Motif · Book 6, The Eye of the Bedlam Bride

Waking the NPCs

What the dungeon's people know about themselves: Mordecai's distinction between naturals, whose memories cannot be altered unless they sign away their rights, and the printed and imprinted rest, and the question, whenever an NPC seems to know more than it should, of what waking would mean.

Segment appearances

• Chapter 19 — What's in the box
• Chapter 21 — The warlords' table
• Chapter 22 — Uzi Jesus
• Chapter 26 — MaeMae
• Chapter 33 — Vorpals
• Chapter 34 — Family business
• Chapter 51 — Residuals
• Epilogue — Homecoming Queen

Progression

Attendants are almost all high-value former crawlers (ch. 19); Herot wonders how the Worn Path Method will work on the deeper floors (ch. 21); Tagg says they are becoming self-aware, all of them, and nobody can win (ch. 21, ch. 22); Juice Box is her own team (ch. 22); Herot's hypothesis that self-aware NPCs are highly contagious seems true, and a spider knows everything (ch. 26); 'We were doing them a favor', Carl thinks of killing Astrid, then of the kids Mordecai is fostering (ch. 31); 'I was almost done' (ch. 32); how many in the club are former crawlers (ch. 33); a Cookbook writer's third re-read of Herot's essay, and Katia learning that Astrid was a former crawler and a mother — naturals with rights signed away (ch. 34); 'They starve us' (ch. 42); a Former Crawler card (ch. 72); Agatha's memory (epilogue).