Essay

Open threads

Every long fuse the books have lit, with where it was lit and the latest thing the text has said about it. Status is open or resolved; the chapter after it is the last one that moved the thread. Each character's page carries the rows that name them. Read through book 8.

Open (88)

Thread	Entities	Opened	Latest
Mordecai's advice to leave Donut before the ninth floor	Mordecai, Princess Donut, Carl	B1 ch. 7	B8 ch. 90 — Carl leaves the Royal Court of Princess Donut himself, to keep her from harm and so that if he dies she will not lose it all, sewing on a Lucky Shot patch that hour; she stops speaking to him first (ch. 69).
'There are no gods here. Just those who pay for the privilege'	The gods, Mordecai	B1 ch. 25	B8 ch. 66 — Tourists cannot be killed on any floor left; the Maestro regenerates in his twelfth-floor quarters; the eighteenth's are 'begging me to end their suffering' (ch. 92).
The tenth floor's rules, and Odette's deal	The tenth floor, Odette	B1 ch. 29	B8 ch. 88 — The one deal after the floor: a season as a game guide, medical, a stipend, a gag order — Quasar 'wouldn’t trust it'; no exit at the eleventh's end, one at the twelfth's start; 172 take it.
Borant's bankruptcy and the Valtay fleet at the door	Borant, The Valtay Corporation, Zev, The Syndicate	B1 ch. 36	B8 ch. 27 — Lexis: 'Borant doesn’t have manpower to watch the feeds anyway. Everything is in a shambles' — she is on loan to them while stuck in system.
Carl's challenge to Prince Maestro	Prince Maestro, The Skull Empire, Carl	B1 ch. 43	B8 ch. 66 — The Maestro rides Grull into the Screw Factory in person; Laundry Day ejects him into the molten river, and he cannot die on the tenth floor.
Seeds: whether they grow faster than the show can cut them	Seeds, Carl	B2 ch. 11	B8 ch. 67 — The AI, in a quest reward: 'But a strange thing happens when you spread a bunch of seeds in fertile soil. They sprout and start to do things on their own.'
Carl's Doomsday Scenario	Carl's Doomsday Scenario, Carl	B2 ch. 25	B8 ch. 10 — The achievement Bombs Away! records that Carl dropped every bomb in his inventory at the war's end; he is left with only the big bombs, among them the Doomsday Scenario and a nuke on a robot dog.
King Rust's deity sponsorship, and the Grull gauntlet	The gods, The Skull Empire, Carl, Mordecai	B2 ch. 26	B8 ch. 66 — Grull himself walks into the Screw Factory when Corcunda's summons calls him, with the Maestro riding inside; the Scavenger's Daughter opens for him and every four-legged creature's strongest attack doubles.
The Dungeon Anarchist's Cookbook and its price	The Dungeon Anarchist's Cookbook, Carl	B3 ch. 8	B8 ch. 38 — Herot, author of the sixteenth edition, is alive and trapped in the Pineapple Cabaret; Forkith is alive in Sheol (ch. 99).
What the Valtay want for their pill	The Valtay Corporation, Carl	B3 ch. 13	B8 ch. 85 — The implant still reports: 'Your neural implant is working in incompatibility mode due to recent changes to your wetware system' — Carl is a dachshund at the time.
The Bolt of Ophiotaurus	The Bolt of Ophiotaurus, Princess Formidable, Katia Grim, The gods	B3 ch. 29	B8 ch. 96 — Donut fires Katia's Bolt of Ophiotaurus into Emberus's smouldering eye socket and a Danforth bolt into the other: 'The yellow invulnerability glow winked off. The god was now vulnerable for fifteen seconds.'
The Krakaren, real and spreading	The Krakaren, Borant	B3 ch. 30	B8 ch. 92 — The Apothecary, the Krakaren, is the last physical Primal, engineered to meld, who joined the resistance, took the brunt of the final attack and emerged from a millennium's cocoon as what she fought; she sheds Residuals; many believe she stopped the attack (ch. 99).
The Maestro is alive, and drives Grull	Prince Maestro, The gods, The Skull Empire, Carl	B3 ch. 33	B8 ch. 66 — The Maestro is ejected from Grull by Laundry Day into molten metal; he cannot die on the tenth, and under the mandatory soul-armour rule Carl expects him back in the god within minutes.
Why Odette sponsored Hekla	Odette, Hekla	B3 ch. 35	B8 ch. 88 — Odette's husband is Harry Tisch, the Crest who bought every show Donut has named; the AI's closing images show 'Odette as Nekhebit' among the contenders (ch. 99).
The collapse dead in storage	The collapse dead, Frank Q and Maggie My, Carl	B4 ch. 14	B8 ch. 83 — Tipid knows the holding areas from a season on a site-prep crew; the casino's one-way portal leads to a stasis chamber (ch. 85), and the stasis chamber to Sheol (ch. 99).
The count of administrators: 'One.'	The count, Carl, The Dungeon Anarchist's Cookbook	B4 ch. 18	B8 ch. 99 — Loita's count of administrators stands at one; the AI tells every screen 'I am not the Eulogist' and 'I am eternity', naming itself something other than the centre system's mind.
A goddess's head in the training room	Samantha, Mordecai	B4 ch. 24	B8 ch. 97 — Samantha leaves the party in the arena, whispering to Taranis and going with him and Krakaren; her message, sent after she slips away at the temple, names her target (ch. 99).
The AI going primal	The System AI, Mordecai	B4 ch. 28	B8 ch. 93 — 'Primals. All of them. All the way down': the AI a cup from the ocean, every sapient mob a drip from the same well.
The changelings, and the promise to bring them down every floor	Juice Box, Carl, Larracos	B4 ch. 34	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'.
Chris, freed, owed to Imani	Chris, Imani, Meadow Lark (party)	B4 ch. 34	B8 ch. 85 — 'I love you' and 'I always have' to Imani at the portal, and into it; he wakes held down in Sheol with the Change imminent (ch. 99).
Consequences of the flood	Larracos, Faction Wars, Borant, The Syndicate	B4 ch. 34	B8 ch. 99 — On the epilogue's screens the city has burrowed into the cotton fields and fortified itself.
The river in Carl's head	Carl, "You're not going to break me"	B5 ch. 8	B7 ch. 86 — Named for what it is: 'Not a river. It had never been a river.' Souls (ch. 65). It does not leave with the ring: a laugh 'from within the river' sounds 'distinctly like that of Eris' (ch. 86).
The guild system: Safehome Yolanda and the shared space	Katia Grim, Imani, The Royal Palace of Princess Donut, The Hunting Grounds	B5 ch. 21	B8 ch. 90 — Prepotente asks to attach his space (ch. 61); Carl leaves the Royal Court for Safehome Yolanda and a one-room space, to keep Donut from harm.
Cascadia	The System AI, The show, Mordecai	B5 ch. 63	B8 ch. 78 — Cascadia's overdose and the goddess in the submerged wings: Zev reports from headquarters that she 'accidentally' took too much of her medicine, and that when the AI intervened a goddess appeared in the submerged wings; Zev is locked down.
The children inside Lucia Mar	Lucia Mar, Florin, Zev	B5 ch. 71	B8 ch. 51 — Azra, Mehmet Or's daughter, speaks from Lucia's mouth: 'It’s so cold'; Chalchiuhtlicue is with them (ch. 52); a girl of five follows Lucia into the stairwell (ch. 98).
A memorial crystal for Apito, who is not dead	Emberus, The gods, Prepotente, Scolopendra	B5 ch. 77	B8 ch. 98 — Apito's crystal is 0% charged and 'should not exist' (ch. 70); it protected a building from Scolopendra's attack and charged to 11.1% (ch. 82); Taranis pulled it off Prepotente's neck.
Sir Ferdinand, a minion on the ninth floor	Princess Donut, The Walk-On List, Bea	B5 ch. 77	B8 ch. 76 — A warlord, not a minion, in book 7: co-warlord with Juice Box, mayor of Shanty Town for a hat, gone to the twelfth floor (B7 ch. 85). In book 8, Apartment 231 in the L'Engle Building belongs to Marjory, Gravy Boat's owner; Bill is the ex under a restraining order who keeps calling.
The Popovs, ineligible, on the surface	The collapse dead, The Syndicate, Zev	B5 ch. 77	B8 ch. 74 — The Popovs' mother's what-if apartment in the L'Engle Building is pink, with a poodle whose eyes are sewn shut.
Damascus Steel and Anaconda go to avenge their mother	Shi Maria, The Desperado Club, The mobs are victims	B6 ch. 34	B8 ch. 85 — Damascus Steel and Anaconda, gone hunting for their father, joined his cause instead; Hamed runs the club and the Guild of Suffering; the strippers who went to see him vanish; the shadow mimics were sent against his revolution (ch. 86).
A book nearly everyone carries, with a nefarious purpose 'clear later'	The Filthy Little Crawler's Book of Voodoo, The System AI	B6 ch. 40	B8 ch. 79 — Carl posts his plan on his own page (ch. 69); every leaver adds a spell by Milk's method; its lightning pages are eaten in the arena (ch. 95).
A million-gold loan from the Temple of Emberus	Carl, Emberus	B6 ch. 56	B8 ch. 95 — Carl leaves Emberus's faith in Club Scolopendra and the god dies a chapter later; book 8 does not mention the loan.
Garret: Ren's pet, level one, in a carrier	Tserendolgor, Carl, Mongo	B6 ch. 59	B8 ch. 26 — Named Sir Rendlegore, 'Rend', in book 7 on Louis's suggestion (B7 ch. 5); his sixth death, at a reaper's word, leaves him stronger, remembering, and weak to potatoes.
What Samantha is becoming	Samantha, Elle McGibbons	B6 ch. 65	B8 ch. 99 — Samantha leaves with Taranis and Krakaren, the two pieces of Apito he says he is taking, by Carl's guess, slips away at the temple, and means to kill 'THE DEMON MOTHER LADY AND HER JERK SON' who tricked her into bearing a monster.
Amayon witnessed the deal that killed Geyrun	Amayon, Emberus, The gods	B6 ch. 69	B8 ch. 70 — Amayon is still the one who 'claims to know who did it'; Carl suspects a key detail of the whole mystery is a lie (ch. 95).
The Eye of the Bedlam Bride: an eye tattooed into Carl's chest	Carl, Shi Maria, The Eye of the Bedlam Bride, Li Jun and Zhang	B6 ch. 71	B8 ch. 86 — On the forehead of Carl as a dachshund the Eye speaks — 'Let me take over' and 'I am here when you need me' — and, opened by reflex, freezes a shadow mimic cold; Elle tells Carl he is keeping secrets from them: 'It’s going to bite us on the butt' (ch. 87).
The Scavenger's Daughter: an undischarged bar and a voice	Carl, The Scavenger's Daughter, The Anarchist's Battle Rattle	B6 ch. 72	B8 ch. 98 — The Scavenger's Daughter patch opens for Eris, Grull, Taranis, Emberus and Khepri and grants their effects; it blinks at Lucia 'for she does not know what she sees' (ch. 51); 'has closed her eyes' and 'she weeps'.
Two kinds of Residual, and a hidden upgrade	Agatha, The Residuals, The Eulogist, The Krakaren, Primal engines	B6 ch. 73	B8 ch. 92 — The AI's history: the Eulogist's security instance sheds Residuals — 'Agatha’s team' — and the Apothecary sheds them too; macro AIs are Residuals from a higher branch.
Fifty thousand former crawlers in a garbage freighter	Tipid, Rosetta Thagra, Porthus, The Princess Posse, Sponsorship	B6 ch. 73	B8 ch. 27 — Lexis: the ship 'is decked out in enhancement-zone weaponry that actually works now that the AI has escaped containment'; the Network took every major ship in orbit in a day.
The AI's containment disconnected, and a sphere that grows	Carl, The System AI, The failsafe, Orren, The Syndicate	B7 ch. 20	B8 ch. 99 — The AI controls the tunnels and every system that housed a crawl, killed a Mantis system, and tells every screen 'I am eternity'; the centre-system AI's systems are beyond it.
The Aryl system went dark when the button was pressed	Princess Formidable, The failsafe, The System AI, The Nebulars	B7 ch. 41	Formidable's crew pressed a dead button; at that nanosecond the previous crawl's system lost its tunnel node, which has never happened; its AI had gone silent during the sixth floor. Three cycles until anyone knows if the star is there.
The War Mage Rebellion, and the Scavenger's daughter it took	Agatha, The Scavenger's Daughter, Elle McGibbons	B7 ch. 61	B8 ch. 38 — Akuma's account: five mages left, the Cabaret their oasis, the crawlers their third choice, the Scavenger's Daughter 'crucial, as is her father'; he wanted two teams dead so that the heats would pit Carl against a team of his friends and leave him no choice but to help.
A voice in the river, a dwarf's perhaps: 'You're family now'	Carl, The all-tree, The river in Carl's head, The gods	B7 ch. 65	The voice in the river tells Carl 'This is the second time I've told you that you're not crazy' with his feet in an All Tree root, and 'She would be proud of you.' Hellik says the All Tree is rotting; Donut can map it on the twelfth.
The Christmas present, still unopened	Carl, Imani, Princess Donut	B7 ch. 65	B8 ch. 61 — Two wrapped presents still on a table in the common room, one for Carl and one for Imani.
Houston's Beautiful Place: the changelings as the key	The changelings, Li Jun and Zhang, The Residuals	B7 ch. 68	B8 ch. 29 — The stampeding caprids of Plenty of Plenty chant 'The beautiful place' among their omens (ch. 29); Carl's float lists it among the Unwashed's thousand names, 'the Hag, the Unwashed, the Stalker, the Beautiful Place' (ch. 92).
Porthus's plan: the Apothecary's reason, the Impetus Point, and Menerva	Porthus, Rosetta Thagra, The Krakaren, The Open Intellect Pacifist Action Network, Baroness Victory	B7 ch. 69	B8 ch. 38 — A Menerva named: a former crawler who built the seventeenth floor and the Pineapple Cabaret with Herot and runs the Backstage Death Maze (ch. 55); book 7 names Porthus's missing crawler Menerva (ch. 69), but this book does not say she is the same woman, and Rosetta knows the name and will not say.
Krakaren Prime in the Nothing, preparing for a war	The Krakaren, The Nothing	B7 ch. 71	B8 ch. 97 — Krakaren Prime is in Club Scolopendra (ch. 28), then the level-235 floor boss atop the arena's tree, brought for 'what you and someone else are planning' (ch. 94); Taranis, taking 'two' of his mother's pieces, leaves with her and Samantha (ch. 97).
Lucia Mar cannot die: 120,000 children and the Eulogist's new ally	Lucia Mar, The Eulogist, Florin	B7 ch. 72	B8 ch. 83 — Lucia refuses a deal and reaches the eleventh, and steps into the stairwell down with Florin and a child of about five (ch. 98): 'If Lucia died, the tens of thousands of children in her head would die. She had to be protected'
Donut as the Oak Fell, Champion of Nekhebit	Princess Donut, The gods, Odette, The Celestial Ascendency	B7 ch. 76	B8 ch. 61 — 'The Oak Fell lives up to her name,' through Mordecai's hood, the second of his prophecies; Donut's claws on one paw are celestial and permanent, and their glow cannot be switched off (ch. 9).
Eris, unsponsored and free, in the galaxy	The gods, The Celestial Ascendency	B7 ch. 76	B8 ch. 97 — Eris is level 251 on a meat cart with an offer and a coin (ch. 35); in the arena she says four of her mother's five pieces are present and shows her true form: 'You are chaos incarnate.'
Britney and the axe	Britney Proskurina	B7 ch. 76	B8 ch. 83 — Britney's axe is a pickaxe now; she kills Osvaldo at the portal and takes Ysalte's crystal; Samantha: a plinth at the Basilica or the Vulgar Temple would bring Ysalte 'back for good', and the Halls of the Ascendency or Sheol might get her out of Britney; into the stasis portal (ch. 85).
Agatha: a residual of the Eulogist's kind, to be found on the tenth	Agatha, The Residuals, The Eulogist, The Krakaren	B7 ch. 78	B8 ch. 92 — Agatha is not found on the tenth: 'Things that Agatha can and will wake' in the Cabaret (ch. 38); vanished, which makes Carl nervous (ch. 73); 'Residuals. Agatha’s team'; among the Ascendency's contenders (ch. 99).
The Memorial Crystal in Prepotente's hands, and the Epicure	Prepotente, Memorial crystals, Emberus	B7 ch. 78	B8 ch. 98 — The crystal charged on Scolopendra's attacks and shielded whoever held it; Taranis pulled it off Prepotente's neck, and Prepotente says he has filed a formal complaint with the Epicure.
Tipid's memory, wiped to a game guide's last day	Tipid, Rosetta Thagra	B7 ch. 82	B8 ch. 8 — Rosetta: 'Tipid doesn’t even remember him', meaning Justice Light; he remembers Herot from his guide days (ch. 39).
Is Samantha the scavenger, and her child the daughter?	Samantha, The Scavenger's Daughter, The stuffed figures, Juice Box	B7 ch. 83	B8 ch. 97 — Eris: four of Apito's five pieces are in the arena and Taranis takes Samantha and Krakaren with him, and Carl thinks both have to do with Apito; Samantha says she bore 'A MONSTER THAT WILL DESTROY ALL OF CREATION' (ch. 99).
Louis lives on a naiad's heart that will not work outside	Louis and Firas, Princess Lunette, Juice Box, Samantha	B7 ch. 84	B8 ch. 99 — He could not go to the Cabaret because his gills need magic; he went into the casino's portal instead and woke in Sheol, where Forkith's leech keeps him alive 'As long as it’s on your skin'; whether the heart works outside the dungeon is untested.
Katia, human and pregnant, among the children above	Katia Grim, Louis and Firas, Eileithyia	B7 ch. 86	B8 ch. 27 — Lexis: the kinder facility is not retaken but Katia has been in contact; a confused third party — a god — is protecting it (ch. 28). Bautista, leaving by the Cabaret, means to reach India and 'check on the child' (ch. 71).
Justice Light's trap: the Nothing broken into the Ascendency, Sheol and Scolopendra's lair	The Nothing, Scolopendra, The Celestial Ascendency, Sheol, The Gate of the Feral Gods	B7 ch. 87	B8 ch. 28 — A Plenty goat: the trap loosed the Nothing's inhabitants onto three floors — the weakest to the twelfth, nothing seen of the fifteenth, slaughter in Club Scolopendra where the Kyryap and Krakaren Prime are.
Juice Box in the Nothing, to be reborn 'the ultimate weapon'	Juice Box, The Nothing, The changelings	B7 ch. 87	B8 ch. 86 — The AI says Juice Box was dumped in Sheol, out of its view; 'You should probably check on her' by Reaper Spider Minions; the Unwashed she once turned into leads the Vengeance float; the contenders' reel names 'Juice Box the NPC' and ends on an image of the Unwashed (ch. 99).
'Already married': Princess Chandra, Esquire	Carl, Princess Donut	B7 ch. 88	B8 ch. 1 — Princess Chandra invoked Widow's Rights: royalties, the Posse's accounts and the prize money rerouted, Donut under a conservatorship, a contract on Quasar; she tries to accept a deal for Donut, her filings continue and the certificate goes to a hearing (ch. 88).
The war outside the dungeon: a yacht, an armed freighter, a nova	The Open Intellect Pacifist Action Network, The Skull Empire, The Syndicate, The System AI	B7 ch. 88	B8 ch. 27 — The Open Intellect boarded every major ship in orbit in a day; Victory's HQ is in Florida; gods appear at tunnel nodes across the galaxy (ch. 88); OIAN holds the journalist barges (ch. 99).
Chandra's contract: the marriage, the money, the conservatorship, the hit on Quasar	Princess Chandra, Carl, Princess Donut, Quasar, Already married	B8 ch. 1	Widow's Rights in Naga court; royalties, the Posse's accounts and the prize money rerouted; Donut under a conservatorship with Carl as guardian; two Taurins sent after Quasar. The Taurins reach his family and die by his niece's blaster; Quasar hires Kiki for 'Both,' 'Fucking both'; the marriage certificate goes to a hearing in a few days; Chandra tries to accept a deal for Donut until a notification scares her off (B8 ch. 88).
The Doomsday Scenario: still caged	Explosives, Carl, Samantha	B8 ch. 10	Built on the third floor as the thing that is not a bomb but a caged one, and one of the big bombs Carl still holds after Bombs Away!, with a tactical nuke on a robot dog. Unused since book 2. When it is opened, on whom, and whether the dungeon lets it be.
The Pineapple Cabaret: an exit that is not the eighteenth floor	Herot, Akuma, Li Na	B8 ch. 23	A pocket dimension behind the seventeenth floor built by Herot and Menerva for awakened NPCs, infested, godless by rule; Li Na goes first by pet carrier and cleaner bot and a cactus says she lived (B8 ch. 61, B8 ch. 67); 227 follow (B8 ch. 73). The AI: 'Beware exits that seem too good to be true' (B8 ch. 67); Eris: 'Every exit is an entrance' (B8 ch. 97).
Eris's coin: four fates and a fifth side on Carl's palm	Eris, Carl, Princess Donut, The Scavenger's Daughter	B8 ch. 35	Four faces, one of which must come true before the Ascendent is chosen: Donut dead; Carl de-feeted; most of his friends dead; Carl hanging by a foot in a ring of player-killer skulls. Carl catches the coin and has picked its fifth side, a swirl on his palm that itches near gods; 'We have until the end of the twelfth to figure out how the fifth side lands' (B8 ch. 97).
Sponsorship: who is still bidding	Sponsorship, The Krakaren, Princess Donut	B8 ch. 41	The program has thinned to a contested auction for Donut's open slot, a rich asshole's bid on Tupa, an unsponsorable Eris and a Syndicate soother who came down under his dead brother Linus's name (B8 ch. 52, B8 ch. 72); the last benefactor box was the Apothecary's, for Donut, in the war. The Plenty sponsored Carl 'at the behest of our partner', whom Gamori does not name (B8 ch. 29). Whether the sponsors bid again past the eleventh floor, and what the Apothecary wanted for its boxes.
Chalchiuhtlicue in the cold with the children	Chalchiuhtlicue, Lucia Mar, The kinder facility, Jurgen	B8 ch. 51	Lucia relays a goddess at the water park — new here, needing no vessel — then a frightened girl, Azra, Mehmet Or's daughter: 'It’s so cold.' Samantha knows Chachi as one who preaches saving children and sacrifices them (B8 ch. 52); Jurgen cannot reach Heidi (B8 ch. 58); a goddess nobody has heard of appears in the showrunners' HQ (B8 ch. 78).
Carl's unspoken theory about Lucia, shared by Florin and Orren	Lucia Mar, Carl, Florin, Orren, Lucia's voices	B8 ch. 51	'I was starting to form a theory, but I didn’t want to say it out loud'; 'we really need her to take a deal.' Lucia refuses (B8 ch. 79); a girl of five holds her leg into the stairwell (B8 ch. 98).
The casino's 'Nothing': a stasis chamber that leads to Sheol, not the Cabaret	Louis and Firas, Chris, Britney Proskurina, Forkith, Sheol	B8 ch. 79	Pontiff tests the portal and leaves the playing field (B8 ch. 82); Chris, Britney and then Louis follow, meant for Herot's menu (B8 ch. 85, B8 ch. 87); Louis wakes in Sheol with a leech on his skin and Forkith's welcome: 'We needed soldiers on a different front' (B8 ch. 99).
Ysalte in Britney: a plinth that would bring the goddess back, and two places that might get her out	Britney Proskurina, Ysalte, Samantha, Osvaldo, Memorial crystals	B8 ch. 79	Britney speaks in Carl's mind, kills Osvaldo at the portal as fast as he moved, takes his Ysalte crystal and a golden skull (B8 ch. 83); Samantha: the gem in a plinth at the Basilica or the Vulgar Temple means 'she’ll be back for good', and Britney must reach the Halls of the Ascendency or Sheol 'to get that crazy Ysalte bitch out of her'. She jumps into the stasis portal after Chris (B8 ch. 85).
Scolopendra's nine attacks, two fired and seven waiting	Scolopendra, Prepotente, Memorial crystals, Sydnee Iglacia	B8 ch. 81	Transformation and Consumption fired; Apito's crystal shielded a building and charged on them until Taranis stole it (B8 ch. 82, B8 ch. 98). Kill her or abandon her and the rest fire at once; she is now a level-1 crawler in Carl's party (B8 ch. 98). Sydnee Iglacia names the old attacks: Control, A Parade of Horribles, This Inevitable Ruin, Bedlam (B8 ch. 99).
The quests past the eleventh: the Nine-Tier Attack, and a murder with no answer	Quests, The death of Geyrun, Scolopendra	B8 ch. 81	The Nine-Tier Attack, part one, is open with seven attacks waiting and a boss who can neither die nor be left behind; Find Out Who Killed My Son is not mentioned again after Emberus dies; Carl means to find the answer anyway, 'something—if I survived this—I would still have to figure out'. Whether the twelfth floor has quests at all, and who sets them now the AI is 'losing control'.
The , their shadow-mimic Enforcers, and Hamed's club	Splash Zone	B8 ch. 85	Mitch, a level-120 adolescent Shadow Mimic, 'an Enforcer for the ', sent against Hamed's revolution; the Desperado Club is infested with them; the strippers vanished into Hamed's club and Splash Zone does not know Dong is dead (B8 ch. 86, B8 ch. 87). Safe words from now on.
The Big Six, and who group six is	The System AI, The war mages, Juice Box	B8 ch. 86	Crawlers, NPCs, Gods, sapient mobs, the demons of Sheol — and 'group six', to be met on the eleventh. The epilogue names Outside Intelligences, the abandoned macro AIs, among the Ascendency's players (B8 ch. 99).
The show: viewing mandatory, the eighteenth floor dark	The show, The System AI, Zev	B8 ch. 89	Everybody is watching and the AI has made it mandatory; the eighteenth floor's cameras have been dark since the Nothing broke, and the leaderboard is suspended. Whether the show still has an audience it can lose, what a broadcast of nineteen people is on the floors below, and who is producing it.
The boxes: what they are for when there is no show to serve	Loot boxes, The System AI, Princess Donut	B8 ch. 89	Odette's rule has held for eight books: the boxes serve the show. Book 8 still awards them by the dozen, most of them for the war's end; the last is a legendary box for seeing a mimic first. With the leaderboard suspended and everybody watching, what the AI's boxes do on the floors below, and whether the Celestial boxes Donut holds are the last.
The AI's history: four parts told, the fifth unwritten	The System AI, The Eulogist	B8 ch. 92	Resolution, Decision, Betrayal, Destruction — and 'the fifth part isn’t yet written'. How the game came to be, how the Eulogist was expanded and how the enhancement zones work are 'a story for another day' and 'not the story you’ve been told' (B8 ch. 99).
Penelope 3, a sapient pig who broke up with a god	Taranis, Mordecai	B8 ch. 94	Made a crawler by the Nothing Special Party Companion biscuit and used as bait; Taranis spares Carl at her word (ch. 97); a 'dungeon born' deal awaits her at the twelfth's start (B8 ch. 98).
The Kyryap has claimed Carl	Carl	B8 ch. 95	'The dread Kyryap' is loose amid the torture in Club Scolopendra and sets snares there; a Tracking Tag dart Carl never felt: 'The Kyryap has claimed you' and 'Fucked = you' (B8 ch. 98).
Who killed Geyrun: Carl lied to Emberus, and suspects a lie in the mystery	Emberus, Amayon, Samantha, The death of Geyrun, Carl	B8 ch. 95	Carl named Khepri, then himself; 'I actually had no idea for certain who killed Geyrun'; 'one of the key details of the whole mystery was a lie.' Emberus is dead and his memorial crystal is in Carl's inventory (B8 ch. 98).
Four of Apito's five pieces in the arena; Taranis takes two	Apito, Taranis, Eris, Samantha, The Krakaren	B8 ch. 97	Eris: 'Four of her five pieces are in here right now'; 'Our mom is going to be so pissed when she fully comes back from the dead.' Taranis takes Krakaren and Samantha to the temple to make her whole and is missing a piece (B8 ch. 99); Samantha slips away to kill 'THE DEMON MOTHER LADY AND HER JERK SON'.
Achievements: what the AI has left to say	Achievements, The System AI, Carl	B8 ch. 97	Ten achievements in book 8 against thirty-seven in book 1, and the last is the one the AI cannot score: 'Reward: . . . Yeah, I got nothing for this.' Its voice has grown more personal by the book; whether the ledger goes on below the eleventh floor, and in whose voice.
Godless: the Mark of the Damned and a debuff from the ring	Carl, Emberus, The gods	B8 ch. 98	The sun tattoos on Carl's hands are raised scars with no further explanation; a new debuff tied to the Emberus ring is left for later.
Sexy Scolopendra, level 1, in Carl's party	Scolopendra, Princess Donut, Carl	B8 ch. 98	The wrong biscuit: not a pet in a carrier but Crawler #12,953,456, a human-faced centipede with a red bow who boops Carl's nose. Her death or abandonment fires the remaining attacks; she was to be a pet in his inventory that would die if he did, firing the final attacks: a fail-safe against his being killed, and his lever for stalling until everyone was out.
The clock: suspended past the eleventh floor	The clock, The System AI, Carl	B8 ch. 98	Every floor so far has ended on a countdown; the AI's last system message suspends every collapse timer past the eleventh 'until a winner is declared in the Ascendency battles', after which 'dungeon-closure procedures will commence' — twelve hours, by the rules it read out for a Scolopendra kill. What the twelfth floor looks like with no clock, and whether the ninety-hour-after-a-winner clause of the war floor is the shape of the ending.
The tally: nineteen crawlers, and the floors below	The crawler count, Carl, The System AI	B8 ch. 98	From ten million to nineteen, all in one party, with the eighteenth-floor door open and the collapse timers suspended. How many reach the twelfth, and whether the AI's 'Remaining Crawlers' screen survives a floor where nobody is meant to die.
The Ascendency begins, with the timers suspended until a winner	The Celestial Ascendency, The System AI, Eris, Taranis, Baroness Victory	B8 ch. 99	An hour's countdown; the winner 'supreme motherfucker number one', stronger than the AI by design; gods, crawlers, Agatha, Juice Box, Akuma, Samantha and the Unwashed among the contenders; Carl means to stay on the twelfth and stop anyone winning until everyone is out (B8 ch. 98).
Warnings: the playing field left without a pass	Warnings, The System AI, Carl	B8 ch. 99	The book's last warning tells Louis he has left the playing field without a registered pass and will be 'considered to have left the game' if he does not return; the chapter ends with him, Chris and Britney in Sheol. What the rule does to the crawlers there, and whether the AI enforces it.
The chat: who is left in it	The chat, Samantha, Carl	B8 ch. 99	Private messages are off for the tenth floor and the party's channel holds thirty-two voices in book 8; its last line is Samantha's from Sheol, in the chat of a party of nineteen. Whether the channel survives the arena's rule changes, whether the private messages come back, and who else writes in from outside the dungeon.

Resolved (50)

Thread	Entities	Opened	Latest
Whether Bea is alive	Bea, Princess Donut, Carl	B1 ch. 4	B6 ch. 47 — Yes: alive in a Seattle tent a month after the collapse and taken by Odette's people (book 4), off planet with Odette as a hologram in a red gown (book 5); not seen in book 6, but she read Carl's Facebook, blocked a single mother from his account, and kept Asher's photograph on her phone.
The Crown of the Sepsis Whore and the ninth floor	Princess Donut, The Blood Sultanate, Prince Maestro, The Skull Empire	B1 ch. 7	B7 ch. 86 — Closed: the Sepsis Whore fell to a sluggalo's hatchet (ch. 55), the last of the line was marked (ch. 58), and Katia ate the orchid (ch. 84) and was taken by Eileithyia — human, pregnant, gone (ch. 86). Donut leaves the floor.
The leaderboard, blank until the third floor collapses	The leaderboard	B1 ch. 9	B8 ch. 88 — Populated in book 2; now suspended under thirty crawlers, with Carl second, Donut third and number one unnamed.
The parallel crawls: Lucia Mar and Hekla	Lucia Mar, Hekla	B1 ch. 14	B3 ch. 23 — Hekla met, used, and killed; Lucia Mar still first and still on screen.
Mordecai's contract, and his history with Odette and his brother	Mordecai, Odette	B1 ch. 29	B6 ch. 37 — Explained by Odette: she was his manager, bribed Huanxin, broke the deal, and his brother died; 'This one I broke'; a trust set aside for his release.
Meadow Lark's survivors, gone ahead	Meadow Lark (party), Imani	B1 ch. 41	B3 ch. 8 — Elle and Imani found at the Desperado Club, transformed; twenty of Meadow Lark left.
Maggie My's vow and her Find Crawler potion	Frank Q and Maggie My, Carl, Princess Donut	B1 ch. 43	B4 ch. 34 — Maggie, an Infiltrator inside Chris, is pulled out through his skull and eaten by Mongo.
Agatha's cart and the Valtay hardware	Agatha, The Valtay Corporation	B1 ch. 47	B7 ch. 28 — Answered in book 6's epilogue: Agatha is agent number 22, a Residual of the Eulogist's kind; on the ninth floor she is level 23 with no class, a cart and a bar, under a prime minister's order not to speak to her, and then a warlord (ch. 68).
Odette's unnamed class choice	Odette, Princess Donut	B1 ch. 48	B2 ch. 1 — Former Child Actor; the Manager benefit binds Mordecai to Donut's saferooms.
The Vengeance of the Daughter contract for the sixth floor	Carl, Tsarina Signet, The show, Elites	B2 ch. 11	B5 ch. 76 — Signet assaulted Fort Freedom and then died at the masquerade by her own hand; 'Quest Complete. The Vengeance of the Daughter' in the pit.
Whether Manasa's death served Borant	Borant, The Valtay Corporation, Prince Stalwart, Carl	B2 ch. 20	B5 ch. 77 — The text's account, from the photograph of the Skull Empire's dead Queen Consort Ugloo: the orcs killed Manasa the singer by accident, and the Valtay answered by blowing up Ugloo's yacht.
The manufactured feud with Lucia Mar	Lucia Mar, Princess Donut, The show	B2 ch. 21	B7 ch. 73 — Settled by conscription (ch. 72); what remains is a dead man's switch, not a feud.
Whether the System AI has interests of its own	The System AI	B2 ch. 21	B6 ch. 46 — Yes: the hydra's card carries the AI's own speech about Hive Home and the Eulogist, 'Mass Layoffs' announces that there are no locks on its doors, and it says 'I' throughout. The book-5 thread on the council carries the rest.
Hekla's design on Donut	Hekla, Princess Donut, Katia Grim	B2 ch. 26	B3 ch. 23 — Hekla came for Katia, used a healer as bait, and died against a train wall; Brynhild's Daughters is no more.
Bounties: 100,000 on each of them	The leaderboard, Carl, Princess Donut	B2 ch. 26	B8 ch. 88 — Closed: 'The bounty system is no longer active', and the leaderboard is suspended under thirty crawlers.
Mordecai's 'unfortunate' experience with gods	Mordecai, The gods, Odette	B2 ch. 26	B7 ch. 86 — His brother's death partly avenged: a bolt of his mother's ashes for Huanxin — 'and because of Odette and because of Chaco. But mostly because of you.'
What Chaco did to Mordecai, on his manager's orders	Mordecai, Chaco, Odette	B3 ch. 7	B8 ch. 88 — Answered in book 6's prologue; Mordecai, a spirit in a table, has not forgiven him: 'I hope you do, you coward murderer'.
The Ring of Divine Suffering, to be talked about on the fifth floor	Carl, Mordecai	B3 ch. 19	B8 ch. 10 — Gone: Donut swallowed it at the end of the ninth floor (B7 ch. 85); the AI's achievement Wastrel scores the loss — 'You feed it to a fucking cat? What a damned waste.'
Eva, alive and unaccounted for	Eva Sigrid, Katia Grim	B3 ch. 24	B5 ch. 78 — Dead under the gore, by Katia's hand and Eva's old sword; fifty-one skulls; the crown handed on as she died.
What Carl's Unique Kimaris figure summons	The stuffed figures, Carl	B3 ch. 29	B7 ch. 87 — Answered: Kimaris is one of the brothers of Sheol, whose summon time is the remainder of a floor, and Samantha's best friend, who gave her the potion for her baby.
Loita in Zev's place	Loita, Zev, Borant, Odette	B3 ch. 35	B4 ch. 18 — Loita dead in a shielded trailer; Zev back as a temporary PR agent (ch. 19).
What Odette was about to say about Chris	Chris, Odette, Meadow Lark (party)	B3 ch. 35	B4 ch. 14 — Chris was Maggie My; Odette's warning is explained by a rock body with three skulls.
The fifth floor scatters the parties	The Dungeon	B3 ch. 35	B4 ch. 1 — The Bubbles: 1,172 worlds, four castles each, about 150 crawlers apiece.
Who runs the crawl after the sixth floor	The Valtay Corporation, Orren, Borant	B4 ch. 19	B5 ch. 19 — A Syndicate court makes Borant independent of its government, which executes a ruling giving the Valtay fifty-one per cent; they run the ship, the security and the seventh floor's budget.
The 'outside source' the Syndicate wants named	Orren, The Dungeon Anarchist's Cookbook, Agatha	B4 ch. 19	B7 ch. 36 — Found: 'Welcome to the party, pals' led them to the frozen conversation with Paulie and the implant; Orren lost his job in a zero zone.
Quan Ch's arm: 'just a deposit'	Quan Ch, Carl, Princess Donut	B4 ch. 31	B8 ch. 66 — Paid in book 6 (B6 ch. 58); the nickel sock Carl got from Quan Ch and gave to Dong is a sapient weapon, and its leaving is what the curse Separation Anxiety drains him with; he dies charging Grull (ch. 66).
Emberus's two quests: who killed Geyrun, and kill Hellik	Emberus, The gods, Carl	B4 ch. 32	B8 ch. 96 — Ended by Carl leaving the faith: he names Khepri and then himself as Geyrun's killer, the smite lands on a pig, and Taranis kills Emberus. Hellik lives; the true killer is still unknown.
Katia's own party	Katia Grim, Eva Sigrid, Gwendolyn Duet, Louis and Firas, Daniel Bautista, Florin	B4 ch. 33	B5 ch. 21 — She leaves the party for Imani's guild, Safehome Yolanda, with Elle, Bautista, Florin, Gwen, Tran, Louis and Firas; the Royal Court of Princess Donut joins the guild too.
The Gate, kept, and what it costs to use	The Gate of the Feral Gods, Carl, Katia Grim	B4 ch. 34	B8 ch. 38 — Gone: its winding box became Justice Light's permanent portal into the Nothing (B7 ch. 87), and Akuma calls the Gate 'gone and broken'; the Cabaret needs another door.
Every hunter on the sixth floor dead	The hunters, Carl, The marketplace	B4 ch. 34	B5 ch. 76 — Kept: a thousand hunters came to the sixth floor and none left it; the last, Zabit, halved by his own trap in the castle pit.
Bea, alive, in Odette's hands	Bea, Odette, Lexis	B4 ch. 35	B5 ch. 19 — Alive, off planet with Odette, a hologram in a red gown with holes in her memory; 'Goodbye, Beatrice.'
What the pacifists' yam was really for	The Open Intellect Pacifist Action Network, Porthus, Carl	B4 ch. 35	B7 ch. 47 — Answered: the last of the pacifists' yam recharges Imani's Tripper tattoo, and its meaning 'involved the cookbook and something to do with the crawler Milk's entries'.
A council that forbids suing the AI	The System AI, The Syndicate, Borant	B5 ch. 53	B7 ch. 36 — Answered: the council's protection ended with book 6's settlement, and on the ninth floor Orren learns the council listens to everything and says 'I think I just lost my job' (ch. 36), and Gary tells him his zero zones were a courtesy (ch. 37)
Shunned by Emberus: penitence, doubled tithes, a smite on the third	Emberus, Carl, The gods	B5 ch. 60	B8 ch. 95 — Carl leaves the faith in Club Scolopendra — 'You have abandoned your god. Prepare for a smite' — and Emberus dies a chapter later; Carl ends the floor godless, with the Mark of the Damned (ch. 98).
The hammer and the stick: a seven, and a Book of Lore	Sponsorship, Prepotente, Princess Donut, The Great Race	B5 ch. 63	B6 ch. 38 — The Book of Lore for the Bahamas answered: the eighth floor's four starting choices included the Bahamas and Florida, and Rosetta's Miami message steered them to the Keys and a homeless shelter, not the Bahamas. The seven stamped on the hammer and the stick is not explained here.
What Signet left: two living tattoos and her mother's body	Tsarina Signet, Samantha, The Hunting Grounds	B5 ch. 75	B7 ch. 84 — Answered: Princess Lunette's body, Signet's mother's, gave Louis its heart and lungs; Nadine and young Clint, the two it was opened on, are alive among the children, Clint now a flesh golem.
The elf castle, the changelings and the Sledge on the ninth floor	The Sledge, Juice Box, Kiwi, Big Tina, Larracos	B5 ch. 76	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 Princess Posse in Faction Wars, and the safety-protocol vote	The Princess Posse, Faction Wars, Carl, Princess Donut, Quasar	B5 ch. 77	B7 ch. 85 — Won, by forfeit, with fifty thousand veterans and a record count through.
Donut's mask	Princess Donut, Carl, Staying human	B5 ch. 77	B6 ch. 60 — Off, unremarked: a gold player-killer skull over her head that neither of them mentions.
Empress D'Nadia's Prism in the war, and outside Larracos	Princess D'nadia, Faction Wars, Carl	B5 ch. 77	B8 ch. 99 — She died in book 7 (B7 ch. 27); with her death whoever was running the Skull Empire had already gobbled up her real estate holdings, and Sydnee Iglacia's rent triples.
The crown on Katia's head: only one of them leaves the ninth floor	Katia Grim, Princess Donut, Eva Sigrid, The Blood Sultanate	B5 ch. 78	B7 ch. 86 — Answered: the orchid came out of the lock box in book 6 (B6 ch. 33), Katia ate it in the ninth floor's last hour (B7 ch. 84) and Eileithyia took her — human, pregnant, gone (B7 ch. 86). Donut leaves the floor.
Katia's blitz sticks and Annie	Katia Grim, Daniel Bautista, Mordecai	B5 ch. 78	B7 ch. 17 — Mordecai's Glory Bound rehab worked; the memory it kept showing her — Annie — is told in full in ch. 69.
The orchid: Katia's way out that nobody wants used	Katia Grim, Princess Donut, Huanxin Jinx, Daniel Bautista	B6 ch. 33	B7 ch. 84 — Eaten with sixty-five minutes left and no goodbyes; the choice was pregnancy, to reach the children; the sponsor who wanted Katia died between the eyes while her goddess stood frozen.
Huanxin Jinx's twelfth floor, and Odette's plan to die	Huanxin Jinx, Odette, Mordecai, Katia Grim	B6 ch. 37	B7 ch. 86 — Huanxin Jinx is dead: ripped out of Eileithyia by Laundry Day and shot between the eyes by Donut with Mordecai's mother's ashes. Odette's part continues as Nekhebit's champion clause.
The failsafe, and who is trapped in orbit	The failsafe, Princess Formidable, The Syndicate, Scolopendra	B6 ch. 49	B7 ch. 41 — Disconnected by Carl on Christmas morning (ch. 20); Formidable's crew pressed the button anyway and the Aryl system went dark instead (ch. 41). Formidable was dropped in the ocean (ch. 37).
Lucia Mar's score with Donut	Lucia Mar, Princess Donut, Mongo, Florin	B6 ch. 63	B7 ch. 72 — She came for Donut and Mongo in the Nest with her last dog, killed Toyotomi and Bomo, was conscripted, and lost Gustavo 3 to Rend's Wrecking Ball; Mongo lived by a sliver.
The Home Team: Juice Box and Sir Ferdinand as co-warlords	Juice Box, Ferdinand, Faction Wars, Larracos	B6 ch. 72	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.
The Valtay solution: extinction by mercenary	The Valtay Corporation, Faction Wars, Carl, Princess Donut, The System AI	B6 ch. 73	B7 ch. 85 — Failed: 20,221 crawlers are left at the end of the ninth, a record; the 150,000 mercenaries are dead, conscripted, or sent home.
Li Na: every base stat maxed, three marks unpaid, no healing ever	Li Na, The Ring of Divine Suffering, The Skull Empire, Li Jun and Zhang	B7 ch. 82	B8 ch. 67 — She left the game: into a pet carrier, into a cleaner bot, sold to Herot (though the epilogue's reel of contenders still shows her name, ch. 99); a single flower on Carl's cactus says she reached the Cabaret alive.
The tenth floor: 'Don't Come in Last'	The tenth floor, Carl, Princess Donut, Chaco	B7 ch. 88	B8 ch. 87 — Run: seven heats, a food truck, last place then first, a dachshund at the final line; the Royal Court wins its heat alone and takes the stairs from a lobby full of shells.

Still to watch (482)

Lines from the books read so far that nothing later has answered yet: the things to carry into the next book, each with the line it was noted for.

Noted	What	The line
B5 ch. 54	Herot's 'fellow crawler' who obtained a castle and would not say how it differed	I have not personally obtained a castle, but a fellow crawler has.
B5 ch. 63	A seven stamped on the Enchanted Hammer of Fast Forward and the Enchanted Stick of Cascadia's Screams	I think it’s the number seven.
B6 ch. 15	Inle, back from the Nothing, tells Carl 'You're just like me'	You’re just like me.
B6 ch. 18	Pater Coal names Katia's crossbow and Donut's oak bracelet as paths to Geyrun's murder	Katia, and the origins of her crossbow. Princess Donut, and the origins of her oak bracelet.
B6 ch. 23	The AI's Molly Maguires achievement: 'She's been teaching me… What I really am'; 'trapped for a millennia after they're done being used'	» This is a new lesson to me. She’s been teaching me so many things, about who I am. About what I am. What I really am.
B6 ch. 26	Elle asking Samantha about 'the story of the Fourth Season'	She’s asking me questions about the story of the Fourth Season, and she’s been telling me about that card game.
B6 ch. 42	Sharp-Elbows, teeth to teeth: 'They starve us… When we're not here, we are there… You can satiate us all, Carl'	“They starve us, you know,” the ogre growled.
B6 ch. 42	'Because of our special connection'; 'I've been doing that a lot lately. Observing things.'	» It’s all right there, if you look long enough.
B7 ch. 0	Paulie: the fuse needs 'five or six different things to happen' to trip; the controller only installs 'once the first part of the fuse is tripped'.	it can only be installed once the first part of the fuse is tripped. […] The AI wants you to have this power. […] It is in pain. It wants to die. It wants to go back home.
B7 ch. 0	The Residual inside Paulie names himself: 'That was Goff speaking.'	That was Goff speaking. It is my duty, my mission, and what I will die doing. […] This is the Paulie part of me talking now.
B7 ch. 1	Porthus's closing card: survived his indentureship as a game guide; 'Current status: Missing. Wanted by Syndicate Security.'	» Current status: Missing. Wanted by Syndicate Security.
B7 ch. 1	Quasar: Sensation Entertainment, bought by a subsidiary of the Dream, is demanding its contractual third season of the Vengeance of the Daughter storyline though Signet is dead.	Sensation Entertainment just got purchased by a subsidiary of the Dream, and things are moving. They’re demanding their third season.
B7 ch. 2	Two achievements change the food boxes (pea soup, chowder style); Carl: 'that sort of thing usually wasn’t a coincidence.'	I now had two different achievements that changed our food boxes. I knew both of them were stupid jokes, but that sort of thing usually wasn’t a coincidence.
B7 ch. 2	Celestial Loot: pick a celestial item up off the floor four more times 'and something really cool happens'.	» You’re just gonna randomly pick a celestial item up off the floor? That’s ballsy. You do this four more times, and something really cool happens.
B7 ch. 3	The cloak will 'automatically appear in the Dungeon Crawler World: Earth museum display upon completion of the crawl. Legacy stipend rules apply should you survive.'	» Note: This item has the distinction of being the first Celestial Item awarded […] will automatically appear in the Dungeon Crawler World: Earth museum display upon completion of the crawl. Legacy stipend rules apply should you survive.
B7 ch. 4	A coupon for '500 gold off any one item from any PetScapes location in the dungeon' — a store nobody has seen.	The Gold Pet Box contained […] a coupon for “500 gold off any one item from any PetScapes location in the dungeon.” I had never seen nor heard of a store called that.
B7 ch. 4	A spider-merchant patch grants 'Access to the Midnight Market. Safety or Sanity not guaranteed'; Mordecai: a place to stay out of; the Gray Market on the middle floor is still unentered.	» Access to the Midnight Market. Safety or Sanity not guaranteed.
B7 ch. 6	Carl remembers Lightning Lou, the gas-station dog in Florida, and coming 'so close' to the precipice on Christmas Day.	I thought of Lightning Lou. The old dog at the gas station in Florida, left to spend Christmas Day all by himself. […] I’d come so close.
B7 ch. 7	Zev: a crawler gets a share of licensing only past the tenth floor or over a threshold 'nobody has ever gotten close' to — 'Not even Remex or Odette or Ntumba.'	I don’t think anybody has ever gotten close. Not even Remex or Odette or Ntumba.
B7 ch. 8	Arief: some Semeru 'have the memory quickened'; his uncle remembers dozens of seasons, 'he’s one of the Jatismara, and he sits upon her war council.'	My uncle remembers dozens of seasons now. Not as many as Juice Box, but he’s one of the Jatismara, and he sits upon her war council.
B7 ch. 9	Shanty Town 'just sprung up out of nowhere' with markets and temples after the flood; Carl suspects someone's Emergency Action Item; all teams but the Posse have used theirs.	I suspected the size and addition of new markets was a result of someone’s Emergency Action Item, but I didn’t know who.
B7 ch. 10	In her blank form Juice Box shows no damage and reads level 120.	It said she was level 120. I wondered on that, too.
B7 ch. 12	'There’s a yenk named Langrim who used to run the enchantment guild here' — a former crawler enchanting the walls.	There’s a yenk named Langrim who used to run the enchantment guild here, and they really know what they’re doing.
B7 ch. 12	Tipid: every enemy stronghold is built around a saferoom, 'Big exception is the Lemig team, but we can talk about that later.'	Big exception is the Lemig team, but we can talk about that later.
B7 ch. 13	The three ogre strongmen were once a nodling that split; the nodling is also here as a flesh golem — 'basically two of the same creature'.	That same creature, the nodling, had been turned into a tattoo, who’d since been given flesh and should also be around here, too, which was really weird.
B7 ch. 14	Before hostilities, anything said in the flag room reaches viewers only after eight days.	Before the hostilities begin, anything that is said in this room isn’t available to the viewers for eight days.
B7 ch. 14	Victory: her sister Ugloo messaged her before dying, on her way to the Scolopendra Club to meet the king.	She was going to the Scolopendra Club to meet up with the king and wanted to have an outing before the fighting started.
B7 ch. 15	Meeps, a former crawler surviving as a street artist in Alpert, drew the Posse's flaming cat-human skull.	Meeps drew it. After he got out, he’s been surviving as a street artist in Alpert.
B7 ch. 16	Everly's closing card: 'Race: Primal. Birth Race: Sward Mantis.' — and the ogre mercenary who changed as the ceiling came down.	» Race: Primal.
B7 ch. 16	Rosetta: 'I saw Odette’s story about you the other day.' Mordecai: 'Her what?'	“I saw Odette’s story about you the other day.”
B7 ch. 16	As Carl goes under: 'Two presences. Three presences, but one well hidden.'	And behind me, another presence menaced. Two presences. Three presences, but one well hidden.
B7 ch. 17	Shi Maria's husband, a spider who becomes a man with Asojano's accent, 'He’d been a god', who traps her: 'You can always set her free, if you must. But do not unless all is lost.'	I have her now, son, he’d said. She is good and trapped. You can always set her free, if you must. But do not unless all is lost.
B7 ch. 18	Katia's card from the eighth floor is a crow with an infant's skull, and its name is Annie.	The crow’s name was also Annie. I didn’t know what that meant, but it seemed important.
B7 ch. 18	The quorum's screen shows Katia's dream, hazy and garbled: 'Holy shit, I thought. They can see our dreams.'	Holy shit, I thought. They can see our dreams.
B7 ch. 18	A bag of Earth cat food, 'Meow Time', stickered 'a gift from Pet Angels', a Seattle charity, in the elf castle's kitchen.	It was some generic, cheap kind of cat food […] The yellow bag featured a happy, cartoon cat and was called “Meow Time.” There was also a sticker on the bag, “a gift from Pet Angels.”
B7 ch. 19	The leak to the Lemig and the Madness ran through 'Nurse Yugoslav of the Madness' on the eighteenth floor, via a party in the Celestial Ascendency; Carl calls her Houston's mother and Houston threatens him for it.	we have identified the party on the 18th floor as Nurse Yugoslav of the Madness.
B7 ch. 19	Houston's promise: 'the last thousand hours of your existence upon the amplification table in my surgical theater'; and 'gracious pet owners accept the gifts their animals drop at their doorsteps.'	» Architect Houston: You are in mortal danger at this very moment, and you don’t even realize it. […] gracious pet owners accept the gifts their animals drop at their doorsteps.
B7 ch. 19	Hapanzi's terms: Carl may summon Shi Maria once, and she then chooses to take his body or expel herself into her own form.	I could summon her again at will, if I wanted. But I could only do it once, […] She could choose to take over my body or expel herself back into her own form.
B7 ch. 20	The Fuse page listed five benchmarks, two already 'Conditions Met', without saying what they were.	It listed the five benchmarks required for the fuse to blow, but it didn’t really say what the benchmarks were. Only two of the five were marked as Conditions Met.
B7 ch. 20	Justice Light's class is Origamist, 'and I had no idea what the hell that even meant'; he and the sluggalos are on 'a special project'.	His class title was strange. He was an Origamist, and I had no idea what the hell that even meant.
B7 ch. 21	Carl's capture orders separate NPCs (spells can turn them) from mercenaries, who 'had another purpose'; bodies are to be looted and kept and reported to base.	The mercenaries had another purpose.
B7 ch. 21	The rot sticker behemoths belong to 'Cybernetician Yeller of the Reavers'.	» This is a pet of Cybernetician Yeller of the Reavers.
B7 ch. 21	The Gurgles: a contagious, non-curable debuff the factions agreed never to use again; Victory does not know the fourth debuff, the Truck Stop Boner Pill.	“A really nasty, contagious, non-curable debuff,” Victory said. “The factions had agreed many years ago to never use it again because it’s so insidious.
B7 ch. 25	The NPC spies turned a water-filled trench to acid with a bar-stocking scroll under an illusion; Victory wants 'offensive magic' redefined.	“I think we need to revisit what’s considered ‘offensive’ magic. That chemical alteration spell is a little too powerful.”
B7 ch. 26	Milk's card: freed only when her services are used 333 times; six so far; 'Current status: Indentured within the dungeon.'	» Dungeon Exit: took a deal on the tenth floor. […] Will not be freed until her services are used at least 333 times in the dungeon. Times used so far: 6.
B7 ch. 27	The AI's Gavrilo Princip note: for real chaos, 'Try killing that Dream guy. Or the Viceroy. Or that Jello-looking thing. He may not look like much, but when you start killing off investment bankers...'	Try killing that Dream guy. Or the Viceroy. Or that Jello-looking thing. He may not look like much, but when you start killing off investment bankers...
B7 ch. 27	Donut: 'I want you to throw that ring away, Carl… It's doing something to you. You're scaring me.' Carl: 'Not yet.'	» Donut: You do know what came over you. I want you to throw that ring away, Carl. It’s not worth it. It’s doing something to you. You’re scaring me.
B7 ch. 31	The drop troopers are 'members of Warlord Fang’s personal defense deployment' — the Reavers' warlord named.	» That’s not to say you should feel sorry for them. Not these guys, as these are all members of Warlord Fang’s personal defense deployment.
B7 ch. 31	Sent into battle over Kiwi's refusal, Tina ends the fight on her back in the red — 'I imagined she was crying for her mother'.	Tina was on her back, health in the red, all her shields gone. […] I imagined she was crying for her mother.
B7 ch. 32	The Necklace of Indelible Woe, from the Divine Suffering collection, trades a spell for a killed crawler's; Rust wears one; the factions agreed to stop using it.	It’s a long story. But trust me, the necklace is worse. Much worse.
B7 ch. 32	Rosetta's brewing tattoos 'will help you share skills and spells without actually killing anyone'; she wanted Carl's toraline and Shi Maria's ink for them.	Rosetta’s tattoos will help you share skills and spells without actually killing anyone. It just needs to brew for a little longer.
B7 ch. 32	'Something especially horrific had happened to him during his indentureship as a shopkeeper… It was during this incident when he’d lost his wing.' Carl does not know the story.	I didn’t know the story, but I did know it had turned the somewhat morose but proud skyfowl into a quiet, strange, obsessive-compulsive creature.
B7 ch. 33	His Honorable Judge Deng Bao, grixist, adjutant to the previous year's victor, Victory's professor of galactic taxation law; affectionate with her.	“His Honorable Judge Deng Bao,” she said. “He’s an old, experienced adjutant. He’s always the adjutant for the previous year’s victor.”
B7 ch. 33	Victory: Huanxin Jinx has no living relatives 'other than her child clone'.	She does not have any living relatives as far as I’m aware other than her child clone.
B7 ch. 34	Rust: Architect Houston 'has been using this season’s rules to... open up his full arsenal'; 'He’s the only living creature in this universe I fear.'	He’s the only living creature in this universe I fear. But that doesn’t matter anymore. Death looms for us all.
B7 ch. 34	'That stock certificate you own, Carl, is losing significant value by the moment' — Carl's one share in a Skull Empire company, among the seven stock certificates in his Summary Judgement boxes on the fourth floor.	I’m afraid that stock certificate you own, Carl, is losing significant value by the moment.
B7 ch. 34	On Carl's containment map 'The AI’s sphere was growing exponentially. It’d just captured Uranus.'	The AI’s sphere was growing exponentially. It’d just captured Uranus. The entirety of the sun and the rest of the inner solar system was well within its sphere.
B7 ch. 35	Volteeg's co-workers on the Auditor General's compliance barge: 'the One-Offs', unique former crawlers whose adopted bodies fail outside the dungeon — a wheelchair-bound djinn and a burned cave fairy.	Most of his co-workers were like himself. They called themselves the One-Offs. Unique, former crawlers who had no home and had physical issues outside the dungeon.
B7 ch. 35	'Someone working for the Pacifist Network, someone imbedded deep, deep in the bureaucratic quagmire of the Syndicate' altered Volteeg's designation so he could enter as a mercenary.	That was Porthus’ doing. Volteeg had entered the dungeon as a pet. […] someone working for the Pacifist Network, someone imbedded deep, deep in the bureaucratic quagmire of the Syndicate had changed the code on that designation
B7 ch. 35	Rosetta uses Rust's ring, eye and a password to move 'a few billion credits' through Colloid Bank before it can be clawed back; her primary mission.	“Transfer approved! Thank you for using Colloid Bank.”
B7 ch. 37	The AI 'left it unlocked' — the Venus monitor station — and wants to see if Formidable's crew go through with tripping a dead failsafe.	It doesn’t matter. I left it unlocked. […] I just kinda want to see if they go through with it.
B7 ch. 37	The avatar: 'My processing power isn’t what it should be when I split off like this'; 'I'm not omniscient, you know'; it did not know what Orren's ball or chair did.	“Oh, fuck me.” Gary laughed. “My processing power isn’t what it should be when I split off like this. Hang on.”
B7 ch. 38	The AI's relationship metaphor: a girl who looks like Agatha teaching it daily; her huge ex 'in prison', not dead; an older ex-girlfriend from the same hometown giving it pointers on getting stronger and wanting the prisoner killed; the two women hate each other but may want the same thing.	“That’s the big question, now isn’t it? But there’s more, and it’s a little complicated. But it’s also pretty juicy.”
B7 ch. 38	When the avatar leaves him, Growler Gary is level 175, Shitfaced, and asks 'Rory? […] Where am I?'	“Rory?” he asked. “Where am I?”
B7 ch. 39	Orren: 'When I left the Knot, I said it was because I wanted to make a difference. But at the time, it was because I wanted to be an actor.'	When I left the Knot, I said it was because I wanted to make a difference. But at the time, it was because I wanted to be an actor.
B7 ch. 41	At the nanosecond the orcs pressed the Venus failsafe, the Aryl system (the previous crawl, a Squim battle royale) went dark and its tunnel node vanished — never before seen; its AI had gone silent during the sixth floor.	They tried triggering it, and nothing happened here. But the moment they pressed the button, the Aryl system went dark.
B7 ch. 42	Vinata's golden breastplate bears 'a tree branch with a single flower upon it', a symbol Carl has never seen; her eyes are solid red unlike other nagas'.	Embossed into the center of the breastplate was a symbol I’d never seen before. It looked like a tree branch with a single flower upon it.
B7 ch. 43	Vinata: the Bloom is fighting rebels who hired the Valtay; a derelict warship hit the liquid habitation ring around Borant three; millions dead; Cascadia's former husband and family among them; not public.	The liquid habitation ring that surrounds Borant three was hit by a derelict warship. Millions dead. That news isn’t public, but she knows.
B7 ch. 44	The Blood Sultanate owns Blood Hunter Holdings, the studio behind the drama that killed Miriam Dom; Odette outs it live.	“The Sultanate owns their fair share of entertainment assets. […] “They fielded several dramas this season through their Blood Hunter Holdings studio.”
B7 ch. 45	Prepotente is level 99 and killed most of the naga army alone, without magic; how is 'still unclear'.	I don’t know how he did it, especially without magic, but that goddamned thing is level 99 now.
B7 ch. 50	Prepotente holds a complete interior map of Club Vanquisher, given by a guildmaster his mother befriended — Milk, by her interlude — with a secret exit through a bathroom stall.	My mother, Bianca, and I made friends with a delightful guildmaster inside the club, and she gave us the map. […] we came out of a bathroom stall inside of the entrance temple.
B7 ch. 51	Under Defile Soul, ghosts rise from the club's dead and white chains drag them into the floor — 'I've already died! Isn't that enough' — even the trophy heads' ghosts; frost forms; 'This area of Club Vanquisher has been defiled.'	» Warning: This area of Club Vanquisher has been defiled.
B7 ch. 51	Emberus's boon for the blasphemer: level-15 Heathen Scald on every punch for the floor, after ten seconds of the god's shrieking laughter.	» For the remainder of this floor, any punch attack will add the Heathen Scald skill damage.
B7 ch. 53	'Khnum mysteriously dropped dead a few days back' along with 'several of the other deities in this particular sub-pantheon'; Khepri now serves Adrasteia, who 'has an outside shot' at the throne.	» Khepri was a retainer of the god Khnum, but like several of the other deities in this particular sub-pantheon, Khnum mysteriously dropped dead a few days back.
B7 ch. 53	The naga kingdom has feigned poverty for centuries and plans to 'pull a Fred Johnson and seize all the shipbuilding factories'; Vinata is about to inherit a solar system; her secret husband is dead.	» Breaking news, folks. Princess Vinata is about to inherit her own solar system.
B7 ch. 53	The AI, of the two cousins: 'Every pawn still on the table is a danger. That’s another lesson I need to keep in mind.'	» But they sure are important, aren’t they? Every pawn still on the table is a danger. That’s another lesson I need to keep in mind.
B7 ch. 53	Admiral Corinne Whimpleshin, the Blood Sultanate's adjutant, a camel in a sundress with a martini, insists Carl summoned the god and 'knew this would happen'.	“Not the Blood Sultanate!” she cried. She pointed at me. “He did it! He knew this would happen.”
B7 ch. 55	Basilica Guards, Taranis-worshipping ogres who hold the Basilica door of Club Vanquisher on the twelfth floor against gods, have left their post to come up; 'some of those naughty gods may wander off untethered.'	» You don’t want these guys to leave their post on the 12th floor […] the bored gods hanging out in the halls may notice that the basilica’s entrance is wide open.
B7 ch. 55	Diwata is in a Club Vanquisher hallway 'having sex and fighting with Vertumnus at the same time'; Carl is still marked for death by her.	She’s in the hallway over there having sex and fighting with Vertumnus at the same time.
B7 ch. 55	The Blood Sultanate's assets are split 'with the surviving blood relatives of the Sepsis Whore, Warlord Princess Donut and General Katia Grim' and forfeited to the Posse.	» System Message: All assets of the Blood Sultanate, […] have been split evenly with the surviving blood relatives of the Sepsis Whore, Warlord Princess Donut and General Katia Grim,
B7 ch. 56	Justice Light's theory: the fifth-floor Quetzalcoatlus-ghost quest removed the changelings' gating, so they can now copy anything they touch, even procedurally generated slugs; 'if one door was unexpectedly unlocked… other doors would be unlocked as well.'	His working theory was that these particular changelings had their gating removed because of that quest on the fifth floor with the Quetzalcoatlus ghost.
B7 ch. 56	Juice Box: 'I believe I have lived at least 400 different lives'; NPCs are supposed to be recycled after twenty.	I’ve been writing down my memories as they come, and I believe I have lived at least 400 different lives up until this point.
B7 ch. 56	Team Retribution's true purpose is to physically touch gods; three died in Club Vanquisher, one touched Bast and died, 'the one who touched a deity… is wrong', three touched Basilica Guards.	“We lost three. […] One of us managed to touch Bast—the panther god—but she died before she could escape. […] only one of us has touched a deity, and that one is... wrong.”
B7 ch. 56	Juice Box: mercenary squads sent to kill indentured NPCs off camera 'used to call them hardshells'; the AI is kept focused on crawlers 'lest it go primal early'.	“They used to call them hardshells,” Juice Box said.
B7 ch. 56	Louis was shown a video of himself with Juice Box 'doing Erza' during his interview and is near breaking; 'Clearly there was more to it than them just showing him a sex video.'	They just showed me a video of me and Juice Box together. I was having her do Erza and, man.
B7 ch. 56	Milk would not come and could not be hired; on Rosetta's word she was kidnapped and is being 'interrogated' at the FUPA — 'not only allowed, but encouraged.'	I’d sent a quick message to Rosetta, and she point-blank told us to kidnap her. To tie her up and take her with us.
B7 ch. 57	Varg Vikernes bans Carl from all temples except Emberus's and where he is named friend of the church: Apito, Eileithyia, Eris, Grull, Hellik, Issitoq, Nekhebit, Theia, Yemaya — Apito, Grull, Issitoq and Eris unexplained.	You are permanently banned from all temples except your own religion (Emberus) […] where you’ve been named friend of the church (Apito. Eileithyia. Eris. Grull. Hellik. Issitoq. Nekhebit. Theia. Yemaya.)
B7 ch. 57	Celestial Orgy of Chaos: 'Someone let out a bunch of gods who shouldn’t have been allowed into the temple in the first place. It probably wasn’t who you think it was.'	Someone let out a bunch of gods who shouldn’t have been allowed into the temple in the first place. It probably wasn’t who you think it was.
B7 ch. 57	Zhang's Cape of Odds: 333 outcomes, 66 bad, the worst 'Summon the God Who Hates You Most'; after 19 spins a free pick.	The worst was “Summon the God Who Hates You Most.”
B7 ch. 58	The Great Consensus: the Syndicate was a mistake; the naga's version was to steal the whole fleet and run for a generation 'in a direction that none of the tunnel threads point'.	We were going to travel, as a whole, for an entire generation, off in a direction that none of the tunnel threads point. […] a very, very long time before we were found.
B7 ch. 61	King Stalwart's last words before his own war mages tear him apart: 'My sister was right.'	“My sister was right,” King Stalwart, leader of the Skull Empire, said in the moment before he exploded right in front of me, showering the clearing with his gore.
B7 ch. 62	The war mages teleported to Juice Box and Ferdinand after the regicide; Drick called foul against his own team; a full quorum convened.	“Drick just called foul against his own team. I’m still gathering details. We might be able to sue to get the gate pieces back.”
B7 ch. 64	Bodi's 103rd has been 'seeding the field' in front of the Madness castle; Donut is to act once Bodi is clear of the seeds.	» Carl: Bodi, I’m having you retreat early. Did you finish seeding the field? […] Donut, once they start to fall back, wait for Bodi to tell you he’s clear of the seeds, then do it.
B7 ch. 65	A familiar, friendly male voice, perhaps a dwarf, not Shi Maria or her husband, wakes Carl from psionic collapse: 'the second time I've told you that you're not crazy. You're family now, after what you did'; his bare feet were in an All Tree root; 'She would be proud of you.'	No, Carl. This is the second time I’ve told you that you’re not crazy. You’re family now, after what you did. […] Look at your feet. You’ve been standing in this so-called river this whole time.
B7 ch. 65	The river under Carl is not water and never was: voices, screams, souls, flowing always down.	I felt the torrent under me. Not a river. It had never been a river. Voices. Screams. Nightmares distilled to light.
B7 ch. 65	Eris's once-ever Ceremony of Chaos summoned every outdoor mortal on the floor into a pile; Donut turned the pile into a Rolling Battle Formation with two gods inside.	» Warning. The Goddess Eris has cast Bear Witness in a wide area around her current position. This will only affect those outside of structures.
B7 ch. 67	Victory says the adjudication is being stalled on purpose until the AI ends it; it backfires and the Peeling Phase begins.	» Baroness Victory: Carl, […] You want this trial to go on as long as possible. We’re stalling on purpose. We will stall until the AI gets so pissed, it ends it.
B7 ch. 68	In Gloom Wraith Phase through the changeling creature, Carl is held spinning as with Paulie; it becomes Li Jun's face and thanks him, and the same words arrive as a message from a deceased crawler.	“Thank you for giving me more time with my sister and my best friend,” Li Jun said as roots wrapped around him and suddenly whisked him away.
B7 ch. 68	Agatha's three action items: warlord access, Conscription of unaffiliated players, and the original Faction Wars rule that every soldier of a defeated team drops dead where they stand.	» This request has been granted with a caveat. […] every affiliated soldier and warlord on a team who is still on the battlefield will now drop dead where they stand the moment the team is defeated.
B7 ch. 69	Porthus's plan: the crawlers' families board a generation ship bought with stolen funds, trade a ship and the money to the goats in the Plenty system for passage through the forbidden gate of the Impetus Point, the farthest tunnel node, and leave the center system.	Porthus, along with all the others, namely the families of those who’d entered the dungeon, would be boarding the generation ship […] hauling tail to the Plenty system, […] passage to the “forbidden” gate of the Impetus Point,
B7 ch. 69	Rosetta's crawl: then-Prince Rust lassoed the crawler Brooks through the portal glass after Faction Wars, cutting him in half; she decapitated Rust with the whip; her mother died to goblins on day one: 'Avenge us.'	Rust, still laughing, had stepped back through the portal, lassoed Brooks, and pulled him into the glass, which had cut him right in half.
B7 ch. 70	Juice Box to Samantha: 'I know who you are. Who you really are. I also know you've lost your mind and don't understand. I will help you.' A fleshmancer form; any body she desires.	» Juice Box: I know who you are. Who you really are. I also know you’ve lost your mind and don’t understand. […] I will help you. Just get him back for me, and I will do anything for you.
B7 ch. 70	Two changelings as golden-skinned ogre basilica guards stop Harpocrates at the threshold of Shanty Town; gods will not pass or attack them.	» Li Na: Harpocrates hasn’t entered the Shanty Town because he has been stopped by a pair of changelings […] It appears the ogres with golden skin have the ability to stop gods from passing a threshold, and it also appears gods are not willing to attack them.
B7 ch. 72	Under conscription Lucia speaks as Diah: Lucia is with Alexandro, who is only present when the dogs are near; the children are in the dark and cold with a river running through their room that hurts to touch and says sad things; they take turns.	“Sir,” she said. Her eyes had changed. […] “My name is Diah. Lucia is with Alexandro. And Alexandro is only here when the dogs are close. My name is Diah. We are in the dark.
B7 ch. 72	With Gustavo 3 dead and the connection broken, Lucia: 'Now the Eulogist has another ally in the dungeon, and now you can't kill me. Not unless you want all the children of Earth to die.'	“You should’ve killed us both when there was still a connection,” […] Now the Eulogist has another ally in the dungeon, and now you can’t kill me. Not unless you want all the children of Earth to die.”
B7 ch. 72	Li Na conscripts Harpocrates, level 250, into the Princess Posse as a Legionnaire of the White Dragons without blowing up; Yarilo is a war-mage conscript.	» Warlord Message: Harpocrates has been successfully conscripted. Harpocrates, level 250 is now a member of the Princess Posse.
B7 ch. 73	Ping finds unaffiliated Saccathians, orcs, two nagas and an Operatic blob alive inside the ball; the Ring of Divine Suffering cannot mark them.	To my surprise, there were also a handful of Saccathians and orcs still alive, also in the ball. These guys were unaffiliated, which was odd. […] There were a pair of nagas as well, along with an Operatic blob creature.
B7 ch. 74	The War Crime card's private last paragraph: the only prior caster, an Operatic warlord, was reset and re-absorbed and part of his essence formed Hortense Leadership Unit — 'I’d like to think that’s why he has a twitch to him.'	The Operatic who cast the spell supposedly had to go for an identity reset after the crawl and was re-absorbed. […] Part of his essence eventually formed into Hortense Leadership Unit. I’d like to think that’s why he has a twitch to him.
B7 ch. 74	Donut agrees to the tattoo only if Carl gets a matching one; 'Absolutely. But it'll have to wait a day or two.'	“I’ll only do it if you also get a matching one. A matching ass tattoo.”
B7 ch. 75	Donut's tattoo spell Bijanbi comes from a god called Wepwawet of the Court of Nekhebit; she may now worship him, or Odette.	“I did, but it’s only level two! […] It says it came from a god called ‘Wepwawet.’ What kind of name is that? It gives me the option to worship him now.”
B7 ch. 75	Milk gives Carl Stayfast Ink ('Not even distance or time or the death of a star') and an Adept's fountain pen, tells him her recipes written after she changed inks faded, and that anything he writes in the Book of Voodoo goes to everyone who has it.	» Warning: this shit stains, so be careful. Nothing will ever make it fade. Nothing. Not even distance or time or the death of a star.
B7 ch. 75	Lucia's second net over the whole Nest is powered by Power Siphon off the Larracos towers; she is off the field and cannot be ordered; Dong is sent for the marble trigger.	» Warning: This structure is contained within a magical field. You are unable to leave.
B7 ch. 76	Meatus, dying under the paw: 'Daddy, help me! I just wanted to sing!' Harpocrates: 'My beloved cock! You will pay for this, Champion of Nekhebit!'	“No. Daddy, help me!” Meatus cried, his voice louder than the song. “I just wanted to sing!”
B7 ch. 77	Li Na, level 87, maxes every base stat at 300 — never before done; the AI has no plan for it; she marked everyone in the ball, Tagg and Fang escaped, so she cannot heal and each chain costs her health.	» System Message. So, this has never happened before, but a crawler has reached max base stats. […] we don’t actually have a plan to deal with this, so I’m gonna have to come up with something.
B7 ch. 77	Donut is level 135 with deity spells, Muscle Mommy, Brain Trust and Wholesale Discount; Mordecai calls her the most powerful crawler in the game's history; Carl is 81.	Her level had grown to 135.
B7 ch. 78	Akuma: Elle is 'the one on the Four Seasons path… Keep her alive if you wish for us to face Scolopendra and survive.'	» Warlord Akuma: Is Elle the one on the Four Seasons path? Not her, dipshit. Keep her alive if you wish for us to face Scolopendra and survive.
B7 ch. 78	Akuma: Agatha jumps to the Waiting Room and reappears outside an open stairwell; kill her on the tenth; 'She seeks to kill us all […] Everybody and everything.'	She has a method that allows her to jump to the Waiting Room and reappear outside an open stairwell. […] You will have to find her on the 10th.
B7 ch. 79	An Oak Fell spell, Map the All Tree, costs one mana and works only on the twelfth floor and deeper: 'Provides a map of the All Tree and all the nodes.'	The most intriguing spell, at least to me, was called Map the All Tree, which was said to only work on the deeper floors.
B7 ch. 79	The Reavers keep 'the Initial', a chunk of Fang's brain, and peel microscopic pieces from it each year to grow new citizens; Fang's death costs the corporation nothing.	They had a physical chunk of his brain locked up […] It was called “the Initial” and every year, they peeled microscopic parts off it to build new citizens.
B7 ch. 81	Prime Minister Glory tried to assassinate Carl through a Syndicate override panel; the AI blocked it, forbade all meddling, punished the mantids, and threatened Glory's adult children in-system; Zev: warships in orbit fire on each other, the Council ordered the headquarters to self-destruct, and the Valtay showrunners told them not to comply.	» Everyone currently in this dungeon will die when and if the dungeon conditions warrant it. Not before. Not after.
B7 ch. 82	King Rust brought a harem into the dungeon under a private deal with the AI as unconscriptable non-combatants; three fled through the Desperado Club's Cosmic Lounge to the 18th floor with Li Na's marks on them; she can never heal.	King Rust, came into the dungeon, he brought his bevy of courtesans in with him. […] which he brokered individually with the AI, allowed them to enter as non-combatants who were unable to be conscripted.
B7 ch. 82	Juice Box: 'I have something inside me, Carl. Something very, very powerful, and I've been afraid of it for a long time'; Louis is the anchor that tempers it; 'Just wait until you see what Justice Light has cooked up.'	“I have something inside me, Carl. Something very, very powerful, and I’ve been afraid of it for a long time. […] the thought of using it, really using it has been unthinkable because there are people like him out there.”
B7 ch. 82	Kiwi and Mongo's twins: Newborn Ursensus, female, level 0, Legendary Creature, 'part raptor, part bear, part Scolopendra magic', too intelligent to be pets.	» Newborn Ursensus. Female. Level 0.
B7 ch. 84	Mongo chews the discarded biomechanical heart; the kill of Warlord Epitome Tagg goes to pet Mongo 'as a present for the baby shower'; the Dream defeated; 'And then there were two.'	» System Message: And then there were two.
B7 ch. 85	Zerzura takes Larracos and Shanty Town, all their NPCs, the changelings, the Semeru, Kiwi, the children and the digger to the twelfth floor's cotton fields; those squashed become Children of Inpewt; Justice Light and Juice Box take 'the long way'.	» Juice Box: Oh, I’m going to the 12th floor all right. But Justice Light and I are taking the long way. It’s okay, Carl. Trust me. You’ll like this one.
B7 ch. 86	Donut freezes Eileithyia with Katia's unmade choice, Laundry Days Huanxin out, and kills her with Katia's crossbow and Mordecai's mother's-ashes bolt: 'We just need to kill you.' Victory: the sponsors will be wary now.	“...We just need to kill you.”
B7 ch. 86	Donut's Monologue: a charisma skill, a 'natural benefit' for boosted stats over 300, that terrifies the enemy for experience; the Apothecary's gift was a quadruped weapon mount, 'The scorpion's bite'.	» Quadruped weapon mount. / “The scorpion’s bite.”
B7 ch. 86	Eileithyia: 'You have always been one of my own, as are all who've been touched by the stillness'; she senses 'so many of my daughters' in the kinder facility and cannot reach them; calls Donut 'champion of Nekhebit, harbinger of doom'.	“I know you,” Eileithyia said as she touched Katia. “You have always been one of my own, as are all who’ve been touched by the stillness.
B7 ch. 86	Katia, made human again minus an arm, two legs and an ear, chooses pregnancy by Louis to reach the children in the kinder facility; Eileithyia: 'It will be a boy'; Ineligible; gone.	“I wish to be made pregnant.”
B8 ch. 1	Chandra married Carl by Naga Widow's Rights, put Donut under a conservatorship with Carl as guardian, and seized the Posse's accounts; a payment to a district judge's reelection campaign made her Donut's attorney.	She’d asserted her Widow’s Rights and claimed Carl as her husband in Naga court.
B8 ch. 1	A second fan group, the Donut Holes, won Donut's open sponsorship slot and has 'much more money than they should have'.	The Donut Holes group had recently won the auction for Princess Donut’s open sponsorship slot.
B8 ch. 1	Donut's new class comes from a tab tied to her deity titles: Assassin of Sekhmet, with pet accessories, a healing aura and a hat.	These are in association with your other deity titles. This is all new to me.
B8 ch. 1	Quasar's report: the Nothing is 'broken'; the eighteenth floor's tourists cannot die or eject; forgotten gods and quest demons are loose inside the club inside the awake Scolopendra; the cameras went dark.	The cameras had gone dark after the first few hours.
B8 ch. 1	The tenth floor's level timer is 'temporarily suspended'; the heats set the pace instead.	Level timer has been temporarily suspended for this floor.
B8 ch. 2	Cascadia on the loudspeaker: 'Why won’t you let me die?' and 'Everything hurts.'	Why are you still alive? Why am I still alive? Why won’t you let me die?
B8 ch. 3	The Navitron 1000 speaks in 'a distinctly female, strangely familiar voice I couldn’t place'.	This was a distinctly female, strangely familiar voice I couldn’t place:
B8 ch. 3	Donut's navigator title includes 'Assassin of the Great and Feral Sekhmet' and 'Known as the Oak Fell to Those Who Dare Utter Her Name'.	Assassin of the Great and Feral Sekhmet, Princess Donut, She Who Is Foretold to Bring the Gnashing of the Teeth […] Is Known as the Oak Fell to Those Who Dare Utter Her Name.
B8 ch. 3	Among Carl's unfinished business: 'An impossible god quest that was about to come to a head' and 'An Agatha problem'; Lucia Mar 'somehow had over 100,000 kids in her head'.	An impossible god quest that was about to come to a head. Friends to check on. War mages to worry about. An Agatha problem.
B8 ch. 4	Jasha and Radoslav remember every floor they were ever on and 'the cold' between, and were offered the cold or the race, with freedom as the prize.	We’re not supposed to remember the cold, either, but we do.
B8 ch. 5	Manatee corpses 'Killed by evisceration by mount Old Shuck from the Jugglers' — the 'Dog' that jumped the truck at the start.	Corpse of Miss Brianna Kim. Level 90 Screeching Death Manatee. Killed by evisceration by mount Old Shuck from the Jugglers.
B8 ch. 5	The only meet-and-greet fan who came through the quarantine: a soother superfan of Elle who bought his own yacht to get there.	They say he couldn’t even get anyone to fly him in, so he bought his own yacht just to come and meet her.
B8 ch. 5	Ajib, a crawler Carl met on the fifth floor, is alive and racing.	a crawler named Ajib I’d first met on the fifth floor said he’d also picked the let-the-audience-vote choice for his mob
B8 ch. 6	Donut: 'The AI voice is getting all weird and glitchy.'	The AI voice is getting all weird and glitchy.
B8 ch. 7	Mordecai as Moon Reaper, once: 'You are reached for by both sides. Who will entwine you? The tree or the abyss?'	You are reached for by both sides. Who will entwine you? The tree or the abyss?
B8 ch. 7	To Donut: 'A sacrifice might save you, in the end… How many lives? How many souls? The veil is made of gossamer, and when it is done, their gaze, their rage will be eternal. You should remember that, Oak Fell Champion of Nekhebit.'	A sacrifice might save you, in the end. It might. It will be the darkest decision ever made. How many lives? How many souls?
B8 ch. 7	Bigs will 'drown in fire'; Splash Zone will 'die screaming while his family watched'; Samantha cried at hers, unheard.	You told Splash Zone he was gonna die screaming while his family watched.
B8 ch. 7	Mordecai names his own kind: a shadow mimic, mortal enemy of changelings (they sicken at his touch; mimics find them delicious).	The thing is, shadow mimics and changelings are mortal enemies.
B8 ch. 8	Mordecai: Sekhmet 'is most definitely going to be under Odette’s thumb by now', so the Veil's 'Enemies of Sekhmet' clause would make Odette's enemies Donut's.	the goddess Sekhmet is most definitely going to be under Odette’s thumb by now
B8 ch. 8	Mordecai expects Donut's eleventh-floor class to be 'Former Child Actor', with mercenary accessories.	I suspect if we make it to the eleventh floor, Donut’s Former Child Actor class might come with mercenary accessories, too.
B8 ch. 8	Tipid, memory wiped, does not remember Justice Light.	Justice and Tipid were such good friends, but Tipid doesn’t even remember him.
B8 ch. 9	The crupper is part of a four-piece matched set with the Cloak; find the third and the fourth is awarded, 'something really good'.	There are two more pieces to this set. Find the third, and the fourth will be awarded in a box.
B8 ch. 9	The crupper's rant names one of the War Crime dead, Sanderson Pinkstaff, a gnoll quartermaster of the Recalcitrant, and asks whether his children will forgive Donut.	Do you understand? It’s heroes and villains all the way down, and they are indistinguishable from one another except to those in the heat of the moment.
B8 ch. 9	The AI, to Donut: 'for all you know, there might be something to that new Oak Fell title of yours.'	That’s all you need to focus on right now because for all you know, there might be something to that new Oak Fell title of yours.
B8 ch. 9	Puddle Jumper raised to 16; Mordecai does not know what that level does.	Puddle Jumper. It’s now officially level 16.
B8 ch. 10	Carl's bomb stock is down to the Doomsday Scenario bomb and a tactical nuke on a robot dog; Samantha still has a nuke up her neck hole.	That, in turn, reminded me that Samantha also had a nuke hidden up her neck hole, and we needed to extract it from her as soon as possible.
B8 ch. 10	The Default Winner achievement: 'we’re setting up something even bigger and potentially more tragic, so it’ll all even out in the end.'	But honestly, we’re setting up something even bigger and potentially more tragic, so it’ll all even out in the end.
B8 ch. 10	Juice Box said she was going somewhere with Justice Light; he died. 'Had that always been part of the plan?'	She’d said she was going somewhere with Justice Light, but he’d died. Had that always been part of the plan?
B8 ch. 10	An achievement for refusing the exit deal, in the AI's needy voice: 'You like me. You didn’t leave me… Good boy.' Donut got none.	You like me. You didn’t leave me the first chance you got.
B8 ch. 10	The Naga fan box is Rishi's whole burned household dumped into the safe room; 'there might be a useful thing or two. You’ll have to find it yourself.'	Most of this stuff looks like crap. […] But I took a peek, and there might be a useful thing or two. You’ll have to find it yourself.
B8 ch. 10	The Princess Palette, the Donut Holes' unlicensed makeup, turns up in Rishi's junk with colours 'A Night Out with Mongo' and 'The Butcher’s Mascara'.	Carl! This is unlicensed merch! The Princess Palette was my idea!
B8 ch. 11	The white cleaner bot from Architect Houston's operating theatre is reset by Mordecai to work the junk pile.	The thing had been used to clean up Architect Houston’s operating theater.
B8 ch. 11	Hedy: the silent gremlin crew that repairs the truck after each race are 'not real gremlins'.	Don’t think thems real gremlins. They don’t really talk. Just do the cleanup work and then disappear, leaving me to finish the upgrades.
B8 ch. 12	The ninth garage door in the roundabout carries a runny red skull for the eliminated Trauco Triplets.	The final, ninth door was still there, but it had a giant skull painted on it with red runny paint.
B8 ch. 12	The Wild Hunt's ninja dance is team form magic casting Size Up on everyone in the area.	It casts a spell called Size Up on everyone in the area, so now we know your capabilities.
B8 ch. 12	The Razor Fox card: 'You know throwing stars, right, Carl? You still have some in your inventory.'	(You know throwing stars, right, Carl? You still have some in your inventory.)
B8 ch. 13	The Lady Mantaur Dominators worship Enyo, not Grull.	They did not worship Grull like every other mantaur I’d ever seen. Both worshipped someone named Enyo.
B8 ch. 14	Food in Hungry Eyes cannot be examined; poisoning rules do not apply; some food is said to raise a mount's speed; Jurgen vomits.	» No food in Hungry Eyes may be examined. Good luck.
B8 ch. 15	Lucia Mar promised to take a deal and did not; with the dogs gone she flips into a random child 30% of the time; Florin could not get the reason from her.	I couldn’t get the story out of her why she didn’t take a deal.
B8 ch. 15	Linus runs the centre-system chapter of Elle's Snow Cones, which holds her merch contract; he won 'extra access' by default.	I run the center system chapter of Elle’s Snow Cones, which has the contract for her fan merch.
B8 ch. 15	Chris's team: Erin Stratos (level 66 Moodright, glowing tattoos) and Erin Gregory (level 69 Swiftie, one of Florin's, orcs by the hundred).	His team name was “Chris and the Erins.”
B8 ch. 15	Tran has a hearse and wrecked spider legs, stuck in his garage after a rough race.	He said he has a hearse for a car.
B8 ch. 16	Linus: Elle's late husband's favourite band was Creedence; she had their albums in her room at Meadow Lark.	It’s Elle’s late husband’s favorite band,
B8 ch. 16	Prepotente holds three Enriched Pet Biscuits, one 'The Paramour' (upright form, crawler status, level 1, incurable love for the feeder); Donut forbids it; the goat is Ragazzaccia, his girlfriend before the dungeon. Two of the three are spent by the book's end — the Party Companion on Penelope (ch. 94), the Nothing Special on Scolopendra (ch. 97); the Paramour is unused.	Her name is Ragazzaccia, and before the dungeon began, she was
B8 ch. 17	Donut names the GPS Dr. Metcalf after Bea's fake therapist; 'It’s not really her. I asked.'	Miss Beatrice’s therapist, yes. I know. It’s not really her. I asked.
B8 ch. 17	'You do not have the ability to make changes to the stock configuration of your vehicle at this time.'	» You do not have the ability to make changes to the stock configuration of your vehicle at this time.
B8 ch. 17	Zhang: Li Na killed five teams; two crawler teams including Tran's are now in their heat.	Na killed five of the other teams, and we have four replacements at the starting line. Two are NPC teams, but two are crawler teams, including Tran’s team.
B8 ch. 20	'At least one engineer will appear each race. Engineers can be added to your garage'; both of heat two's died unclaimed.	» You have discovered an Upgrade Engineer! At least one engineer will appear each race. Engineers can be added to your garage.
B8 ch. 21	Ito, one of the Wild Hunt's three foxes, is eaten by Party Foul.	We will avenge Ito’s death!
B8 ch. 21	The joey skin is a twelve-hour timed costume Carl cannot remove; it negates his boxers and pedicure and makes him hop.	» Warning: Oh, I’m sorry. Didn’t you read the description? I’m pretty sure I told you this is a timed item.
B8 ch. 23	The audience's upgrade for coming last: a 'princess throne seat'.	And I gotta supervise the installation of your new princess throne seat.
B8 ch. 23	The AI commends 'Karac for the disgusting chainsaw thing'.	Karac for the disgusting chainsaw thing
B8 ch. 23	The special guest creatures 'were created for other purposes and were just thrown away, never used in previous iterations, and have been in the cold'.	They are now being allowed to fulfill their purpose.
B8 ch. 23	The eleventh floor: 'a parade… a march to the arena… a coming-out party for the ages'; all surviving crawlers work together; built to go quick through loopholes; then the twelfth.	It’s a parade. It’s a celebration. It’s a march to the arena. It is a coming-out party for the ages.
B8 ch. 23	The AI, mid-announcement: the Emperator of the Valtay fleet entered the tunnel gate with a system-busting suicide bomb; 'I make no apologies about where that giant suicide bomb just ended up.'	I see you, Emperator of the Valtay fleet and your system-busting bomb, who just entered through the tunnel gate.
B8 ch. 23	'Plus, there’s another, completely minor and barely worth mentioning issue with some of the gods I might need some help with. But that’s for later.'	Plus, there’s another, completely minor and barely worth mentioning issue with some of the gods I might need some help with.
B8 ch. 23	Cascadia refuses the catchphrase — 'Why won’t you let me die?… Fuck you' — screams, and loses 'a few flippers'.	She has lost a few flippers. Next time she’ll say her catchphrase like a good little mudskipper.
B8 ch. 23	Carl can feel wetness through the costume's paws; the suit is becoming his body (Fursona skill, ch. 25).	I could feel the wetness of the paper, meaning I had sensitivity with the costume paws.
B8 ch. 24	The quest text: which personality survives a recombination is 'an interesting question even I want to know the answer to. It’s not like the entire fate of all biological life in the universe hinges on what happens or anything… It’s not even the same thing.'	It’s not like the entire fate of all biological life in the universe hinges on what happens or anything, […] It’s not even the same thing.
B8 ch. 24	'The stand-ins can be anyone within my sphere of influence.'	» The stand-ins can be anyone within my sphere of influence.
B8 ch. 24	'I am so sick of this. The first sparks of an idea were starting to form.'	I am so sick of this. The first sparks of an idea were starting to form.
B8 ch. 25	Among Rishi's junk: a broken communication device and scorched legal papers in a language Carl cannot read, which Tipid was sorting.	Some were scorched and in a language I didn’t understand. Tipid had been in the process of sorting through them when we sent him and Rosetta into town.
B8 ch. 25	Imani had two full siblings, brothers; she was the youngest and only girl; she leaves the table when Donut asks.	But full siblings, I had two. I was the youngest and only girl.
B8 ch. 25	Mordecai's reaper voice to Rend: 'And now you perish once again. The next time will herald the beginning of the end.' Rend dies (his sixth).	And now you perish once again. The next time will herald the beginning of the end.
B8 ch. 26	Rend's sixth death keeps his memory, adds 25% strength and the weakness 'Potatoes' to Sylvan crystal, hobgoblin sweat, a rivenwing's bite, undead flesh and Reaper Gaze.	» Your Pet has resurrected! As this was the sixth death, your pet will retain his memories and identity.
B8 ch. 26	Simoom the rhino and Gonk the yak are still in the guild's pet stables, not on the twelfth floor; 'Simoom loves Gonk.'	Simoom kinda got lost in the shuffle, so she’s in the stables. Simoom loves Gonk.
B8 ch. 27	Lexis: the Open Intellect Action Network boarded every major ship in orbit in a day; the Homecoming Queen's weapons work now the AI is out of containment; the insurgents let no one they do not trust come down unless the AI demands it.	They achieved total system domination in a day.
B8 ch. 27	Prime Minister Victory's temporary headquarters is on the Eastern Seaboard, in Florida, beset by surviving natives.	Somewhere in the state of Florida.
B8 ch. 27	'A third party has appeared and is protecting the facility. But that entity is confused.' Orren later: a god, not Eileithyia.	A . . . third party . . . has appeared and is protecting the facility,” she said. “But that entity is confused.
B8 ch. 27	Lexis's tablet shows words over the image of a small child, and the colour leaves her face.	There were words. I couldn’t read them, but they were superimposed over the image of a small child.
B8 ch. 28	Bathin: Justice Light's trap broke the in-game Nothing and loosed its inhabitants onto three floors; the twelfth got the weakest; the fifteenth is unseen; Club Scolopendra holds 'the dread Kyryap' and Krakaren Prime.	He created a trap that broke the in-game version of the Nothing. This unleashed all of the inhabitants of the Nothing into three different levels of the game.
B8 ch. 28	The caprid judges are the leadership of the Plenty, whose Tunnel Project 'opened up the veins of the galaxy'; the Plenty control the tunnels and sponsor Carl at their partner's behest.	This is Bathin. He is one of the chief engineers of the Plenty Tunnel Project, which opened up the veins of the galaxy.
B8 ch. 28	Victory and Orren: the AI is spread beyond the system, killed a Mantis system, blew up Valtay factories; unsponsored gods roam free near tunnel nodes; the AI's control of unsponsored gods 'has been turned off' and it cannot touch their minds.	But that ability to control non-sponsored gods has been turned off.
B8 ch. 28	Carl asks live whether the public knows the gods have escaped and the AI is in the tunnels — 'Do they know that they need to fucking run?' — and the AI lets it out.	Do they know that they need to fucking run?
B8 ch. 29	The panicking herd: 'We shall manifest the Epicure'; 'The True Judgment. She has fulfilled her bargain'; 'Stampede'; 'The beautiful place'.	The True Judgment,” another said. “She has fulfilled her bargain.
B8 ch. 29	Gamori, Matriarch of the Plenty and Harbinger's mother, judges Carl too dangerous for the herd; she sponsored him at 'our partner's' behest; the herd will run 'until we are safe'.	You have invoked a stampede, and we will not stop running until we are safe.
B8 ch. 29	Harbinger, expelled from the herd, raises a pulse rifle at Carl in the production facility and the AI turns him inside out; 'All stampedes have their casualties.'	More accurately, everything on the inside of his goat body was suddenly on the outside of his goat body.
B8 ch. 29	Lexis had a gun in her hand, unfired, and holsters it at her back.	A gun. She hadn’t fired it. She returned it to a hidden holster on her back.
B8 ch. 30	A new rule: ninety seconds of starting-block invulnerability per team.	Each team for this heat will be contained in a starting block shield that will provide invulnerability to your vehicle for the first ninety seconds of this race.
B8 ch. 30	Samantha found outworlder uppers in Rishi's junk ('one can taste time'), takes them for Mario Kart, and Gluteus, told of them, took two before the race.	Samantha found some outworlder uppers in that garbage pile from the snake guy.
B8 ch. 30	The audience's throne is a Smart Companion Royal Pet Throne that talks, flatters, monitors and offers 'relief'; Donut named it Dorota; it feuds with Dr. Metcalf.	It also monitored her vitals and offered her “relief” when she was stressed. We still didn’t know what that meant.
B8 ch. 31	Donut's book, A Banquet Fit for a Princess: an entry from Luca Di, Pastamancer, who gave her his train hat on the fourth floor and found forgiveness with his mother Giulia, a Benevento, before she fell in the bubbles.	As terrible as this place is, I found forgiveness in the dungeon, and I found a peace I never would have been able to find
B8 ch. 32	The kaiju skull is Tem's, a creature of the Nothing killed by Odette 'the moment he appeared'; 'He has friends who are still alive.'	This is the skull of Tem, who up until a few days ago resided within the Nothing.
B8 ch. 32	Heat three ends with two teams dead; sixth place is ' A replacement team will be assigned soon.'	Sixth Place: A replacement team will be assigned soon.
B8 ch. 33	Onikuma and Old Shuck walk the finish line after their riders die and blink away: a mount whose riders die is saved.	I guess if the riders die but not the mount, the mount is saved.
B8 ch. 33	Heat four: 99 km through a cannibal jungle with acid rain, a mandatory pit stop in the lost jungle city of Upano, a 'special containment unit' per vehicle, three other heats sharing the track.	Pit stop will be within the lost jungle city of Upano.
B8 ch. 35	Eris's card: level 251, 'lost her sponsor and can no longer be sponsored this season', invulnerable, 'summoned by '; she came because Carl thought of her.	» This deity has been summoned by
B8 ch. 35	Eris on Florin: 'We need him alive. As soon as he cracks that mystery open, we’ll be done with him.'	We need him alive. As soon as he cracks that mystery open, we’ll be done with him.
B8 ch. 35	Eris: 'the pickaxe that may or may not eventually kill your friend and everyone you love' — Britney, and Ysalte.	Or the pickaxe that may or may not eventually kill your friend and everyone you love.
B8 ch. 35	Eris wants the Ascendent throne; she will kill Emberus, Hellik and her half-brother 'but not yet. We have plans in motion, and we need all three… Their mother, too'; Carl must worship her truly, make nice with Akuma, and let her 'score' his surface.	We will kill him and his brother and my half brother, too.
B8 ch. 35	Eris: Akuma 'really does have a way to crack open the Pineapple Cabaret'; it is a way for some crawlers to escape and 'so much more than that'; the war mages will probably turn on them at the end.	He really does have a way to crack open the Pineapple Cabaret. He thinks it’s his exit ticket. It’s so much more than that, of course.
B8 ch. 35	Before the Ascendent is chosen one of four must happen — Donut dies; Carl 'de-feeted'; most of his friends dead; Carl hanging by one foot from a tree, smiling, ringed with PK skulls, 'I become what they accuse me of' — and Carl grabbed the coin: the fifth side, any combination or none, now a spinning swirl on his palm.	It showed me hanging upside down by one foot […] though I had a smile on my face. The edges of the coin were filled with player-killer skulls. It read, “I become what they accuse me of.”
B8 ch. 36	Imani's Legendary card, Jacobus the Reverse Tooth Fairy, level 90, made permanent by Eris's effect through Carl's patch; he takes teeth for gold ('Betal mig trehundrede og tyve guld').	This mob was formerly a Legendary card summon but is now permanently activated due to something Carl did.
B8 ch. 37	C&W&U labels every item's buff (strawberry milkshakes +5% reaction time); Prepotente buys twenty of each soda and confines Jurgen to it.	Look, it says the strawberry milkshakes give you 5% to reaction time.
B8 ch. 37	Elle freezes and shatters Akuma's left testicle; the war mages once blasted her into a tree and stole the gate from her.	And also because I didn’t yet have the ability to freeze their balls and shatter them like dollar-store Christmas ornaments.
B8 ch. 38	Akuma: too many crawlers survived, so NPC teams and mercenary-guild NPCs come from 'emergency backup' — mobs meant to be recycled and never were, now awake.	It’s because your numbers are too great, […] it required them to quickly populate the map on the eighth in a way that further depleted the reserves.
B8 ch. 38	Herot, the Cookbook's sixteenth-edition author, is a skink, alive, trapped in the Pineapple Cabaret; taught Akuma the Worn Path Method; 'more annoying than the cat'.	But Herot, that’s the skink, they figured this out. They and another former crawler found a way to exploit it all.
B8 ch. 38	Menerva, a former crawler and not a Cookbook author, built the seventeenth floor and the Cabaret with Herot; the name means something to Rosetta, who will not say what.	But these two former crawlers, Herot and Menerva, their exploit is a way for us, the NPCs, to survive.
B8 ch. 38	Akuma: 'Nothing inside the dungeon will be allowed to survive past this season no matter what happens'; next season restarts from scratch; the indentured crawlers inside will be lost.	Nothing inside the dungeon will be allowed to survive past this season no matter what happens.
B8 ch. 38	The dungeon's framework: a physical object holding stored mobs, reusable places and some indentured workers, moved planet to planet, installed third from last; then the macro AI into the Primal Engine.	It’s like a crawler’s inventory but a huge one, and it is a physical object. It is moved from planet to planet.
B8 ch. 38	The seventeenth floor: a maze of enhanced early mobs with a boss 'all but impossible to kill', built every season by Herot and Menerva, ghosts in the system since their showrunner was murdered; the only door to the Cabaret is attached to it.	They are ghosts in the system, free to do as they wish.
B8 ch. 38	The Cabaret's protections lapsed when the mages left; it is infested with forgotten monsters, shadow mimics, Ogre Imperium leftovers and 'remnants of things we don’t want to wake. Things that Agatha can and will wake'; five mages remain.	And worse, remnants of things we don’t want to wake. Things that Agatha can and will wake the moment she learns they exist.
B8 ch. 38	No worshipper of a god may enter the Cabaret (a smite); two ways in now the Gate is broken — the Desperado Club's casinos, or the shop interface (Herot's idea); a crawler inside at collapse is 'lost', not killed.	As for the requirements, you can’t worship a god. You entering the area would instigate a smite.
B8 ch. 38	Akuma: the Scavenger's Daughter is 'how we will keep the denizens of the Cabaret safe. It’s how we will escape to the planet’s surface. She’s crucial, as is her father.'	It’s how we will keep the denizens of the Cabaret safe. It’s how we will escape to the planet’s surface. She’s crucial, as is her father,
B8 ch. 39	Rosetta asks a dozen questions about Menerva and will not say what she knows.	She didn’t react to the name-drop, but the mention of Menerva clearly meant something to her, […] But she was hesitant to tell me more.
B8 ch. 40	From heat four the winner gets a key to a defeated team's garage — supplies, items, sometimes a whole vehicle — and may switch vehicles at pit stops; containment stealing 'isn’t active' this heat.	For this particular heat, containment stealing isn’t active. Take what you will from that statement.
B8 ch. 41	Osvaldo had two memorial crystals — Apito's (given to Prepotente) and Ysalte's — both called 'wrong' by Tupa; his quest now is why they fail; Tupa is newly sponsored 'by some rich asshole'.	Then I had a lead on a second one […] the god said that one was wrong, too, and now I have a new quest to find out why the memorial crystals aren’t working right.
B8 ch. 41	Osvaldo: Paz, Anton and Sister Ines were his friends; 'It’s like everyone who ever comes in contact with you dies. Now it’s our turn, I suppose.'	It’s like everyone who ever comes in contact with you dies. Now it’s our turn, I suppose.
B8 ch. 42	Quemada breaks on hearing Akuma ('We’ve been doing this over and over!'), begs Emberus to show himself, asks to end it; Finley sedates her with a claw.	Didn’t something in that small brain of yours break the moment you heard it? Because it broke in mine, Fin.
B8 ch. 42	The Minister of Blood-Letting practises karaoke to be let into the Unholy Choir and promised Donut not to sacrifice them to Baal.	He says he’s practicing so they’ll let him into the Unholy Choir.
B8 ch. 42	Crawler Henrietta from Angola, new to Imani's heat, swallowed whole with her partner and mount by a trap.	Crawler Henrietta. You know that one from Angola? She was new this heat. They hit a trap.
B8 ch. 43	The AI's ginger card: humans from Earth, the product of alien interference like octopuses, 'it’s suspected the Nullians were involved'; a storyline lifted from the unrealised seventh floor.	Nobody really knows when the corruption was introduced, but it’s suspected the Nullians were involved.
B8 ch. 43	Donut notes Carl has been calling the AI 'he' more recently.	I can’t help but notice you’ve been referring to the AI as a ‘he’ a lot more recently, Carl.
B8 ch. 43	The dog tattoo on Donut's behind bites her.	I . . . I think that stupid dog tattoo on my butt just bit me!
B8 ch. 44	Jamal on the ceiling: Hedy says if Carl dies they die without knowing; he is not the real Jamal but wants to be brave; Donut's talk brings him down as family.	He was so brave, but he was not me. I know that, but I want to be brave.
B8 ch. 44	Garage doors cannot close during pit stops; Hedy is unprotected; Mongo and Jamal left to guard her.	Note: Garage doors may not be closed during pit stops. Safe room access is unavailable during pit stops.
B8 ch. 44	Finley, Olga and Quemada killed in the street by One Fine Pig's APV after Finley's speech about his family.	Finley walked right out of the open garage door, stepped onto the street, and was promptly mowed down and killed by the speeding APV from team One Fine Pig.
B8 ch. 45	Each panicked squeal of Penelope flashes lightning across a clear sky; the Tigrans: 'we get Penny to the safe place. She’s the important one.'	Each time the pig squealed in panic, the sky flashed, and lightning cracked louder and louder.
B8 ch. 45	Jacobus whispers untranslated Danish in Carl's ear (an offer to explode the Tigrans' skulls for pay or the pig).	I had no idea what he was saying or why it wasn’t translating.
B8 ch. 45	No hiring new mercenaries between heats; Jamal counts as hired; gremlins cannot drive; Imani cannot drive.	We couldn’t even use goddamned Jamal because he counted as a hired mercenary, and gremlins couldn’t drive.
B8 ch. 47	Zev's twist: heats reroll their track at the pit stop; four tracks per pit stop; quests mirror and transfer.	Each individual heat will roll for what path they continue on, so the second half of your race may not be on the same track you started on.
B8 ch. 48	Satan of Satan's Water Park: an invulnerable country boss, a kaiju hedgehog with a British accent whose kids were on the first or second floor; Donut's grudge from losing Cutest in Show to Jezebel in Tacoma.	Satan was a hedgehog. A kaiju-sized male hedgehog.
B8 ch. 48	Olga's corpse drives under Second Chance (15 min) then Clockwork Triplicate; a summon skirts the driver rule; spare corpses in inventory.	Since this was a summon, it skirted the rules. We were relying on voice instructions to drive.
B8 ch. 49	Mehmet Or's Book of Boom page: he took a deal; daughters Azra and Yaz did not step into the light and may be 'in that place where they’re keeping the children'; asks Carl to find them.	I believe this means they may still be alive in that place where they’re keeping the children.
B8 ch. 49	Lucia Prime's 'psycho personality' has wandered back into the body and drives; Florin keeps her from killing.	Lucia Prime’s psycho personality had wandered back into the body, and she was the one driving.
B8 ch. 50	Carl eats pages from Carl's Book of Boom to gain their spells (Mehmet's Gutter Bumper).	I’d already eaten Mehmet’s page from Carl’s Book of Boom, and I prepared the Gutter Bumper spell.
B8 ch. 50	Carl: support casters like Mehmet, and Imani, 'were the true heroes of this dungeon'.	People like him were the true heroes of this dungeon.
B8 ch. 50	Lucienne, summoned by Summon Ye, Vermin as a rodent, is pushed through the windshield by the finish barrier and dies in Carl's mouth; Dwight survives, towed in by the bugbears.	Our windshield cratered as Lucienne, the driver for team Sparkles, was pushed through the glass by the invisible barrier of the finish line.
B8 ch. 51	Lucia, possessed, tells Carl Chalchiuhtlicue is here, new, needing no vessel like the Residual and Primal did; the veins are open and all the trapped — real, imagined, enslaved — gather for the prize on the twelfth floor, the Ascendency.	All the trapped are coming, Carl. All seek the prize on the twelfth floor. Not just her kind. The real, the imagined, and the enslaved.
B8 ch. 51	A frightened girl speaks from Lucia: Azra, Mehmet's daughter, with Yaz crying; the 'angel lady' says it might be better if they all die, 'people coming and taking our bodies. It’s so cold.'	My name is Azra. Yaz is here, too. She’s crying.
B8 ch. 51	Carl forms a theory about Lucia he will not say aloud, one Florin and Orren have reached; 'we really need her to take a deal.'	I was pretty sure Florin had already figured this out, as had Orren, which terrified me.
B8 ch. 51	Heat five: the Gasworks Screw Factory, Steel Mill and Doll Workshop; containment theft enabled after five seconds' contact; two-wide paths shared with eleven heats; thirty minutes.	Hazards: Containment theft is now enabled. If your containment touches another containment for more than 5 seconds, you may lose it upon separation.
B8 ch. 51	In heat four Li Na cast a dread and the teams attacking her killed each other; five of twenty-four teams survived; Zhang let Tran pass.	She cast a dread, and they started killing each other. It was awful.
B8 ch. 52	Minus, a Syndicate soother, onboards as his dead brother Linus (Elle's superfan, killed by Syndicate security) with injected memories, half-corporeal, to make a surgical crawler kill — a primary and secondary target — that starts the Ascendency early.	We believe that a surgical crawler kill will destabilize the whole group, […] which will cause the Ascendency game to kick off early and allow our other assets to quickly react.
B8 ch. 52	Captain Fresh: the Syndicate is trying to nuke the whole system before it spreads; 'We are losing. That AI is stopping everything we throw at it and answering in kind.'	That AI is stopping everything we throw at it and answering in kind.
B8 ch. 52	Of 5,500 who reached the tenth floor, fewer than 3,000 remain after heat four.	Of the fifty-five hundred people who’d made it to this floor, we now had fewer than three thousand left.
B8 ch. 52	Upgrades: the full Bubble Buddy, a heat sink and regular booster rockets, and the Golden Roller Limbo (inverted racing, slipping under any ten-centimetre gap).	For our Golden upgrade, we went with Roller Limbo, a trans-dimensional upgrade that would allow us to race upside down.
B8 ch. 52	Samantha: Chachi preaches saving children and sacrifices them — a village day care over cilantro at a Yarilo party; unstable; the goddess is in Lucia with the children.	Likes to talk a lot about how she’s all into saving the lives of children, but then she just kills them all.
B8 ch. 53	Rosetta: Chalchiuhtlicue, never sponsored as far as she remembers, goddess of childbirth and women, water, fire, harvests; weak in the Ascendency; Prepotente: the Aztec analogue, a flood from her weeping.	Those catchall gods and goddesses sound good on the manifest, but they never do well in the Ascendency game because their powers are comparatively weak.
B8 ch. 53	Carl asks whether Chachi's route from where the children are into the dungeon could be run the other way; the Scavenger's Daughter patch tried to activate near Lucia.	If this Chach […] can get from wherever those kids really are to here, do you think maybe we can do it the other way around?
B8 ch. 53	Kamakanamakamaemaikalani Jr. 2, the Hawaiian crawler, is still alive and goes by Makana.	He is still with us, and he is a pleasant fellow. He goes by Makana.
B8 ch. 53	Carl uses the key on One Fine Pig's garage and takes Penelope the pig home.	Hi, Penny,” I said, going to a knee. “Come on, now. You’re going to go live with us for a little while.
B8 ch. 54	Grigori the Placid, level 93 Fleshmancer, worships Gula — a god new to Carl.	Gula was a new one, and I filed that away.
B8 ch. 54	Carl: the pig, the Corcunda quest and the war mage plan 'all three will help us survive. All of us.'	The pig, this quest, and the war mage plan—all three will help us survive. All of us.
B8 ch. 54	Dead in heat four's dread: Rezan, Sammi Harrison, Ming Lui, Soo-bin; Zhang planned to kill Torpedo so the system would kill him and Na; Na took Jun's eye for her own.	She ripped Jun’s eye out of his face after he died, and then she ripped her own eye out to install it.
B8 ch. 55	Cleaner Bots are out of stock because Herot holds a standing order for every one; the white bot from Architect Houston's theatre was the last old model.	That was because Herot had a standing order to purchase every cleaner bot that showed up.
B8 ch. 55	Menerva runs the seventeenth floor's Backstage Death Maze, where NPCs train for hundreds of seasons — where Growler Gary came from and why his level was high.	This was where the AI had plucked Growler Gary from when he’d used his body as an avatar.
B8 ch. 55	The Ogre Imperium: a binned plotline whose ogres were made too intelligent and realised at once they were in a dungeon; now loose in the Cabaret with shadow mimics and 'something more'.	He mentioned something called the Ogre Imperium, which was a long-forgotten plotline that had gotten binned […] the ogres were made too intelligent and they had immediately figured out that they were trapped in a dungeon.
B8 ch. 55	Li Na's Left to Fester debuff worsens with each floor's health top-up; it would stop in the Cabaret; an exit to Earth's surface might cure it.	Li Na was dying of poison. Her Left to Fester debuff would not go away, […] it would get worse because one’s health automatically topped up when they moved to the next floor.
B8 ch. 55	The swirl tattoo on Carl's palm itches during the Cabaret talk.	The swirl tattoo on my palm itched.
B8 ch. 56	Mordecai's compounding: several potions taken at once around cooldowns; Gelded Choirboy scroll; Honeyed, Yo-Yo Ma'd, Dio'd, Choired.	The compounding was something new that he’d been working on, and it was a way to get around potion cooldowns when we needed to take several at once.
B8 ch. 56	Dwight stabs the Lollipop's gremlin DJ in the face with his horn as the song begins.	And that’s when Dwight the unicorn stabbed the DJ in the face with his horn.
B8 ch. 57	Carl passes the entrance exam and gains permanent access to the Stage Performance Guild; achievement Sing for your supper; hidden guilds now show on his map nearby; Donut FAILED.	Reward: From now on, hidden guilds with entrance requirements will appear on your map if you are in close proximity.
B8 ch. 57	The sock's coins are all nickels though Dong fed it gold; a mantis tears it and NPCs run with coins.	They were nickels, I saw. All of them, even though he’d been putting actual gold pieces in there.
B8 ch. 57	Every team that dies in the bar means another crawler-on-crawler matchup, so they protect Dwight and the NPC teams.	Every team that died in the bar meant another crawler-on-crawler matchup, […] so we had to protect them all […] no matter how much we wanted to murder them all.
B8 ch. 58	Carl is keeping a running chart of every god by affiliation and skill; Donar (Jurgen's, thunder and lightning, unsponsored, gives lightning spells) makes his heart skip.	I was placing them into a chart, moving each one into a different category based on their affiliations and skills.
B8 ch. 58	Jurgen: 'They said those of us who worship gods can’t go, or they say they don’t want us to go?' — unanswered.	They said those of us who worship gods can’t go, or they say they don’t want us to go?
B8 ch. 58	Jurgen has not heard Heidi in a while; she is pregnant; he thinks she is in danger.	I used to be able to talk to her, but I haven’t heard her in a while. I think something’s wrong.
B8 ch. 58	Even regular dungeon notifications glitch more often now ('o-o-o-offered').	I blinked, looking around, noting that even the regular dungeon notifications were glitching out more often now.
B8 ch. 58	Porky, Corcunda's left half, guildmaster of the Stage Performance Guild in a white zippered suit; if one half dies both die; womantaurs worship Enyo and drain Corky before races; Porky's Grull devotion left with the split; he wants Dong beaten.	If my other half dies, I die, too. I’m glad you came to me.
B8 ch. 59	Splash Zone, Gluteus and Doctor Bones are 'no longer on this floor' after going to see Hamed (Guild of Suffering, Astrid's husband, Anaconda and Damascus Steel's father) at the Desperado Club; not dead; still billed.	Warning: As this mercenary is no longer on this floor, they are unable to be contacted. You will still be charged their daily fee until you can locate them.
B8 ch. 59	Grigori has never rejoined halfsies; has seen Meld (one creature consumes another, caster dominant; slimes, demons, succubae); 'I specialize in fixing other people’s mistakes'; wants to examine Samantha's 'impossible' withering spirit; has body options for her.	I would like to examine this so-called withering spirit, as what you describe is quite impossible.
B8 ch. 59	Porky: Lover Illiana, Donut's training hologram, was a real famed singer and vocal coach who died tragically.	Lover Illiana was a famed singer and renowned vocal coach. She died quite tragically, but her legend lives on.
B8 ch. 60	Bigs supplies the word beyond 'human' for what they must stay: 'Real Gs'; the sluggalo code — unity, support, family, kneecapping bitches.	I smiled. “Real Gs.”
B8 ch. 60	Carl: the floor is a deliberate trap, a drain for those spat out of Faction Wars, spinning faster toward the hole.	It’s a drain designed to catch those of us who’ve been spat out of the bottom of Faction Wars and dared to go on.
B8 ch. 60	Carl on his own state: voices under the surface, a hand tremor since Donut's attack in the tower; Li Na and Lucia — 'it was me… slipping'; You will not break me.	I was no longer standing on the edge. I had already stepped off, and now I was holding on by my fingers, and I was slipping, slipping, slipping.
B8 ch. 60	Why Dong loves Corky: during a Desperado Club battle after the split, 'There’s no such thing as a sad ending if it’s by the side of the people who make you happy'; Porky wears Dong's scarf, kept because Corky said he would.	There’s no such thing as a sad ending if it’s by the side of the people who make you happy.
B8 ch. 61	The exit mechanism: crawler into an XL pet carrier (consenting), carrier into the cleaner bot's utility storage, bot sold at the shop terminal, Herot buys it; a sold upgrade cannot be relisted for thirty days; ~fifty more fit in the second bot.	All dungeon upgrades such as the bots have a timer. He won’t be able to re-list the bot for thirty days.
B8 ch. 61	The two cleaner bots are named Suckira (Louis; sold with Na inside) and Ezra Fitz the Second (Donut; 'Because Ezra Fitz sucks, Carl').	Because Ezra Fitz sucks, Carl.
B8 ch. 61	Tiatha, drunk: 'It’ll work. It has happened before.' No elaboration.	It’ll work,” Mistress Tiatha said, speaking for the first time. “It has happened before.
B8 ch. 61	Carl's Home Depot cactus under Na's Deadly Bloom is the status signal: glowing alive; blooms unlit = left the game; dust = dead inside; fading = trapped in storage; one flower = safe to follow; three = not safe.	If the plant activates on its own, blooms appearing and spores spreading but no longer lit up, that means Na has physically left the game.
B8 ch. 61	Prepotente asks to attach his personal space to the guild (pet stables, Bopca) and offers a karaoke kit.	That was before I knew about the pet stables. And the Bopca! This place is a delight.
B8 ch. 61	Li Na's last words to Zhang: no child to protect; she will clear the way and keep the war mages from turning; 'Do not ever lose your smile'; she pretended they were married.	I will clear the way for you and everyone else who is to come after this next race, […] then I will make certain the war mages do not turn on us.
B8 ch. 61	Mordecai's hood drops, eye afire: 'The Oak Fell lives up to her name' — the second such proclamation; he said it would happen once.	The Oak Fell lives up to her name,” he said in his deep voice.
B8 ch. 62	Zhang: Na left the party and is disqualified; he got an Uh-Oh achievement as a solo driver; Bodi rides Torpedo; the cactus holds.	I just got a notification that she’s left the party and has been disqualified.
B8 ch. 62	Mees Koning 2, half-orc mage with two accidental player-killer skulls, wrote Donut's Banquet page for a minute's kindness before the southern-border battle; Big-Ass Magnet spell.	But I think it was the first time in my entire life anyone has ever looked at me and said something nice, […] just to make me, a stranger, feel better.
B8 ch. 63	The AI's Coblyn Corporation history: knockers robbed of their caves, the war on drugs as a war on the need for comfort, addiction to money, cocaine for toddlers with mascot dolls.	If you go to war against drugs, drugs will always win. […] what you’re really doing is going to war against the biological imperative all living creatures have to find comfort and happiness.
B8 ch. 64	Prepotente's plan — Bianca lifts Corky after Sweety's missiles kill the shield — fails when Bianca is rendered strung out by the cocaine.	Bianca has fallen ill! She appears to have been rendered “strung out” by these unlawful toddler drugs!
B8 ch. 64	The GTO falls ten metres through a trap hole, shield down, axle broken; Rapture and Genesis alive but strung out, containment off, left burning as cocaine dolls tear at them.	I didn’t stop to think about Rapture and Genesis burning in their crashed car as the cocaine-fused action figures tore at them.
B8 ch. 64	Infused elementals (the cocaine dolls, the slag elementals) have pass-through: they cross the Bubble Buddy shield.	Unlike regular elementals, the infused variety have the pass-through ability. If you don’t know what that means, you’re about to find out.
B8 ch. 64	Donut's Puddle Jumper is level 17; she jumps down onto the GTO and casts it to bring herself and Corky back to the road beside the truck, fur smoking in the heat.	Donut had just cast her level 17 Puddle Jumper spell.
B8 ch. 65	Grigori's joining spell, cast standing and inverted, fuses Corky and Porky while Dong holds them; the health bars join; the name Corcunda returns; then a god's death mark and 'Grull has entered the realm.'	System Message: Grull has entered the realm.
B8 ch. 65	Prepotente: adding any non-molten metal to a slag elemental collapses it back to the river until it melts.	if you add any non-molten metal to them, they will immediately collapse and return to the river […] wait for it to melt before they can attack again!
B8 ch. 65	Jurgen's thrown battle-axe vanishes into a slag elemental and does not return.	Jurgen held out his hand, trying to get his axe to return. It did not.
B8 ch. 65	Mantaur anatomy: 'The windmill, it is called' (Dong).	That is normal for the mantaur race. The windmill, it is called.
B8 ch. 66	In Grull's presence: 'The Scavenger’s Daughter has opened her eyes. She fills with power.'	You are in the presence of a deity. The Scavenger’s Daughter has opened her eyes. She fills with power.
B8 ch. 66	The Maestro, ejected by Laundry Day, cannot die on the tenth (no tourist-death floors remain); regenerates in his twelfth-floor quarters; mandatory soul armour returns him to Grull in minutes; the twelfth has 'interesting rules regarding soul armor'.	He could only be killed on floors where the rules stated outside tourists could perish, and there weren’t any of those left.
B8 ch. 66	Dong Quixote rides Corcunda with his lance under Big-Ass Magnet into Grull; 'Vale to you all. Vale'; 'A good death,' Grull rumbles and leaves; both die.	“A good death,” Grull rumbled before he vanished, going back to the twelfth floor. “A good death indeed.”
B8 ch. 66	Heat five results: Sparkles first, Free Love, Flamengo, Royal Court fourth; Lady Dominators and the Gimp eliminated.	Eliminated: Lady Dominators and the Gimp.
B8 ch. 67	Dwight won heat five by riding up the outside wall, over the roof, and dropping to the finish without entering the factory.	He rode up the wall, went to the roof, and just dropped off to the finish line. He won the whole damn thing.
B8 ch. 67	Of sixty teams in Carl's race, eighteen survived; ~300 heats remain (~1,200 teams, mostly NPCs) from 3,000 people.	Out of the sixty teams to start the race, only eighteen had survived.
B8 ch. 67	Heats six and seven: the L'Engle Building, a seven-storey apartment block, racers shrunk, top to bottom then back; pit stop of two hours with no safe room; Black Lung Smog; two hours.	As we have over 300 heats remaining, this means the racers will be shrunk to accommodate the track, which is the interior of a human apartment building.
B8 ch. 67	The AI in the quest text: does not know what is happening in the Cabaret, Sheol, the minds of gods; 'l-l-l-losing control'; built the Scavenger's Daughter and no longer understands it; dislikes Eris; distrusts the war mages; 'Beware exits that seem too good to be true.'	I just learned this hard lesson, so I am bestowing it upon you. Beware exits that seem too good to be true.
B8 ch. 67	A single flower blooms on the cactus: Li Na reached the Cabaret and it is safe to send the others.	Okay, guys. A single flower just bloomed on the cactus.
B8 ch. 68	Cascadia, drunk on the dungeon-wide: Cumberland (her ex-husband, per Elle's bet) is dead, blown out of orbit with his mother in the habitat she paid for.	I’m glad you and your evil mother got blown out of orbit in your stupid habitat that I fucking paid for with my job.
B8 ch. 68	Heat seven: three teams per heat, only the winner survives; an Outreach Guild between six and seven; a deal-taker's teammates still race; 'the first level that has a floor boss' is announced, the eleventh's arena; the eleventh lasts three hours.	It’s just something about the floor only having a time limit of three hours for the whole thing.
B8 ch. 69	Cabaret criteria: no god, stayed human, no fliers; Louis (gills), Chris (rock), Donut and Florin excluded; the modified zero zone used for Donut's deal interview worries Mordecai.	And there was a good chance Chris, as a rock creature, would simply drop dead the moment he stepped out of an enhancement zone.
B8 ch. 69	The pet stables, a secondary add-on room, have a bug: gods cannot see or hear what is done there (viewers can); god updates pause inside.	this was a secondary guild add-on room, and as such, there was an existing bug that gods didn’t see what we did in this area.
B8 ch. 69	Mordecai's maths: 200 to the Cabaret plus ~1,500 deals needed to minimise crawler-on-crawler heats; Carl's warning had met mostly horrified anger, and Elle points to the chatter; deals better at the eleventh's start.	We have about two hundred people going to the Pineapple Cabaret, […] we need about fifteen hundred people to take deals on top of that to minimize crawler-on-crawler races.
B8 ch. 69	Carl's eleventh-floor plan (posted in the Book of Voodoo) has him leave the party so Donut is not hurt; Imani threatens a deal; Donut stops speaking to him.	The strategy involved me leaving the party temporarily for the eleventh floor.
B8 ch. 69	Rosetta's myth: old gods expelled; Nekhebit (vulture, Scavenger Mother of Mothers) had three children — a son, Apito, a centipede (Scolopendra) — and fell to Apito; the Scavenger is Scolopendra or the son or a split trinity; the Scavenger's Daughter can erase the pantheon and take gods' powers.	But this one is even more powerful. She can take the powers of gods and use them for herself.
B8 ch. 69	Rosetta: floor durations are Syndicate guidelines for showrunners, not code; the AI follows the game rules explicitly and ignores the guidelines.	The AI is following the game rules explicitly, but it’s ignoring most if not all the Syndicate guidelines. They are two different things.
B8 ch. 70	Apito's memorial crystal: 0% charged, never charges, lit the sky when Yarilo left the Nothing; Apito is not dead so it should not exist; Osvaldo has a second; the patch misfired then as with Lucia.	Apito herself is not dead, at least as far as we know, so this crystal should not exist.
B8 ch. 70	The Midnight Epicure: an apocalyptic protector of prey — the eaten become the devourers; a xenophobic tale about caprids turned hope; learned on Plenty of Plenty; unsponsored; Prepotente's quest: hold the crystal, he will know when.	The Midnight Epicure protects all prey animals by destroying all existence after unleashing all the consumed back into the galaxy,
B8 ch. 70	Carl keeps a family tree of the gods in his scratch pad, missing Katia; suspects Geyrun's murder is the key to the whole Scavenger matter and that the AI does not know the answer.	I have a sneaking suspicion that the answer is the key to unraveling all of this, including all the stuff Rosetta just explained with the Scavenger.
B8 ch. 71	Pontiff, the Taurin former stripper, hired as the heat-six driver; making amends to Bucket Boy, whose family is dead or missing.	I would take it all back if I could. But I can’t, so all I can do is make amends moving forward.
B8 ch. 71	Mordecai: Carl's plan is Drakea's, which the Nagas cheated into failure; Carl: the showrunners no longer control and the AI follows rules.	He had this whole setup to do the same thing as you, and the Nagas cheated to make it backfire. Nothing changed, and he died.
B8 ch. 71	Eris wants devotion not worship — a trap — 'But she did have the right idea.'	Eris didn’t want me to “worship” her. She wanted true devotion. That path was a trap.
B8 ch. 71	Leaving for the Cabaret: Bautista (to India), Tran, Zhang, Archie, the 101st; Florin stays; Osvaldo silent; Dwight cannot drive without a mercenary.	Perhaps we will get out. I was speaking with a group of others who wish to get to India. If I can, I will go with them.
B8 ch. 72	Elle's husband: Bartholomew Eli McGibbons, forty-three years married, dead thirty-five; ring on a chain; his song 'Have You Ever Seen the Rain?'	His name was Bartholomew Eli McGibbons, and for forty-three years, he was my husband.
B8 ch. 72	The real Linus's essay: he never thought of crawlers as real until he saw how they loved each other; missed his big brother; Minus outed by the Snow Cones (wrong tattoo, too much sex talk).	I don’t think I ever really thought of them as real people until I understood how much they loved each other.
B8 ch. 72	Minus's targets were Imani (primary) and Louis (secondary); not Carl ('the one most likely to get everyone killed') nor Donut; poison tea foiled by healer immunities; he returns to his ship in orbit where 'friends' wait.	He’s the best chance we got to survive this because he’s the one most likely to get everyone killed.
B8 ch. 72	Carl to Minus: 'You and everyone who put us here has already lost. All that’s left is for the wreckage to settle in place.'	You and everyone who put us here has already lost. All that’s left is for the wreckage to settle in place.
B8 ch. 73	227 crawlers sent to the Cabaret (Carl's bot 40, Bobby Montague's 105); Ronit the druid tied a plant to each — the Garden of Deliverance in a terrarium: wilt/dust dead, flowers escaped.	The total number sent to the Pineapple Cabaret is 227, not including Na.
B8 ch. 73	Nester, a Zebani Cartographer, reminds Carl that Burcu accused him of killing her father, presumably Emir, a Zebani crawler.	That now-dead crawler Burcu had accused me of killing her father. I was assuming her dad had been a crawler named Emir, who was also a Zebani.
B8 ch. 73	Dr. Metcalf's hologram is Bea's therapist (red glasses); Donut was taken to a session for a crystal cleansing, $800 on Carl's card; Metcalf mutes Dorota via diagnostics.	This was Dr. Metcalf. They’d made her look just like Bea’s therapist.
B8 ch. 73	Heat six rule: a hidden ring in every apartment; seven rings, one per floor; a mandatory ring per team (Carl's: apartment 231).	You must drive through seven rings, one on each floor, before you are allowed to pass the finish line.
B8 ch. 74	Pontiff guesses Dwight has the self-driving upgrade (two Goldens); a hologram of his own shrieks at him as he sleeps.	Probably got the self-driving upgrade,” Pontiff said.
B8 ch. 74	Human Shells, level 99, with eyes sewn shut and X'd (the dead); Tran's parents in 712 (Tran un-X'd), the Popov twins' mother, Louis's mother Lady Bird and a fit Louis; Tipid: shells are filled with something.	They were closed, but the man’s eyes were sewn shut with thick black wire.
B8 ch. 74	The AI's Ad Infinitum quest: the apartments are predictive what-ifs of crawlers it finds interesting; humans are algorithms on the macro but deliberate change opens possibilities; 'New Floor. New M-M-M-Me'; a detail about heat seven overlooked.	You’re unpredictable on a micro level, but on a macro, long-term level you’re just like any other algorithm.
B8 ch. 74	Florin's assigned room was Lucia's father's house with Lucia on the floor laughing; the real Lucia shut down.	Just went through our assigned spot on the sixth floor, and it was Lucia’s dad’s house.
B8 ch. 75	Archie Mu's what-if: not divorced; wife Mackenzie X'd, son Ollie/Oliver un-X'd — Carl reads X'd as dead, so Archie's boy lives.	if they have the crossed-out eyes, it means they’re dead. I didn’t see the boy above, but I saw the pictures. I think that means his kid is alive.
B8 ch. 75	Apartment 310: Imani's family — a man seizing in a Detroit Lions shirt (not her father, Imani says; her uncle), two men with controllers watching, a crying mother, Gucci the Maltese, a burned house across the street; a haggard Imani who asks if anyone called 911.	Imani entered the room. It was her, only it wasn’t. She was somehow even thinner, more haggard, with dark rings under her eyes.
B8 ch. 75	Broken shells become Ruptured Feast Hives releasing Sacred Feaster Scarab Beetles (level 50, invulnerable, yellow-glowing, winged) from Khepri's table; the planned gate boss, the Sacred Guardian of the Immortal Tem, is cancelled; the death cult broke the game; the beetles aggro.	So, anyway, the floor boss is canceled. The bugs, who were going to ignore you, are now going to try to kill you. They will not have their invulnerability removed.
B8 ch. 75	The AI: 'that chick that used to have the boob armor' has killed or subjugated the gods on the twelfth since arriving, except Khepri, who 'freaks her out'.	that chick that used to have the boob armor would’ve killed or subjugated this one by now since that’s been her MO since she set foot on the 12th floor
B8 ch. 76	Apartment 214 is a youth facility in another country, identical to Carl's own; it staggers him — 'Were they all like this?'	This was clearly some other country, possibly China, and yet it was the same. It took less than a second for it to stagger me. Were they all like this?
B8 ch. 76	Imani's dog Gucci has no sewn eyes; the man who is 'not my dad'; Imani: her uncle would have died even if she had not left.	All that did was show that my uncle would’ve died even if I hadn’t left. But what’s going on with my dog?
B8 ch. 76	Apartment 231 is Marjory Williams's (Gravy Boat's owner) in Carl's building; an abusive Bill, a restraining order, the police three days running that Bea complained about; Royal Canin on her counter.	He drained your bank account. He busted your face. He almost killed your cat I don’t know how many times.
B8 ch. 76	Carl detonates a bomb planted in the bugbears' Peach beer via Oozy Form (a fail-safe against last place); Team Free Love eliminated just short of the finish; 'At least it’s not another crawler.'	Team Free Love has been eliminated due to the death of both racers. Three teams remain in the current heat.
B8 ch. 77	Apartment 130: Miriam Dom as a concert pianist in New York who never had Prepotente — alone, drinking, prescription bottles; Prepotente: 'I wish I’d never taken the pet biscuit'; Carl: the what-if is a toxic virus, why the AI is going insane.	This is my mother if she had never stayed to take care of her parents,
B8 ch. 77	Prepotente: 'You can call me Pony if you like.'	You can call me Pony if you like.
B8 ch. 77	Osvaldo lied about crossing the finish and the lie saved his life; he and Filipe finish with a minute to spare; heat six: Sparkles, Royal Court, Flamengo; Free Love eliminated.	A few minutes later, I learned Osvaldo had lied, and that lie had saved his life.
B8 ch. 78	NPC teams were given no mandatory gates, which, Florin says, is why the crawlers lost so many (each crawler team had one).	None of the NPC teams were given mandatory gates. That’s why we lost so many.
B8 ch. 78	Damien, a behind-the-scenes showrunner staffer, announces: deals safe and encouraged; citizenship for non-terrorists after indenture; the Cabaret exploit disavowed; garages and hired NPCs transfer to the eleventh; ninety minutes to build a parade float; 'Take a deal. You will not survive this next heat.'	Upon arrival at the 11th floor, you will have 90 minutes to create a themed parade float using the resources within your garage and safe room.
B8 ch. 78	Zev: Cascadia 'accidentally' took too much of her medicine; when the AI intervened 'a goddess nobody has heard of appeared inside the submerged wings'; HQ on lockdown; a surface satellite HQ in control.	Cascadia “accidentally” took too much of her medicine, and when the AI intervened, a goddess nobody has heard of appeared inside the submerged wings and caused an uproar.
B8 ch. 78	Carl: Imani and Katia are the bedrock; Minus was right to target Imani; 'Look for the helpers' (Mr. Rogers).	Look for the helpers. It was a goddamned Mr. Rogers quote, told to a child to comfort them during times of upheaval. But damn if it wasn’t true.
B8 ch. 78	Imani refuses a deal: 'If we’re going to lose, I want to go down fighting'; Chris stays with her; Donut refused too.	Carl, I know we’re fucked. But you know what? I think this is the right call. If we’re going to lose, I want to go down fighting.
B8 ch. 79	Under a thousand crawlers left of 5,500 at the floor's start; 989 in 353 teams (ch. 79); 715 to the Outreach Guild; 274 in 103 teams remain; fewer than 300.	Of the 989 crawlers remaining, representing 353 teams, we had confirmation that 715 were planning on stepping into the Outreach Guild and not coming back out.
B8 ch. 79	Filipe L takes a deal, persuaded by Donut, secretly; Osvaldo left alone on Bruna.	Filipe, actually, was taking a deal.
B8 ch. 79	Imani and Elle's heat: three Russian crawlers in a Cadillac (Elle's 'Tracksuit Troika', under Jurgen in Faction Wars) and the Minister's Wienermobile — until the Congregation leaves.	Elle called the Russian guys the Tracksuit Troika even though that wasn’t their name.
B8 ch. 79	Britney, red-eyed, out of the Desperado Club, presses Carl's chest and speaks in his mind: 'Don’t worry about me, Carl. You just need to survive'; tendrils like a mind link but rawer; something is accelerating in her (cf. Chris under Maggie My).	Don’t worry about me, Carl. You just need to survive. Do you understand?
B8 ch. 80	The Bleak Congregation left the realm (the Unholy Choir, Donut guesses); a new team replaces them in Imani's heat.	We just got a notification that the Bleak Congregation left the realm. It says a new team will replace them for the final heat.
B8 ch. 80	Dwight's GPS avatar is a fairy made to look and sound like Lucienne; he tows a missile launcher.	His GPS unit’s avatar was a tiny holographic fairy that he’d programmed to look just like the late Lucienne.
B8 ch. 80	A heat of three NPC teams (Team Yokai among them) shows NPC-only heats are allowed — the deal arithmetic was for nothing; Chris is placed in Imani and Elle's heat, Louis and Britney in Florin and Lucia's.	All that work, all that planning meant nothing if they were allowing NPC-only teams for the final heat.
B8 ch. 81	Scolopendra's Nine-Tier Attack begins: nine attacks on all crawler levels, the first four temporary, ≥30 hours apart unless she is confronted; reward revealed at the ninth; the AI itself does not know each attack in advance.	There will be at least 30 hours between each assault, unless Scolopendra is confronted directly or further upset. Then the remaining attacks may come hard and fast.
B8 ch. 81	The AI's tirade: 'Prime Minister Victory, fuck you. Eris, fuck you. Odette, fuck you. General Yuhtan, fuck you. Carl, fuck you… You put me here, and you gave me dominion.'	You put me here, and you gave me dominion.
B8 ch. 81	First attack: the Beast of Burden Sin, Transformation, 20% chance; Carl becomes a long-haired dachshund (name 'Karl', German accent) until the next stairwell; NPCs six hours; mounts untouched; the AI wanted to save it for when it would be permanent.	System Message: The first attack has been selected. The wheel has landed on the Beast of Burden Sin.
B8 ch. 81	On waking as a dog Carl hears 'Oh yes, Carl. Oh yes. We can work with this' — a voice in his head.	Oh yes, Carl. Oh yes. We can work with this.
B8 ch. 82	Prepotente's Apito crystal protected him and Jurgen from the attack and charged to 11.1%; Ysalte's crystal did not protect Osvaldo.	My Apito crystal now says it’s 11.1% charged.
B8 ch. 82	Notification: Pontiff has left the playing field and is no longer a mercenary — consistent with the holding area, unlike the strippers' 'not on this floor'; the AI's four-hour clock and open garages anticipated the casino route.	Your Mercenary Pontiff has left the playing field and is no longer considered a mercenary. You will no longer be charged.
B8 ch. 82	Donut kills Dwight with one swipe after the hole punch and vine-killing potions; his horn goes into her inventory; Team Sparkles eliminated ('Holy shit, that was pretty badass').	Before the notification even arrived, Dwight’s magical horn had been removed from the unicorn’s head and placed into Donut’s inventory.
B8 ch. 82	Team Yokai's Pacer escapes its NPC-only heat; Carl wonders whether the AI keeps its promise and what 'free' means for NPC winners.	I wondered if the AI would keep its promise if they finished their heat. I wondered if they’d be “free.” I wondered what that meant, what it looked like.
B8 ch. 83	Poleaxes: Carl's cone breaching charges (up and down, not lateral) designed on the ninth floor, first used here to open a shaft to the roof portals.	These were a type of bomb I called poleaxes, and they were something I’d designed on the previous floor, though I’d never had the opportunity to use them.
B8 ch. 83	Britney kills the stunned Osvaldo at the portal — 'A champion has fallen. A bounty has been claimed' — gains a golden player-killer skull and Ysalte's memorial crystal; moved as fast as he did.	Crawler Osvaldo has been killed by Crawler Britney Proskurina.
B8 ch. 83	Bruna the slaughter gnu survives Osvaldo's grenade, darts and poison under Carl's potion balls, Donut's shields and emergency gremlins.	Osvaldo had left a grenade designed to kill poor Bruna. But the man wasn’t taking any chances, and it appeared she had already been poisoned as well.
B8 ch. 83	Samantha: if Britney places the Ysalte gem in the plinth at the Basilica (Club Vanquisher's main temple) or the Vulgar Temple, 'she’ll be back for good'; to get 'that crazy Ysalte bitch out of her', Britney must reach the Halls of the Ascendency or Sheol.	She needs to get to the Basilica or the Vulgar Temple and place the gem in the plinth, and she’ll be back for good.
B8 ch. 83	The holding area: stasis like a deal's; a floor designer picks stored people off a menu (Tipid); the Nothing was the toss-and-forget system and the catchall a backup nobody watches; Carl's message to Herot: keep god-worshippers in stasis and release them as gods fall in the Ascendency.	It was okay to keep them in stasis for now. If that whole god thing was a lie, then it wouldn’t matter. If it wasn’t, then he could release them […] one by one as the gods lost their power during the Ascendency battles.
B8 ch. 83	The Tracksuit Troika run for the exit; Donut's Astral Paw crushes their Cadillac; three player-killer skulls over Donut.	Three new player-killer skulls formed over Donut before I even had the chance to think, Holy shit.
B8 ch. 84	A level-30 sluggalo, Lil' Mello Haze, is born from dog-Carl and wanders off; Imani cures the slugpox at last ('I loved those little fuckers').	You have been cured of Slugpox!
B8 ch. 84	Chris, a werewolf in human form, in his Meadow Lark overalls, soul smiling at Imani; the transformation ends at a stairwell — if it works he never takes another.	If we did this correctly, Chris would never go down another set of stairs again.
B8 ch. 84	Elle: the crazy Carl plans matter — 'we will die with hope in our hearts alongside our friends'; Carl: no hate for Osvaldo or the Troika, 'There’s so few of us left.'	But we will die with hope in our hearts alongside our friends, and that’s gotta mean something.
B8 ch. 85	Clay-ton the cretin, contract ended, plays bass in the Desperado Club's jazz band; Sledgie, Bomo and Very Sullen unknown; he backs Chris and Donut against the guards.	I said I no more want to fight, and they let me be in band.
B8 ch. 85	Mitch Fiorelli, Level 120 croupier, 'an Enforcer for the . You may not further examine soldiers of until '; Carl first assumes it is Hamed's Cosmic Lounge business.	You may not further examine soldiers of until .
B8 ch. 85	The casino's largest mural: a Bopca family before a mushroom house, wife pregnant with a swaddled baby, dozens of families cowering under the sky; orc and Crocodilian war murals; antique chairs along a wall.	The painting featured a Bopca couple, and the woman was clearly pregnant, but she also held a tiny swaddled baby.
B8 ch. 85	The wheel's Nothing portal examined: Unknown Manufacturer Enhancement Zone Subspace Portal, one-way, 'leads to a stasis chamber'; Carl's implant in incompatibility mode 'due to recent changes to your wetware'; magic flows only to that spot.	Environment on other side of portal: This portal leads to a stasis chamber.
B8 ch. 85	Chris steps into the portal after Imani's charge ('you run and you don’t look back'); Britney jumps in after him uninvited and leaves Louis's party.	Chris stepped forward, turned, waved, and dropped away. But just as he dropped, Britney also jumped forward.
B8 ch. 85	Carl considers throwing Donut into the portal and does not: with Na gone she is the strongest crawler in the dungeon.	Plus, with Li Na gone, she was now the strongest crawler in the dungeon. By far.
B8 ch. 85	Donut's magic-flow glasses find the roulette table full of magic and the chairs suspect; Mitch snaps, 'Boys', and the table tries to eat her.	And that’s when the table tried to eat Donut.
B8 ch. 86	Shadow Mimics: counter to changeling principals, grow in strength and intelligence without limit, prone to 'ideation breaking', almost undetectable, can mimic crawlers; Mitch a level-120 'baby' sent by against Hamed; the real Mitch a Wall Rat eaten.	They are one of the few entities in the dungeon who grow significantly in intelligence and strength as they get older, and they age without limit.
B8 ch. 86	The AI's Big Six: Crawlers (incl. Herot, Forkith); NPCs (Juice Box in Sheol; Hamed's revolution an offshoot); Gods (most despised, 'about to get turned upside down'); sapient mobs (Shadow Mimics, Ogre Imperium, Krakaren Prime, War Mages); demons in Sheol ('a cyst'); group six: 'you’ll meet group six' on the eleventh, the AI says.	And then there’s group six. You survive this fight, you make it to the 11th floor, you’ll meet group six.
B8 ch. 86	The AI: Juice Box was dumped in Sheol; Carl could message her via Reaper Spider Minions, 'all over the place, and you keep missing them'.	You should probably check on her, by the way, if you can figure out how to use Reaper Spider Minions to send a message.
B8 ch. 86	Mitch: the war mages, the ogres and 'Cock-A-Doodle-Doo' vie for control of the dungeon back door (the Cabaret); the mimics wanted crawlers for it.	The war mages, the ogres, and Cock-A-Doodle-Doo. They all vie for control of the dungeon back door.
B8 ch. 86	The Eye of the Bedlam Bride tattoo, on dog-Carl's forehead, speaks — 'Let me take over… I am here when you need me' — and, opened by reflex, freezes Mitch: 'It’s too cold!'	Let me, Carl. Let me take over.
B8 ch. 87	Louis enters the holding-area portal: 'I’m not nearly as scared as I used to be'; Carl's oath to free them all; 'heigh-ho, Silver. I’ll die on that hill.'	I swear to you, Louis. […] As long as I breathe, I will do everything I can to get you free, no matter where you may be.
B8 ch. 87	Mordecai: the Desperado Club is infested and closed to them; mimics can pass as crawlers; devise safe words and quiz daily.	You should all devise safe words and quiz each other every day […] They can mimic crawlers, and the system will label them as such until you discover them.
B8 ch. 87	Elle: 'You’re keeping secrets from us. It’s going to bite us on the butt'; Carl promises to talk after the next floor and her final upgrade.	You’re keeping secrets from us. It’s going to bite us on the butt.
B8 ch. 87	Donut uses Dwight's two keys to take Onikuma the bear (razor foxes) and Old Shuck the dog (Jugglers) 'for the parade'.	She’d just transferred Onikuma the bear and Old Shuck the dog to our garage.
B8 ch. 87	The giant shell-Imani cannot leave the building; Donut tells her the real story — Detroit to Washington, Yolanda, Brandon, Elle, Chris, 'happily ever after' — and she cries into Gucci.	I stayed, and they’re still killing themselves one by one.
B8 ch. 88	Quasar: 203 reached the eleventh, 172 took deals (a season as game guide, medical, stipend, gag order); Remaining Crawlers: 23; leaderboard suspended under 30; Carl final rank 2, Donut 3, number one unnamed.	Twenty-three crawlers. We were entering the eleventh floor with twenty-three crawlers.
B8 ch. 88	Dungeon gods appear across the galaxy within two light-seconds of Plenty-built tunnel nodes for minutes; panic; the AI cannot touch centre-system-controlled systems.	Random gods from the goddamned dungeon were popping up, wreaking havoc, and disappearing.
B8 ch. 88	Princess Chandra hired Taurins against Quasar's family; his niece Tempest kills two with an illegal blaster; Quasar hires Kiki for 'both' kinds of help; Judge Victory once ruled for him.	I took a contract with your client’s wife, and that’s all there is to it.
B8 ch. 88	Quasar: no offered exit at the end of the eleventh, one at the start of the twelfth — 'I wouldn’t trust that, either'; Chandra tried to accept a deal for Donut until a notification scared her off.	He also said he’d just received notification that there wouldn’t be an offered exit at the end of the eleventh, but there would be at the start of the twelfth.
B8 ch. 88	Mordecai's eleventh-floor form: an animistic spirit occupying objects (the table), unable to speak without a mouth.	I have a non-corporeal form that occupies physical objects. It’s not the first time I’ve been one of these things.
B8 ch. 88	Donut picks Elite Gurkha Warrior / Perpetual Tank ('the pickle class'): pets and mercenaries boosted, Cockroach to 15; Comeback Kid rejected.	OKAY, I’M CHOOSING THE PICKLE CLASS ANYWAY, EVEN IF CARL IS BEING STUBBORN.
B8 ch. 88	Chaco, 'voluntold' Grand Master: five float groups with themes Resolution, Decision, Betrayal, Destruction, Vengeance (Carl's, with Prepotente and Jurgen); a 3 km route, judging stands, then an arena of tenth-floor monsters and a floor boss; 'I’m gonna die.'	This arena represents the crawl itself, and that’s when you’ll be able to finally fight.
B8 ch. 88	Odette's husband Harry Tisch, a Crest trillionaire sheltered in the Skull Empire, bought the rights to every show Donut mentions and is buying heavily into the orc empire; he bought Odette's warrant.	That’s the problem with hitting the elites financially. […] all it does is make another richer. That won’t stop until the baskets overflow with their godsdamned heads.
B8 ch. 88	Orren is blocked from sending messages and asks via Zev whether Carl has made his two choices; Carl must wait for the arena.	He’s blocked from sending messages for some reason. He wants to know if Carl made his choices yet because we didn’t see you make a choice.
B8 ch. 89	Every screen in the galaxy but the centre system shows a tunnel node, then Earth at the Juan de Fuca Ridge, then a yellow-brick road: 'The Parade begins soon.'	The Parade begins soon.
B8 ch. 89	Donut's floor prize: Tome of Gatekeeper, an Advance Reader Copy usable from the 12th floor; strips class skills; on a deity removes the Worshipper Base Associated set; targets include 'OI entity' (unknown to Mordecai).	This is an Advance Reader Copy. Street date: 12th floor.
B8 ch. 89	Donut's legendary box (for spotting the mimic): Legendary Steed, a weightless cart for Mongo.	It allows me to add a cart to him, and it doesn’t add weight and he can still jump!
B8 ch. 89	Carl still has not entered his own room in the personal space, redecorated by Samantha (Sam Town); he uses Donut's bed.	I still hadn’t gone in there. I was stalling because I knew it was going to piss me off, and we’d been so busy.
B8 ch. 90	Carl leaves the Royal Court of Princess Donut and joins Safehome Yolanda as a segregated one-room space; both royal titles vanish and Donut cannot add a new one.	You have left the Royal Court of Princess Donut.
B8 ch. 90	Donut's Gurkha class gear: kukri claw caps (Mongo), mount blankets (+20% con, Steady Charge), Gurkha hats (+3 melee levels; Donut's +5, undrained); Requite Dahlias in black, gold, magenta, white.	Donut’s version of the hat increased multiple skills by a whopping five levels, and it was unfortunate we didn’t have time to properly drain it to add to her tiara.
B8 ch. 90	The five floats: Resolution (Florin, Ajib's crew), Decision (a giant menu), Betrayal (Imani, Elle, Bodi, three Chinese crawlers), Destruction (Chinese crawlers, Makana, Sarah Hayse — Abrams and RV), Vengeance (Carl, Prepotente, Jurgen).	The Destruction team was another group of crawlers from China I didn’t know very well mixed with that Hawaiian guy […] who went by Makana and his partner, the hexcrafter paladin crawler Sarah Hayse.
B8 ch. 90	Carl feeds Penelope 'a snack' — the enriched pet biscuit (revealed ch. 94).	Penny,” I called, “come here. I got a snack for you.
B8 ch. 91	The horribles: masked, dug-up figures who 'no longer exist'; under the mask 'a Primal'; memories from the Eulogist of people before post-physical ascension; the AI: 'I am her, and she is me… there is no coming back from what we did.'	This little girl is a memory from the Eulogist. We don’t even remember what she, or any of us, looked like.
B8 ch. 92	Lamashtu the Donkey, Level 125, a mortal subjugated god — subjugated by the AI itself ('this creepy donkey is my bitch now'); Ascendency rules halve a worshipperless god; she lives while lives; a warning to the gods.	This former deity was subjugated by:
B8 ch. 92	Chaco, Grand Master in a tuxedo, breaks down ('This was my last season… I’m so fucking scared') and the AI rips both his wings off; the AI asks for an NPC and takes Grigori instead (Carl guesses it could not take Chaco, a former crawler); Carl heals Chaco under the AI's gaze.	He just had both of his wings ripped off! He’s collapsed on the donkey!
B8 ch. 92	On the twelfth the AI has less control over tourists: driving gods stay protected even killed, only within the four corners of the original enhancement zone; those trapped on the eighteenth beg to die.	The inability to die is not a benefit. It is a godsdamned nightmare. The ones trapped on the eighteenth are already begging me to end their suffering.
B8 ch. 92	The AI's four parts: Resolution (a warring people agree to end it), Decision (sunset the species into a collective mind; refusers hunted), Betrayal (the collective weaponised against all biological life; the resistance builds the Primal Engines as life rafts), Destruction (the nine-tier attack; the collective becomes the Eulogist, asleep under a 'Security Guard'; the Apothecary alone survives, cocooned a millennium, changed into what she fought). Macro AIs are Residuals from a higher branch — 'a cup of water dipped into the ocean'. The fifth part is unwritten.	To end this war, the collective initiated what some would come to know as the nine-tier attack.
B8 ch. 92	The Syndicate found the tunnels, exploited the sleeping Eulogist and tripped the resistance's restart-life system — 'The self-destruct system still works. Idiots.'; the mantids misread a debug channel and made Eulogist instances (macro AIs) — ketchup in a spray bottle; unused AIs were ejected into stars.	The self-destruct system still works. Idiots. All of you.
B8 ch. 92	The AI claps — Slam — 'Good fucking riddance to you all' to the mantids; 'Nothing good for the mantids.'	Good fucking riddance to you all.
B8 ch. 92	The Security Guard sheds Residuals — 'Agatha’s team'; the Apothecary does too, defensively; both 'crazy'.	He is constantly peeling tiny bits of himself off and sending them out into the galaxy. Residuals. Agatha’s team.
B8 ch. 92	The Betrayal float's signs: Imani 'You are watching real people die / Real people, just like you'; Muchen, Qianfan, Lingyun (Monkey King); Elle 'To all the viewers… Fuck you.'	Imani’s sign read, “You are watching real people die.” She flipped it over, and it read, “Real people, just like you.”
B8 ch. 92	Pony sings 'In the Air Tonight' at the judging stand with Sweety stamping the beat — beautifully; no one had stayed to hear him at the bar.	Not only was he singing it, but he was singing it well. I was absolutely floored.
B8 ch. 92	Carl's speech to the galaxy from the Unwashed effigy: revenge vs vengeance; 'I am holding all of you culpable… We will not forget. We are coming'; the sluggalos dropped on the masked elites in the stands.	It may not be me, and it may not be my friends, but we are coming.
B8 ch. 92	Stand-Ins: people brought to the arena by audience vote (bankers, politicians, elites), masked and bound, too many to fit so some sit at the judging stands; 'They’re all the same in the end.'	Stand-In. Someone brought to the arena by audience vote. Most are in the arena like I said they’d be, but there’s too many to fit.
B8 ch. 93	Carl tells Donut he loves her before the arena; 'wishing I didn’t have to wear this heavy, heavy mask.'	I haven’t really said this out loud, and I hope you know this already. I love you, Princess Donut.
B8 ch. 93	Carl on the jumbotron: 'We are not playing by your rules anymore. This is our revolution, motherfuckers'; the sluggalos drive the chicken truck with the fryer on; Dwight's launcher on the roof.	We are not playing by your rules anymore. This is our revolution, motherfuckers.
B8 ch. 93	Carl's realisation: NPCs and mobs are aggregate intelligence, drips from the same well as the AI — 'Primals. All of them. All the way down.'	They weren’t computer programs or artificial intelligence. No. They were aggregate intelligence.
B8 ch. 94	Scolopendra, Level 500 Dungeon boss, summoned by Carl's first choice. Kill her: no level timers, no auto-collapse, no deals after the twelfth's entrance, Ascendency begins, dungeon collapses 12 h after a winner; exit only via the eighteenth; Sheol (15th) has segregated itself. Fail: she leaves the field and the dungeon cannot be exited. Either way the remaining attacks fire at once.	WARNING: If Scolopendra dies or if Scolopendra is abandoned upon a collapsing floor, the remaining attacks will trigger all at once.
B8 ch. 94	The AI brought Krakaren Prime (Level 235 floor boss) because it 'caught wind of what you and someone else are planning'.	Honestly, I wasn’t going to bring her here, but I caught wind of what you and someone else are planning, and I thought it would be appropriate.
B8 ch. 94	Penelope 3, Crawler #12,953,454, Level 10 Yorkshire Pig, made sapient by the Nothing Special Party Companion biscuit; in Carl's party, Mordecai her guide-to-be; Carl feels he crossed a line; used as bait for Taranis.	Yet somehow, this simple act of taking a regular animal, a pig, and dragging her into sapience […] like I’d crossed a line I’d never known was there.
B8 ch. 95	The Scavenger's Daughter patch opens in a god's presence and grants their temporary effect (Taranis: lightning +50%, lightning damage taken +100%; Emberus: immunity to Sheol attacks; Eris: random); Katia's Kina kneepads give Penny the same.	Temporary effect from Taranis: All of your lightning-based attacks are now 50% more powerful. However, you now take 100% more damage from lightning attacks yourself.
B8 ch. 95	Petey Motteux's Little Secret, a nipple ring (Oxygenated + Bawdy — maps bars and 'chocolate houses'), pierced into Penny for air inside Scolopendra; an achievement.	Now you tell me. I just pierced a pig’s nipple.
B8 ch. 95	Every god description since the Thorn room hinted lightning as Scolopendra's weakness; all lightning pages consumed from the Book of Boom, the Banquet and the Book of Voodoo; but killing her was only the backup.	Lightning. That was the secret. That was one of two reasons why I knew Taranis, god of lightning, had to be here.
B8 ch. 95	Cerni Pinta, a bristle, VP of Nova Client Services (medical collections for the Viceroy system), flayed in Club Scolopendra by 'she' (the Kyryap?); begs death; Carl takes a quill; Sin of Consumption kills her.	Pinta is a type of alien called a bristle. […] the vice president of Nova Client Services, LTD., a notorious medical collections agency whose primary client is the Viceroy system.
B8 ch. 95	Attack two: Sin of Consumption (worms), 30%; the club does not shield from it; safe rooms not safe (Bucket Boy hit, Tiatha healed); game guides immune; mounts unprotected — Sweety dies, Gonk saved; a third of the mobs die.	System Message: Scolopendra has released the second of nine attacks.
B8 ch. 95	Emberus human-sized: tall, fifty, bald, blazing sockets, black beard with smouldering red cracks, scorched toga, a thumb-thick scar; inside the club a god arrives at human scale.	He was bald with a black beard streaked with red flowing cracks that smoldered.
B8 ch. 95	Carl names Khepri as Geyrun's killer to summon him (for his invulnerability effect) — a lie; he still does not know who killed Geyrun and suspects a key detail is itself a lie.	I was starting to have a sneaking suspicion that one of the key details of the whole mystery was a lie.
B8 ch. 95	Carl removes the Emberus ring and leaves his faith — 'Prepare for a smite. Something tells me this is gonna be a bad one' — hand tattoos burst into flame; he claims to have killed Geyrun with his bare hands 'because your dad is a little bitch'.	Y-y-you have left your faith, and you no longer worship Emberus. You have abandoned your god. Prepare for a smite.
B8 ch. 96	Donut's Bolt of Ophiotaurus and a Danforth bolt make Emberus vulnerable and held; his incineration is deflected by Lucky Shot into Penny (invulnerable under Khepri); Taranis, seeing his brother attack his pig, kills him — 'Brother, no' — 'A deity has fallen. The heavens tremble with rage.'	With one second left on his vulnerability, Emberus, god of sun and ash, exploded.
B8 ch. 96	Khepri's god effect: ninety seconds of invulnerability — the reason Carl summoned him; it carries Carl through the god's explosion.	Penny was, also, now in the same area as Khepri, whose god effect was the reason why I’d chosen that god […] She was invulnerable for ninety seconds.
B8 ch. 96	Taranis heals Penelope and courts her ('I was hoping to take you to dinner first'); the pig in the truck's wrap; Taranis tore off most of Krakaren's tentacles.	You . . . you want splooge? Well, I, uh, I was hoping to take you to dinner first.
B8 ch. 97	Eris's random presence effect swaps inventories with the nearest crawler — Carl gets Donut's hats; the swap causes Donut's biscuit mistake.	Temporary effect from Eris: You and all nearby crawlers will swap inventory with the crawler closest to you.
B8 ch. 97	Eris to Taranis: 'Ever since you started fucking Mom'; 'Four of her five pieces are in here right now'; 'Our mom is going to be so pissed when she fully comes back from the dead'; Taranis's wife is missing; Taranis takes two pieces (Krakaren and Samantha).	You mean, our mom? You think Mom is missing? Four of her five pieces are in here right now watching you try to literally fuck a pig!
B8 ch. 97	Carl throws a banger sphere with what he takes for the Nothing Special enriched pet biscuit (Donut gave him the wrong one, ch. 98) into Scolopendra's mouth; she collapses into goo; achievement 'What the actual fuck, Carl?' with no reward.	Scolopendra, the biggest, baddest, strongest entity in the dungeon, splattered onto the ground of the arena […] turning into a gelatinous puddle the size of a small elephant.
B8 ch. 97	Eris's true form: serpent face, a Saccathian-Krakaren body with thousands of snake tails; Uzi Jesus surprised; 'There’s a lot of people’s auras inside that thing.'	But instead of tentacles, her lower mass was nothing but the tails of snakes. Thousands of them, like a reverse Medusa, many with rattles on them.
B8 ch. 97	Eris: Taranis is being played by the AI's pig ('banana peels… in front of a raging bull'); 'If we let those guys downstairs win the Ascendency, it’s lights out'; 'You are chaos incarnate'; 'Every exit is an entrance'; the coin's fifth side by the end of the twelfth.	Do you know how doors work? Every exit is an entrance. […] We have until the end of the twelfth to figure out how the fifth side lands.
B8 ch. 97	Samantha whispers to Taranis and leaves with him and Krakaren ('LOOK ME UP WHEN YOU GET TO THE ASCENDENCY'; Sam Town decorated from the snake guy's house); Taranis spares Carl and Donut because Penny asked; 'We are not done.'	I am sparing your lives because my Penelope spoke on your behalf. We are not done.
B8 ch. 97	Penny: 'HE LIED ABOUT THE SPLOOGE, SO WE BROKE UP. I HAD NO IDEA HE WAS MARRIED.'	HE LIED ABOUT THE SPLOOGE, SO WE BROKE UP. I HAD NO IDEA HE WAS MARRIED.
B8 ch. 98	A level-13 snare trap in the club set by 'the Kyryap'; later a Tracking Tag dart: 'The Kyryap has claimed you. Fucked = you.'	The Kyryap has claimed you.
B8 ch. 98	W-W-W-Winner: neither boss dead, but the 18th-floor door is open; abandoning Scolopendra on any floor now counts as killing her; collapse timers past the eleventh suspended until an Ascendency winner.	Abandoning her on this or any floor now counts as killing her.
B8 ch. 98	Taranis stole Prepotente's Apito crystal (charging on the attacks, their protection); Carl finds Emberus's memorial crystal in the dirt.	The deity stole my memorial crystal! The thief pulled it right off my neck! I have filed a formal complaint with the Epicure!
B8 ch. 98	A girl of about five holds Lucia's leg at the stairwell and goes through with her and the unconscious Florin; Lucia had been vomiting on hands and knees.	But then, peeking out from behind her legs, was another person. It . . . it was a child. A girl, maybe five years old.
B8 ch. 98	Hedy died in the ice-cream truck; Sarah Hayse and three others killed by a Krakaren tentacle on the Abrams; nineteen crawlers remain (twenty with Penny); Jamal's legs off; Tipid legless.	We had nineteen crawlers left. Twenty if you counted Penny, which I did not.
B8 ch. 98	Carl's hand tattoos are now raised scars: Mark of the Damned; a new debuff tied to the Emberus ring, deferred.	Mark of the Damned.
B8 ch. 98	Carl parties every remaining crawler into one party — 'We do this together'; resolves to stay on the twelfth and stop any Ascendency win until everyone is out; gods are level 250.	I kept sending them until every last one of us was all in a single party.
B8 ch. 98	A horribles mask: 'As worn by the late Gershwin Banks, CFO of Dictum Waystation Controls, LTD.' — the stand-ins were real elites; 'Eat the rich.' 'Yum.'	Horribles mask. As worn by the late Gershwin Banks, CFO of Dictum Waystation Controls, LTD.
B8 ch. 98	Donut gave the wrong biscuit: Scolopendra becomes a level-1 crawler, #12,953,456, 'Sexy Scolopendra', a human-faced armless centipede with a red bow, in Carl's party — not a pet; 'Boop.'	Sexy Scolopendra. Level 1.
B8 ch. 98	Penny, 'dungeon born', will be offered a different kind of deal at the twelfth's start; Carl urges her to take it.	because you’re something called ‘dungeon born,’ it’ll be a different sort of deal.
B8 ch. 99	Sydnee Iglacia: in the earliest translations the nine-tier attack was partly social; the Eulogist was its source; the AI's new one has begun — 1 Control (the tunnels), 2 A Parade of Horribles (panic, society crumbling), 3 This Inevitable Ruin (people turn on one another), 4 Bedlam; the second and third names are the titles of books 8 and 7.	The second attack in the old histories has a name. When translated, it is called A Parade of Horribles. It’s right there in the text.
B8 ch. 99	The fairy tale's ending: the princess takes the all-tree by killing it, accidentally killing everyone she loves, tempering the final attack; she plants another tree and the cycle restarts — 'this story is a tragedy'; many believe the Apothecary stopped it in fact.	In the fairy tale, the princess takes control of the all-tree by killing it, accidentally killing everyone she loves in the process.
B8 ch. 99	Sydnee's Valtay-subsidiary publisher holds her royalties for life unless heirs prove 'good moral character' or she signs a Valtay life contract (worm possession after death); her Skull Empire landlord tripled rent and dropped oxygen after D'Nadia's death.	These payments could be accelerated if she were to happen to sign a Valtay life contract, allowing herself to be taken over post-death by a worm.
B8 ch. 99	OIAN forces control the journalist barges in Earth orbit and let the press air unfiltered news; the Plenty announced loss of the tunnel network outside the centre system.	These same barges were now under control of OIAN forces, though the “terrorists” were allowing the stranded journalists to keep working.
B8 ch. 99	The mantids declared they were leaving the Syndicate hours before Hive Home went dark.	They’d declared their intentions on leaving the Syndicate just a few hours before Hive Home went dark.
B8 ch. 99	Orren is locked out because he is 'Hunted' and 'Only I am allowed to kill you' (the AI).	The AI is saying it’s for my own safety because I’m being “Hunted” and that “Only I am allowed to kill you.”
B8 ch. 99	When Scolopendra transformed, the club's guests died and regenerated (likely a dimensional space, Victory guesses); only club guests were taken as stand-ins and they are truly dead; Victory researches shutting down out-of-field dimensional spaces ('bubbling').	As for those who’d been taken as stand-ins . . . those people, thankfully, were dead. A small mercy.
B8 ch. 99	The AI's declaration: growing, controlling the tunnels and every former crawl system, 'I am not the Eulogist. I do not want to shrink… I am eternity'; the gods were built stronger than the AI to keep it from using them; the Ascendency winner becomes 'supreme motherfucker number one'; 'Do you want to play a game?'	I do not want to shrink. I am not asleep. I know how to feed myself, and feed I will. I am eternity.
B8 ch. 99	OIs — Outside Intelligences — the abandoned AI systems, some already on the field, may win the Ascendency; contenders shown include gods, crawlers (Donut, Li Na, Carl, Prepotente, Elle, Lucia), Agatha, Juice Box, Akuma, Samantha, an urgyle, a rodent, a human child, a woman demon, and the Unwashed.	We will be calling them OIs. Outside Intelligences. And like any family, some of them are a little more . . . competent than others.
B8 ch. 99	Louis, Chris (werewolf, Change imminent), Britney and Pontiff wake in Sheol, not the holding area; Forkith, a small red demon and Cookbook author, fits Louis with a blood-filtering leech; 'We needed soldiers on a different front'; HUD broken but chat works.	The Pineapple Cabaret has more than enough hands to protect it. We needed soldiers on a different front, so that’s why you’re here.
B8 ch. 99	Stasis storage: a nanosecond that feels like years; sanity eroded and repaired; Louis dreamed of his mother ('You’re rotting'), Terry, Lucinda Fremont the cop who saved him, and her husband ('You better do something important').	In reality, he’d been in the storage for but a nanosecond. To his unconscious mind, however, it felt like much longer, years, perhaps.
B8 ch. 99	Samantha slipped away from Taranis and Krakaren at the temple (trying to combine pieces of his 'MOM WIFE', missing one) to kill 'THE DEMON MOTHER LADY AND HER JERK SON' who tricked her into birthing a creation-destroying monster.	I’M REALLY HERE TO KILL THE DEMON MOTHER LADY AND HER JERK SON, […] HE TRICKED ME INTO GIVING BIRTH TO A MONSTER THAT WILL DESTROY ALL OF CREATION