The Garden of Deliverance
Imani reports the transfer complete, with 227 crawlers shipped out inside cleaner bots and every bot on the market bought within moments; one supplied by the illusionist Bobby Montague carried 105 by itself. The druid Ronit has improved on Li Na's dread cactus by binding a separate potted plant to each departed crawler, and Mordecai has sealed the collection under glass in the guild common room, out of reach of the sluggalos; Donut names it the Garden of Deliverance, and it is the only channel that will ever tell them who lived. At the starting line Pontiff drives, Donut rides Dorota, and a Zebani cartographer named Nester joins as second mercenary for her gravity spells and her radar. Dr. Metcalf arrives as a hologram, the fan-voted upgrade that turns out to be cosmetic, and promptly puts Dorota into diagnostics mode and mutes her. She briefs the course: the racers have been shrunk to toy scale inside the seven-story L'Engle Building, the finish line is the lobby, and a rule dropped after the blocks were loaded requires seven hidden rings, one per floor.
First appearances (7)
- Bobby Montague (Character) — Crawler · Illusionist
- Emir (Character) — Crawler · Zebani
- Nester (Character) — Mercenary · Cartographer
- Ronit (Character) — Crawler · Druid
- Zebani (Character) — Race · rare
- The Garden of Deliverance (Item) — Guildhall installation · life tracker
- The Seven Rings (Notification) — Last-minute rule · sixth heat
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