Chapter 32 of 35 · Book 3, The Dungeon Anarchist's Cookbook

Chapter 32 — Prepotente

Book: The Dungeon Anarchist's Cookbook · Previous: Chapter 31 — The Iron Tangle, signing off · Next: Chapter 33 — Death Challenge · Floor: Floor 4 — The Iron Tangle · Series: the series

Opening

» Time to the Opening of the Stairwells: 11 Hours

Summary

Seventeen hours; eleven to the stairwells. Elle at the blown station 12: the crystal a dead marble, a hole straight through to the upside-down twin room, and a dropped rock that rolls around the inside of the noodle — 'down' is the nearest wall. Li Na's idea: raise the hanging cart a foot, poke the province boss on the other side, and let it teleport itself to the abyss. Donut leans into the hole ('It looks like one of those guys whose pants doesn't cover his butt'), gets an achievement for seeing it, and double-shots it; the cart shudders as the boss is sucked away. Li Na, offered a high five: 'you will experience excruciating pain throughout your entire body that will cause you to lose control of your bladder and bowels' Then a nasal British voice from the far side: Prepotente, the Caprid, number two, who had the boss asleep and was two hours from inducing cardiac arrest — a kill that would have chained every soul crystal on the floor. He screams without reason, offers to crunch Imani's bones, calls Donut 'delightful' and the only other sapient Earth creature; Miriam Dom whacks him with her crook ('sit there and think about what you've said, Pony'), kisses the spot, and makes him apologise. Their hellspawn goat passes, black flames and six breasts. 'We needed to stay the fuck away from them.'

Li Jun, Li Na (a Changbi Slave Driver with four chains, level 30) and Zhang ride the last cart with Carl toward yard E, portaling a Krakaren neighbourhood boss off station 24's platform on the way. The yard: five hundred monsters, the mimic as tall as the cavern with blimp-sized eyes and a tongue wreaking havoc on anyone in the area, mouths on centipede legs that double when halved, two mantaur bosses at the employee line. The Cookbook on deities — Coolie (19th): three summonings, all fatal, 'the gods are invulnerable except on the 12th'; Forkith: 'they still feel pain […] This is for Barkith'; Tin (21st): the gods are Soul Armor the aliens wear like clothes. Mordecai, alarmed: an involuntary summoning lasts vessel level plus god level in seconds — Grull is 250, so 290; the god grows to fill his chamber, so a potion vial would hold him small; there is no cooldown, and a god can be pulled from one summoning to another — 'I learned it the hard way.' 'The plan has changed.' Katia pins one mantaur as a pillar, Li Na lassoes it unconscious, Li Jun shatters the other's leg; Carl punches the counter up to blinking — the dying mantaur croaks 'He is risen!' — and the party carries the vessel to the cart's portal with seconds to go. It grips the rail, Zhang drives the portal onto it, and as it vanishes its last hand is around Carl's numb, invulnerable foot.

Characters

• Carl — Baits the mantaurs; summons Grull on purpose into a portal; pulled in by the foot.
• Prepotente — Number two; screams; plotted cardiac arrest for a province boss; 'I'm sorry I wanted to murder you.'
• Miriam Dom — A crook, a kiss, and total authority over a goat.
• Li Jun and Zhang — Kung fu and Dirt Clod; acid-immune by choice; Zhang drives the cart.
• Li Na — A Changbi Slave Driver, level 30, four chains; the plan's best critic; lassoes a mantaur unconscious.
• Princess Donut — Shoots a province boss in the butt; 'He called me delightful!'
• Mordecai — The rules of summoning; 'I learned it the hard way. The hardest way possible.'
• Elle McGibbons — Reports from the blown 12; the rock in the noodle.

Locations

• The noodle — Katia's word, which Donut declares its name; gravity toward the nearest wall; a hole through to the upside-down room.
• The trainyards — Yard E under the mimic; crawlers trapped in the building and a train car.

Motifs

• The gods — Summoning rules from the Cookbook and from Mordecai; Grull as a weapon.
• The Dungeon Anarchist's Cookbook — Coolie, Forkith and Tin on deities; Carl records the formula.
• The Krakaren — A neighbourhood boss portaled off a platform.
• Club Vanquisher — Prepotente's club; his disappointment at Donut's choice.