd control practice; the sentinel; Crowd Blast for real: 'I hate that ability.'
Princess Donut — Zombie clones; a feud with a dog soldier; her last Puddle Jump.
Imani — Chains for the crane; commands the defence; negates the acid.
Elle McGibbons — Freezes acid pools; 'You crazy sonofabitch. I think your stupid idea worked.'
Li Jun and Zhang — Level-28 Earth Mover; the shrinking wand's last charge.
Fire Brandy — Knows now; gives Carl hundreds of Sheol Bricks; took Madison's body into the fire.
Madison — Hanged by the dwarves and gremlins.
Tserendolgor — A Dog Soldier Crisper in a Vietnam helmet; 'And I am not a ‘he.’'
Daniel Bautista — Trapped between mantaur bosses and the tunnels.

Locations

The stairwell rooms — Station 36 with a portal hung over the hole; the logo etched in the floor.
The noodle — Katia's noodle: the space between the mirrored tracks, now an 'escape tunnel'

Motifs

The Krakaren — The exclamation point of Borant's cartoon: an eruption from below.
The interdiction carts — A cart hung nose-down as a drain.
Carl's Doomsday Scenario — Soul crystals blow like fuses; Carl's is bigger.
The mobs are victims — Madison hanged; Brandy keeping the fire for her babies 'as long as it will last.'
Staying human — 'I couldn't believe people could've gotten this far and still remain such idiots.'