Chapter 41

Carl prepares to teleport back to face multiple hunter groups—the mantid Dark Hive and the Nebular Sin Patrol—who are waiting for him at the Guildhall. Before leaving, he discusses mantid tactics and the Nebulars' origins with an audience panel, then coordinates with his team via chat to execute an escape plan while Lucia awaits him in the saferoom.

During an audience panel at the arena, Carl learns critical information about his enemies: the mantid Dark Hive uses poison resistance and antivenoms, relies on alarm traps to repel mantids, and has a history of poaching other hunters' kills and killing rivals with impunity. The Nebular Sin Patrol, a bio-augmented religious cult, views crawlers born on seeded planets as abominations and actively hunts them as a religious crusade, particularly targeting clerics and paladins like Prepotente and Miriam Dom. After the panel discussion, Carl rushes to the green room where Zev informs him that rumors are spreading about an altercation with Circe Took. Carl immediately begins coordinating an emergency plan via chat. His team reports critical complications: Donut is trapped in a guildhall surrounded by six to seven mantid hunters and approximately ten robed Nebular priests; Lucia Mar is in the saferoom behaving erratically, having set traps that eject people into the town; Samantha was tortured and initially revealed Carl's location to the hunters, though she fed them false coordinates five meters off. The two hunter groups appear to be at odds with each other, potentially fighting over kill rights. Katia is preparing a dummy of Carl using a stuffed animal, fake crown, and sunglasses as a decoy. Carl makes final preparations, unable to access inventory items or consumables before his transfer, and mentally steels himself as the teleportation sequence initiates.