Character · Book 4, The Gate of the Feral Gods

The tomb raiders

Five of the crawlers who started in the subterranean quadrant: Low Thi, a level-25 D-Bag Geek who speared the hostage; Tyler Storm, a Weather Engineer; Mike Barnes 3, a Banana Farmer in a banana costume; Morris Sp, an Arachnid Freelance Psychiatrist; and Bobby D.J., a twitching Spy who was the only one who could find traps. Possessed, drowned out, hunted by a ghost and by Maggie, they die one by one; the last two die connecting the cable that electrifies the tomb. 'All crawlers who originated in the Subterranean Quadrant may now freely travel to the other quadrants. […] Oh, wait. They're all dead!'

Segment appearances

Arc

The worst hand on the floor

Five men in a maze: a village of Nude Glabers at the top, the Crypt of Anser at the bottom, a different trap in every hall and one Spy to find them, and the people sent ahead of him dying of needles that inject flesh-eating beetles (ch. 7, ch. 8). They lose a map to Carl and Low Thi spears Wynne (ch. 6); earlier, Morris says, they killed the Bactrians' pig-hostage with banana seeds before they knew what it was, and the other map went when the room blew up (ch. 7). Morris the tarantaur psychiatrist and Bobby the twitching Spy sit with Katia while she draws them a path (ch. 7). They fetch Wynne's head for the con (ch. 11).

Drowned, possessed, dead

The tomb floods when the Akula falls; they hide in saferooms; Mike the banana is eaten from inside by Finger-sized Flesh Weasels (ch. 20); Chris and Maggie kill Tyler; a trap possesses the last three, and a crawler named Janice walks into a crusher (ch. 29). Morris and Low Thi free themselves by hurting themselves; Bobby, still possessed, is crushed; Low Thi draws the ghost off — 'I'm on pterodactyl duty' — and Morris reaches the connector on his silk: 'It's connected! I did it! Going back up…' Every crawler who started in the necropolis died, and the AI's announcement laughs about it. Gwen loots their remains from the dry tomb (ch. 33).