Elle McGibbons

Elle McGibbons — Crawler #12,330,800, ninety-nine, in a wheelchair — first asks Carl to put Divorce Court on the safe-room television because her Barry used to watch it (ch. 31). From the last car of the residents' train she tells him what she would have let him do in the tunnel of love (ch. 37); a minute later gravity reverses, throws her onto the ceiling, and Carl carries her along it and down again into Big Shot Chicken with claws a millimetre behind them (ch. 38). At the stairs she calls him Barry, says they should have had children, and suspects an acid flashback because the cat keeps talking to her (ch. 41). Carl kneels to say goodbye and is reminded of his mother's last lie.

Off-page until the epilogue, where she is tenth on the first leaderboard: Elle McGib, Frost Maiden, Blizzardmancer, level 13, having started the floor at level one in a wheelchair. Carl does not know how; Brandon's last message said the residents could not choose human and were getting Legendary Pacifist Boxes and a great deal of magical gear (ch. 8).

A Frost Maiden: four and a half feet, light blue, floating a foot up in her Meadow Lark socks, shouting for Knockout shots (ch. 8). The manager benefit came with the race and Mistress Tiatha cried. She puts an icicle through the eye of the woman who stunned Donut's guards and shrugs off the skull (ch. 9); reads the primes off Mordecai's map (ch. 9); rides the ghoul coaster because she never got to (ch. 18, ch. 19); freezes hundreds in a trainyard and complains about the experience (ch. 19); freezes acid at the chokepoints (ch. 31); and, on a scroll's worth of flight, puts icicles off a god's head to lead him to Katia-as-Carl (ch. 33). Off the leaderboard by ch. 25 and unbothered. 'Stay frosty' (ch. 22). 'Sometimes I think you're cheating, Carl' — to which Donut: 'His name is Mordecai' (ch. 34).

A Frost Maiden with Graupel, a fifty-mana ice storm from her deity box (ch. 2), who iced the NPC who would have taught them to sail, froze the sea when Imani crashed the boat, and holds an oil rig's fireballs off with ice. She relays what Imani will not (ch. 14), reports a flaming giant walking through her bubble ('Well you better fix it') (ch. 28), keeps the Gate safe, weeds liars out of the rescue queue by instinct (ch. 32), tells Florin the story of a man and his cat (ch. 33), threatens the whole floor on a puppy's behalf, and goes down the stairs after handing the three pieces back (ch. 33). Eighth then seventh; her bounty never doubled.

A Tundra Princess on a four-seasons build nobody has completed (ch. 8), level 51 with a brown streak in her white hair and a wedding ring on a chain because her fingers shrank (ch. 36): 'Most fun I've had' (ch. 51). At the party she is the eyewitness to a hunter swelling on the dead dryads' blood and birthing a god (ch. 62), names the castle the Sugar Cube (ch. 66), calls over a Crest hunter and learns how his brother became Diwata's birthing vessel (ch. 69, ch. 70), christens Ferdinand Cat-nac the Magnificent (ch. 72) and tells Carl to go fuck himself when he plans to die (ch. 73). Her painted mainsail is the backdrop; 'So much for season three' (ch. 74). She ices a dying raptor in the pit (ch. 76) and feels bad about Horton (ch. 77).

Guards Katia while she surfs (ch. 28); 'I hope you know what you're doing, cowboy' (ch. 30); Belgium, where she knows nobody (ch. 38); Graupel at level sixteen, six levels in a thunderclap, and no idea why (ch. 65). 'Okay, warlord. This is your shitshow. What do we gotta do?' (ch. 63).