Character · from book 1
Hekla
An Icelandic psychiatrist in a Valkyrie helmet with a repeating crossbow, whom the show dresses as a shieldmaiden: on screen in book 1, second on the leaderboard and Katia's sender in book 2, and in book 3 the woman who comes to the party's own rooms with thirty Daughters to use Katia as a cowcatcher and Carl's temper as a trap, and dies against the wall of a train car when Katia's Rush misses Eva.
Race and class, since book 2: Amazonian · Shieldmaiden
First appears: Book 1 · Seen for what it is: Book 3
Series arc
In hindsight, after book 3
Read after book 3, Hekla is a plan the reader was shown in pieces. Book 1 sees her on the recaps, forming a shieldmaiden persona that the AI plays up with loot. Book 2 has her send Katia to Carl with a message asking him to keep her out of danger, has Mordecai suggest poaching Katia from her, and ends with Odette's warning that she is practical, cunning, without Carl's sense of justice, and obsessed with getting Donut. Book 3 supplies the rest — she was Eva's psychiatrist; she came to the party's own rooms with thirty women; and, as Carl reads it afterwards, a fairy healer was bait, Katia was shot to make his temper flare, and the healer's two daughters waited outside with orders to kill him first — and then kills her by accident, at Katia's hands, before she can explain herself. The Trace has the lines. Her sponsor was Odette's crab ranch, which Odette on air calls her husband's doing and off air owns: 'It wasn’t my husband. It was me.'
As of book 7. Dead since the Iron Tangle; what remains of her is a template and a face: Katia's flag with her eyes crossed out, her crossbow named by Pater Coal as a path to Geyrun's murderer, and on the ninth floor her laugh out of Eris, whose pilot had surgery to look and sound like her.
Open threads
Status is open or resolved; the chapter after it is the last one that moved the thread.
| Thread | Opened | Status |
|---|---|---|
| Why Odette sponsored Hekla | B3 ch. 35 | open · B5 ch. 43 — Odette tried as a manager and pleaded down; still no explanation of Hekla. |
| The parallel crawls: Lucia Mar and Hekla | B1 ch. 14 | resolved · B3 ch. 23 — Hekla met, used, and killed; Lucia Mar still first and still on screen. |
| Hekla's design on Donut | B2 ch. 26 | resolved · B3 ch. 23 — Hekla came for Katia, used a healer as bait, and died against a train wall; Brynhild's Daughters is no more. |
All threads: Open threads.
Through book 1
On screen only: the show's shieldmaiden and her Daughters. Donut wants to join them.
Through book 2
Through book 3
The thread Odette lit in book 2 pays out. Hekla comes to the Royal Palace with thirty Daughters to retrieve Katia and to borrow her as a cowcatcher (B3 ch. 21), shoots her with invisible bolts on the ride (B3 ch. 22), and is killed against the wall of the car by the Rush she provoked (B3 ch. 23). Carl reconstructs the plan: Katia dead, Carl goaded into attacking a healer and killed for it, Donut and Mordecai left with nowhere to go (B3 ch. 24). She was Eva's psychiatrist; her sponsor was Odette's crab ranch; her party dissolves (B3 ch. 21, B3 ch. 24, B3 ch. 35).
Through book 4
Through book 5
'If I had killed her instead of Hekla, she wouldn't have had the chance' (B5 ch. 78).
Through book 6
Through book 7
Her laugh out of Eris, by surgery (B7 ch. 62).
Trace
The thread line by line, in reading order: its presence before anyone could see it, and the lines that made it legible. Each line is verbatim from the cited book.
| Where | The line | Note |
|---|---|---|
| Book 1, Ch. 39 | The woman’s name was Hekla, and the announcer gave a short history of her home country of Iceland. | First named on a recap: a shieldmaiden persona she is forming, which the AI plays up with loot. |
| Book 2, Ch. 21 | Good enough to maybe poach her from this Hekla. But she is very, very far behind. Probably too far behind. | Mordecai on Katia, the day Hekla sends her. |
| Book 2, Ch. 21 | I am glad you haven’t been assassinated. Please help Katia. | Hekla's message, relayed by Katia; 'I promise to make it up to you.' |
| Book 2, Ch. 26 | She does not have your sense of justice, which makes her dangerous. I’ve watched her some, and she’s becoming obsessed with the idea of getting Donut to join her gang. | Odette's parting warning at the end of the third floor. |
| Book 3, Ch. 21 | “No,” Katia said. “She was Eva’s psychiatrist.” | How Eva knew her before the dungeon. |
| Book 3, Ch. 24 | She was a shrink. She probably had some big plan worked out. | Carl reconstructs the plan after she is dead: Silfa as bait, Katia as the victim, his temper as the trigger. |
Where they appear
| Book | Chapters they are in (of the book's) | Where |
|---|---|---|
| 1 — Dungeon Crawler Carl | 1/48 | Ch. 39 · the book's own page |
| 2 — Carl's Doomsday Scenario | 7/26 | Ch. 7, Ch. 19, Ch. 20, Ch. 21, Ch. 23, Ch. 24, Ch. 26 · the book's own page |
| 3 — The Dungeon Anarchist's Cookbook | 23/35 | 1–6, 10, 12–14, 18, 20–25, 27, 29–32, 35 · the book's own page |
| 4 — The Gate of the Feral Gods | 6/35 | Ch. 10, Ch. 14, Ch. 20, Ch. 23, Ch. 29, Ch. 33 · the book's own page |
| 5 — The Butcher's Masquerade | 3/78 | Ch. 41, Ch. 67, Ch. 78 · the book's own page |
| 6 — The Eye of the Bedlam Bride | 4/74 | Ch. 11, Ch. 18, Ch. 32, Ch. 36 · the book's own page |
| 7 — This Inevitable Ruin | 2/89 | Ch. 62, Ch. 76 · the book's own page |
By book
Hekla in book 1 — Dungeon Crawler Carl
The 'crossbow woman' of the recap episodes: a Valkyrie helmet, a repeating crossbow of firebolts, a bear-sized tentacle monster thrown into the air and shot twice (ch. 20, ch. 30). By ch. 39 the show has named her — Hekla, of Iceland — given her a harem-fantasy breastplate and an all-female party, Brynhild's Daughters. Donut wants to join them; Carl doubts he would be welcome.
Hekla in book 2 — Carl's Doomsday Scenario
An Amazonian Shieldmaiden now, a foot taller and bodybuilder-wide, her Daughters scattered by selection (ch. 7). Live on Danger Zone, she asks Carl to take on Katia as a personal favour and watches his speech without expression (ch. 19); asked by an owl why she left her husband to fend for himself, she answers 'He left me' — he was going to get them both killed — and says she regrets it. Second on the leaderboard (epilogue). Odette's warning: practical, cunning, no sense of justice, and after Donut for the manager.
Hekla in book 3 — The Dungeon Anarchist's Cookbook
Level 33, nine inches taller than Carl, an iron handshake, Eva's former psychiatrist. She farms mobs through train doors (ch. 4), names a move the Donut Kick (ch. 5), warns Katia that Carl is crazy (ch. 14), and arrives in the Royal Palace with thirty Daughters to collect her lamb and borrow her as a cowcatcher (ch. 21). On the ride she shoots Katia twice with phased bolts, Enraged and grinning through gore — 'There are many wonders in a cow's head' (ch. 22) — and afterwards lights a cigarette: 'It was a stupid risk' (ch. 23). Katia's Rush kills her against the wall of the car (ch. 23); Donut raises her corpse to hold the door (ch. 24). The recap makes her a tribute — a husband left to the rats, a rib bone through a rat's eye (ch. 25) — and Carl works out the plan she was running: Katia dead, Carl goaded into attacking a healer and killed for it, Donut and Mordecai with nowhere else to go (ch. 24). Her sponsor was a crab ranch (epilogue).
Hekla in book 4 — The Gate of the Feral Gods
Hekla in book 5 — The Butcher's Masquerade
'If I had killed her instead of Hekla, she wouldn't have had the chance' (epilogue).
Hekla in book 6 — The Eye of the Bedlam Bride
Hekla in book 7 — This Inevitable Ruin
Eris laughs Hekla's laugh, because her pilot had surgery to look and sound like her (ch. 62).