Character · Book 4, The Gate of the Feral Gods

Katia Grim

Crawler #9,077,265, a former art teacher and one of Brynhild's Daughters, sent to Carl and Donut by Hekla to level up: a doppelganger who must sculpt her own face and gets it wrong, in a Monster Truck Driver class whose constitution climbs with speed. Level 9 when she arrives at the One-Eyed Narwhal; 21 when she leaves the floor with them.

Segment appearances

• Chapter 1 — Hump Town
• Chapter 2 — The Wasteland through a telescope
• Chapter 3 — A goose from the sky
• Chapter 4 — The Royal Chariot; Ifechi
• Chapter 5 — Rapid Detox
• Chapter 6 — City hall
• Chapter 7 — The frog con
• Chapter 8 — A yam from the pacifists
• Chapter 9 — Ruckus
• Chapter 10 — Squeeze out the Juice Box
• Chapter 11 — The Vahana
• Chapter 12 — Dolores Doesn't Splat
• Chapter 13 — Gerbils
• Chapter 14 — Maggie
• Chapter 15 — The Gate of the Feral Gods
• Chapter 17 — Jennifer and Dale's house
• Chapter 18 — One
• Chapter 19 — Orren
• Chapter 20 — Gwendolyn Duet
• Chapter 21 — Ghazi
• Chapter 22 — Mrs. Ghazi
• Chapter 23 — The winding box explained
• Chapter 24 — Samantha
• Chapter 25 — The Akula
• Chapter 26 — Lusca
• Chapter 27 — Leatherface
• Chapter 28 — Emberus
• Chapter 29 — Where the Red God Glows
• Chapter 30 — Get Orthrus
• Chapter 32 — Acolyte of Emberus
• Chapter 33 — Phase three
• Chapter 34 — Seeding the pond

Arc

The chair, the hostage, the corpse

Katia's book 4 is the floor where her shape is the plan. She is a pipe on a wall watching a door (ch. 6), the back seat of the Chariot, the body of Wynne and the body of Henrik at once with a bag of ghoul blood for a throat, and the head that grows back when Donut's spell runs out (ch. 11, ch. 12); a diving bell with three poles, then the camouflage on a submarine's hull (ch. 25); a second face on the back of her head to argue with Carl while driving at a boss (ch. 9). She designs the Chariot from an Earth Hobby potion's knowledge — 'Like I'm tapped directly into Wikipedia' — and wonders what it means for a society that anyone can drink expertise (ch. 4). With ten bolts of Petrify Rock Class from her box she turns Maggie-in-Chris to stone and keeps him petrified (ch. 14).

Five days alone

When Carl, Donut and Mordecai vanish into a liaison's hold, she flies the house to the land quadrant, breaches a magic door, kills scorpion men for five days, argues with Gwen and gets back on the top ten above Carl (ch. 19, ch. 20). She kills Ghazi in a small fight and loots the note that explains the artifact (ch. 22); she maps the ninth floor from a list of times (ch. 23, ch. 24) and reads the box as a reverse compass (ch. 27). 'I wasn't going to take shit any more.'

Leaving

The days without Carl and Donut, she tells him, showed her she can do this without his help. Eva is regathering the Daughters and has got Silfa and her girls killed; the former Daughters are vulnerable; 'when you're in the Carl and Donut party, you ride on the Carl and Donut rollercoaster.' She will separate on the sixth floor with Gwen, Tran, Louis, Firas, Bautista and Florin, keep the personal space through the guild system if she can, and return the Left Fang of the Green Sultan to its owner (ch. 33). Her last act on the floor is to open the real Gate five hundred metres under the sea while the decoy sits in the sand, and to leave by the tomb's stairs (ch. 34). On the question of children: pre-approved to adopt alone in Iceland, disqualified for a reason she will not give, 'glad now' — which Carl can hear is a lie (ch. 15).