Place · Book 4, The Gate of the Feral Gods

The Hunting Grounds

The sixth floor by its NPC name, first spoken by Mordecai on the third: for the over-city's printed residents it is the next level down, an urban floor of bigger and richer villages gone to jungle ruin, once ruled by the high elves. Signet was taken from it as a child, and Carl guesses her story is heading back there. One of the Desperado Club's unlit doors leads to stairs down to it, which open once crawlers reach the sixth floor.

Segment appearances

• Chapter 10 — Squeeze out the Juice Box
• Chapter 15 — The Gate of the Feral Gods
• Chapter 24 — Samantha
• Chapter 33 — Phase three

Arc

'The Hunting Grounds are our ancient home' — Juice Box, suddenly serious (ch. 10). Mordecai: where hunters start at thirty, can sign up until the sixth floor opens, and are the only rich who can die; where the factions send people for gear (ch. 24). Priestly: 'the murderers who cleaved through us like chaff on that nightmare of a sixth floor' (ch. 33). The changelings go there through a portal; the hunters, a record number, are already there; Carl's pledge is to kill every one (ch. 33, ch. 34).