Motif · Book 7, This Inevitable Ruin

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 1 — Porthus; Welcome to Faction Wars
Chapter 10 — Hamed's club; the small wedding
Chapter 11 — Tipid; fifty thousand
Chapter 15 — The Rolling Battle Formation Ball
Chapter 16 — Everly; Glory Bound
Chapter 20 — Christmas Morning; the Ramp-Up
Chapter 26 — Milk; the Empress marked
Chapter 27 — Gavrilo Princip
Chapter 29 — The Bamboozle
Chapter 32 — King Rust arrives
Chapter 34 — The king's message; Rosetta's whip
Chapter 35 — Volteeg; the dwarves' tunnel
Chapter 43 — Odette hosts; 'It's coming'
Chapter 56 — Justice Light; the Nest
Chapter 63 — Into the Madness
Chapter 79 — Tart
Chapter 81 — Executive Order 11905
Chapter 82 — Ursensus
Chapter 85 — Zerzura
Chapter 86 — We just need to kill you
Chapter 87 — The Nothing has been broken
Epilogue — Epilogue: Don't Come in Last

Progression

This time the NPCs fight from the beginning; the Jatismara remember dozens of seasons; 'some shopkeepers are different' (ch. 7, ch. 8). Juice Box's people are their own (ch. 9); Justice Light's confession and the ice elves (ch. 56); Bucket Boy's shame at not remembering (ch. 69); Tipid's brain wiped to a game guide's last day (ch. 82). A city of NPCs sent to the twelfth floor so that both teams live (ch. 85).