Motif · Book 4, The Gate of the Feral Gods

The hunters

Tourists on the sixth floor, the Hunting Grounds, as Mordecai first describes them on the third: 'brave and insane' people who pay to go down and hunt crawlers — expensive and dangerous, with no protections for the hunters, so that 'every season a handful of rich dumbasses get themselves killed.'

Segment appearances

• Chapter 1 — Hump Town
• Chapter 8 — A yam from the pacifists
• Chapter 9 — Ruckus
• Chapter 24 — Samantha
• Chapter 32 — Acolyte of Emberus
• Chapter 33 — Phase three
• Chapter 34 — Seeding the pond
• Epilogue — Epilogue: the Walk-On List

Progression

Mordecai's answers: hunters start at level thirty, can sign up until the sixth floor opens, are the only rich who can really die, and sell what they win to the factions (ch. 24). A record number this season, entry fees paid by 'a generous, anonymous sponsor' (ch. 33). With Larracos's market drowned, the factions must send their own people down: 'seeding the pond' (ch. 34). Carl's pledge, on his life: every hunter on the sixth floor dead before it collapses.