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Essay · Book 7, This Inevitable Ruin

The arc of the story

This Inevitable Ruin is the ninth floor — Faction Wars on the plains of Larracos, a wagon wheel of nine wedges around a funnel city with a drowned castle at its bottom — and a war: two crawlers, their guild as the officer corps, and fifty thousand former crawlers who came back into the dungeon to die for them, against eight teams, 150,000 mercenaries, a rebellion nobody made, and — once the ceasefire is over — gods. Book 6 was a haunted house; book 7 is a campaign, told in four parts that are also four phases, with interludes for nine of the authors of the Cookbook, each ending on a card and a 'Current status'. It ends with the Nothing broken and the title explained.

The book-level entities: Carl, Princess Donut, Katia Grim, Juice Box, Louis and Firas, Li Na, Rosetta Thagra, Justice Light, Lucia Mar, Princess Vinata, Architect Houston, The war mages, Atrocities, The failsafe, The Scavenger's Daughter, The Inevitable Ruin.

Prologue — The real speech (Chapter 0)

Christmas morning at the shelter, seen again: Paulie's speech, the world frozen with a spoon in the air, and the real message from the Residual who wears him — the crawl is unnecessary, the primal elements are harvested from the dead to feed the centre system, and here is a bootleg interface with the mantids' 'fuse' on it. Be absolutely certain (ch. 0).

Part I — The Ceasefire (Chapters 1–19)

Landing (Chapters 1–6)

Porthus takes game guide in a zero zone (ch. 1). Carl and Donut land in a drained alley; the rules read drunk; Deathbed Hellcat; a truce accepted before it can be discussed; eight teams form the Bloc (ch. 1). Fifty achievements, a tiara on a pillow, a champion's cloak worn as a shawl, a demon's drum kit and Gloom Wraith Phase (ch. 2–ch. 4). Dante watches his brother in the book (ch. 5); a meatball bonds over chowder and is named Sir Rendlegore (ch. 5); a bomber called Party Planner (ch. 6).

The city and its people (Chapters 7–11)

Down through Larracos with War Leader Arief — the Semeru, the All Tree, a castle built as an apology (ch. 7, ch. 8) — to Juice Box's war room, a cat on an adjutant's head, and a small wedding in a bar (ch. 9, ch. 10). Tipid snaps a chain (ch. 11); in a saferoom stand Rosetta and Tipid, and behind them fifty thousand (ch. 11).

The base, and the spider (Chapters 12–19)

'This is what you built' (ch. 12); the FUPA, a suicide bomber and an adjutant's axe (ch. 13); the flag room, the map, the phases, and a spider trying to cast through Carl (ch. 14). A rolling ball of skunks (ch. 15). Everly's dead end (ch. 16); Glory Bound as rehab, and Carl bound into Katia's dream (ch. 16). He wakes in a ballroom of corpses on the far side of the map, eleven hours gone, with a god's key to a trapped spider (ch. 17); a minor quorum in a queen's kitchen (ch. 18); a warlord confesses, goes mad, and the ceasefire ends twenty-three hours early with a rifle shot through Carl's shoulder (ch. 19).

Part II — The Ramp-Up (Chapters 20–55)

The button, and the trenches (Chapters 20–25)

Christmas morning, the other half: Disconnect Containment, and a red dot that grows (ch. 20). Rot stickers with the Gurgles (ch. 21); Colonel Boomer (ch. 22); Dazzlers playing Rage Against the Machine over two thousand going over the top (ch. 23, ch. 24); an acid trench; a raid on a warehouse castle (ch. 25).

Kings (Chapters 26–35)

Milk wakes (ch. 26). The Empress marked and killed, and Carl one step from an edge; Gavrilo Princip (ch. 26, ch. 27). Agatha at a bar; the Bamboozle; worms in the mages; 'Unleash Tina!' (ch. 28–ch. 31). King Rust arrives (ch. 32); a parlay on a rhinoceros (ch. 33); a father's message, a daughter's failsafe, and Rosetta's whip (ch. 34); Volteeg sings and detonates an army (ch. 35).

The AI in the room (Chapters 36–41)

Orren's zero zone, five words, and Growler Gary in the doorway with vodka (ch. 36); a princess dropped into the room and given four choices (ch. 37); relationship advice, and a cracked desk (ch. 38). Alliances break; Operation Snake Pit (ch. 39). Little Günter and a dragon chain (ch. 40); Aryl goes dark (ch. 41).

Snake Pit (Chapters 42–55)

The warlord council: a Sultana who whispers, a warning that Scolopendra stirs, a changeling who walks through a wall, and the Sultanate's own show giving the game away (ch. 42–ch. 44). Prepotente's rant (ch. 45); the line of succession and a Bijou's tendril (ch. 46–ch. 49); a stew shack, a lisping ram, chains, and a temple full of bugs (ch. 50–ch. 52); ninety seconds of immortality and a thermobaric bomb (ch. 53, ch. 54); Hellik's message, a hatchet in the nugget, a mosh pit, and Milk's wings (ch. 54, ch. 55).

Part III — Open Hostilities (Chapters 56–68)

Justice Light's confession and a trap begun the day Carl found the Gate (ch. 56). Thirty-two boxes and a usurper's treaty (ch. 57, ch. 58). Operation Ruin: a bomber over a mountain, a feral god, an eruption too close (ch. 59, ch. 60). The War Mage Rebellion kills a king and takes the Gate (ch. 61, ch. 62); into the Madness (ch. 63); a crystal shows itself (ch. 64); Mind Balance 16, and Bear Witness (ch. 65); a ball of eighty thousand (ch. 66); 'HEY, DICKLESS' (ch. 67); the Grease Monkey, the Beautiful Place, Li Jun's face in the roots, and the Peeling (ch. 68).

Part IV — The Peeling of Larracos (Chapters 69–88)

Katia's dream, told in full; Rosetta's mission complete; zarogoths and a conscripted god (ch. 69). The City of Broken Dreams; Lucia in the Nest (ch. 70–ch. 72); Diah; Gustavo 3 dead and the Eulogist's new ally (ch. 72). 120,000 children (ch. 73). A dog on Donut's flank, Stayfast Ink, and a net (ch. 74, ch. 75). War Crime: the Oak Fell, a goddess freed, a paw swung until the screaming stops (ch. 76, ch. 77). Akuma's farewell (ch. 78); a castle nuked from inside and a warlord in a dragon (ch. 79, ch. 80); an assassination overridden (ch. 81); twins, the Inevitable Ruin explained, and Tipid's memory (ch. 82); Samantha's confession and a god's sixty-six minutes (ch. 83, ch. 84); a naiad's heart in Louis, and Mongo's kill (ch. 84). Zerzura: a city to the twelfth floor, thirty thousand pages of skills in a book, flowers on the rings, and a war won by forfeit (ch. 85). Huanxin dead between the eyes; Katia made human, pregnant, and gone (ch. 86). Justice Light snaps the twine: the Nothing breaks, and Scolopendra wakes (ch. 87). York feels something; Quasar names the tenth floor and a wife; Eris at a fuel stop (epilogue).

The shape underneath

The book's hidden structure is the Cookbook. Nine of its authors get an interlude, each closed by a card and a 'Current status' — Porthus 'Missing. Wanted by Syndicate Security.', Dante 'Dead.', Tipid 'Colonel in the Princess Posse Faction Wars team' — and the war is won less by Carl's four offensives than by what the authors do without telling him: Rosetta's whip on the parlay field, Volteeg's Weeper in the middle of the Bloc, Juice Box's spies ('She played her hand early to save me'), Justice Light's trap begun the day Carl found the Gate. Carl is told as much to his face — 'I have contingencies heaped upon contingencies. Have faith in the process. Danger lives in what they can’t see.' — and is still the last to know, about the twine as about the rest. That is what the title names. Everly's colony called the moment you see there is nothing left to do the Inevitable Ruin; Juice Box, a Hunter Wraith now, calls it a curse that 'just tells you the truth'. The book's answer is the thing the interludes keep showing: people who took the deal and lived with it coming back to die beside the ones who did not — Tipid with his key, York who 'wanted to feel something afterward', fifty thousand of them, about 28,000 still alive at the end.

What the book changes