Place · from book 3

Larracos

'The capital city of the disputed lands. It is the prize over which the factions fight,' says a crocodilian guard at the Desperado Club's casino, where a staircase leads down to it and the faction armies party until the crawlers reach the ninth floor.

First appears: Book 3

Series arc

As of book 4. 'Larracos is the capital city of the disputed lands, […] It is the prize over which the factions fight.' — a staircase and cheering from below in book 3, where the faction armies party until the ninth floor. Book 4 makes it real and then drowns it: real stores, the College of Magecraft, every place on Ghazi's list, an inverted cone with a castle at the bottom and nine petals of faction ground around it, and Priestly's poem to it. Its faction market is flooded with sharks and seawater by the Gate, opened by Katia under the sea while a decoy sits in the sand, and its shopkeepers, mercenaries, actors and students die under a rule that says NPCs cannot be replaced; half the faction armies are caught in it. Juice Box is sent there as a bird to tell the survivors what they are.

Open threads

Status is open or resolved; the chapter after it is the last one that moved the thread.

Thread	Opened	Status
The changelings, and the promise to bring them down every floor	B4 ch. 34	open · B8 ch. 86 — Mordecai: shadow mimics and changelings are mortal enemies, and mimics find them delicious (ch. 7); the AI: Juice Box herself was 'unceremoniously dumped in Sheol'.
Consequences of the flood	B4 ch. 34	open · B8 ch. 99 — On the epilogue's screens the city has burrowed into the cotton fields and fortified itself.
The elf castle, the changelings and the Sledge on the ninth floor	B5 ch. 76	resolved · B7 ch. 12 — The changelings and flesh golems started the FUPA; Bonnie, Kiwi, Tina, the cubs, Skarn and the Sledge are all on the plain; the children go to the twelfth floor with the city (ch. 85).
The Home Team: Juice Box and Sir Ferdinand as co-warlords	B6 ch. 72	resolved · B7 ch. 85 — Team Retribution won the war for the Posse by losing it: Ferdinand went to the twelfth floor with the city and Juice Box into the Nothing; both left the realm and forfeited.

All threads: Open threads.

Through book 3

First named at the Desperado Club's casino, where a crocodilian guard explains that a staircase leads down to it: 'Larracos is the capital city of the disputed lands, […] It is the prize over which the factions fight.' where the faction armies wait until the crawlers reach the ninth floor (B3 ch. 9). Mordecai: crawlers pass over that floor 'like it's a tornado passing by overhead' (B3 ch. 30).

Through book 4

Real stores; the College of Magecraft; every place on Ghazi's list; an inverted cone with a castle at the bottom and nine petals around it (B4 ch. 3, B4 ch. 21, B4 ch. 24); Priestly's poem to it (B4 ch. 33). Its faction market is flooded with sharks and seawater by the Gate, its shopkeepers and mercenaries dead and irreplaceable (B4 ch. 34). Juice Box is sent there.

Through book 5

Still flooded, the drains clogged (B5 ch. 58); the reason Carl needs a lawyer (B5 ch. 1) and the battlefield an empress looks forward to (B5 ch. 73).

Through book 6

Still flooded; trapped officials fed to sharks (B6 ch. 35); the Semeru castle on the All-Tree (B6 ch. 54); the Home Team's base (B6 ch. 72).

Through book 7

A funnel city of sixty-six rings, real and lived in, with a drowned castle at the bottom (B7 ch. 7, B7 ch. 8); besieged, its towers turned on Carl, lava on its rings (B7 ch. 70, B7 ch. 71); flowers on its rings (B7 ch. 85); taken whole by Zerzura to the twelfth floor, leaving a pit of stairwells (B7 ch. 85, B7 ch. 86).

Through book 8

On the epilogue's screens the city has burrowed into the cotton fields and fortified itself as the Ascendency begins (B8 ch. 99).

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 2, Ch. 18	some dude in some sprawling capital city that was on the ninth floor.	Unnamed in book 2: the top of the Over City's chain of command.

Where they appear

Book	Chapters they are in (of the book's)	Where
3 — The Dungeon Anarchist's Cookbook	1/35	Ch. 9 · the book's own page
4 — The Gate of the Feral Gods	6/35	Ch. 3, Ch. 21, Ch. 23, Ch. 24, Ch. 33, Ch. 34 · the book's own page
5 — The Butcher's Masquerade	10/78	1, 3, 6, 8, 14, 29, 52, 56, 58, 73 · the book's own page
6 — The Eye of the Bedlam Bride	17/74	2, 17, 19, 21–22, 26–27, 31–35, 54, 61, 64, 66, 72 · the book's own page
7 — This Inevitable Ruin	41/89	1, 4–10, 14, 17, 19–20, 28–29, 40, 46, 50, 56, 60–62, 65, 68–71, 73–87 · the book's own page
8 — A Parade of Horribles	7/99	Ch. 1, Ch. 8, Ch. 10, Ch. 14, Ch. 37, Ch. 55, Ch. 99 · the book's own page

By book

Larracos in book 3 — The Dungeon Anarchist's Cookbook

A staircase in the casino and cheering from below: the factions party until the ninth floor (ch. 9). 'The ninth floor was like a distant, looming stop sign.' Mordecai: crawlers ride the ninth 'like it’s a tornado passing by overhead' (ch. 30).

Larracos in book 4 — The Gate of the Feral Gods

The city

Real stores with NPC proprietors, and everyone expelled when the crawlers arrive (ch. 3); the College of Magecraft, the theatre district, the Tome of Scholars (ch. 21); every destination on Ghazi's list (ch. 23). Mordecai's map: an inverted cone dug by dwarves with the castle at the bottom, nine petals around it, the King's Point pre-fortified, a mercenary market deep in the city (ch. 24). Priestly's poem: museums, galleries, colleges, a play the night before expulsion, and all of it destroyed by the end (ch. 33).

The flood

Katia opens the real Gate five hundred metres under the sea, by the Akula's old shelf, into the faction market at the bottom of the cone: twenty minutes of ocean, timed charges, a chum bomb, a feeding frenzy of Concierge Sharks and pain amplifiers; more than half the city submerged by Katia's reckoning, the shopkeepers, mercenaries and food market dead and irreplaceable by rule, the Desperado Club likely cut off, half the armies hidden there caught (ch. 34). Juice Box is sent through to tell the survivors what they are.

Larracos in book 5 — The Butcher's Masquerade

Still flooded, the drains clogged (ch. 58); the reason Carl needs a lawyer (ch. 1) and the battlefield an empress looks forward to (ch. 73).

Larracos in book 6 — The Eye of the Bedlam Bride

Still flooded; officials trapped in its club until Carl's stunt feeds them to sharks (ch. 21, ch. 35); the Semeru castle on the All-Tree's roots (ch. 54); the Home Team's base (ch. 72).

Larracos in book 7 — This Inevitable Ruin

A funnel city of sixty-six rings numbered from the bottom, a waterfall stepping ring to ring, the college of magic three-quarters up, the Piccadilly on nine still full of jellyfish, the castle at the bottom under water — 'City of Broken Dreams', a real, living place that after Havana's ghosts makes what has already been done to it worse (ch. 7, ch. 8). Priestly went mad at the sight of its ruin (ch. 7, ch. 78). Inaccessible until four teams remain, then the Peeling (ch. 1, ch. 68); besieged by zarogoths, its hundred towers turned on Carl, an aqueduct falling, lava on the top rings (ch. 70, ch. 71); the Semeru's castle a ruin of rot and acid puddles at the end (ch. 78); the rings full of crawlers throwing flowers (ch. 85). Zerzura takes it whole to the twelfth floor, and leaves a pit of stairwells and dead roots over a hole (ch. 85, ch. 86).

Larracos in book 8 — A Parade of Horribles

On the epilogue's screens the city has burrowed into the cotton fields and fortified itself as the Ascendency begins (epilogue).