Character · Book 7, This Inevitable Ruin

Boomer

A grizzled old elf veteran of one of the earliest seasons, with a cigar, a warrant and two war gauntlets, who takes command of the southern front, runs the Reaver raid and tells Carl to stay out of his operation. In the epilogue he is in orbit, older, calling York to warm up the lasers.

Segment appearances

• Chapter 21 — The southern trenches; rot stickers
• Chapter 22 — Colonel Boomer
• Chapter 24 — No Man's Land
• Chapter 25 — Empress, you have visitors
• Chapter 26 — Milk; the Empress marked
• Chapter 27 — Gavrilo Princip
• Chapter 29 — The Bamboozle
• Chapter 31 — Drop troopers; Tripper
• Chapter 32 — King Rust arrives
• Chapter 39 — Alliances break; Operation Snake Pit
• Chapter 46 — Operation Snake Pit: the line of succession
• Chapter 57 — Thirty-two boxes; the last prisoner
• Chapter 59 — Operation Ruin
• Chapter 61 — The War Mage Rebellion
• Chapter 62 — A non-team entity
• Chapter 63 — Into the Madness
• Chapter 64 — The crystal shows itself
• Chapter 65 — Bear Witness
• Chapter 79 — Tart
• Epilogue — Epilogue: Don't Come in Last

Arc

Elven Legate, level 62, a bulldog pickled for five thousand years with an unlit cigar, banned from Crawl Con, wanted for a waystation killing, publicly disowned by Porthus, loved by his soldiers (ch. 22). He briefs the southern front in 'cheese sticks' and lights the cigar (ch. 22), hits the craters (ch. 24), takes command and wants a stalemate (ch. 25), debriefs in code (ch. 39), and runs the Reaver raid, the Sledge's 'Robots go boom' on his order (ch. 62). Over a private band he tells Carl the truth about Louis's run and his own operation; Carl belays the order (ch. 63). In the epilogue he calls the Homecoming Queen from a docking facility, older, with a poem — 'We won Faction Wars. Now we get to kill more of them' — orders Cronus suits for a pregnant veteran, and takes the war out of the dungeon (epilogue).