Story so far
Hekla is finished as a rival by the fourth floor's end. Princess Donut dismisses her as yesterday's news when Odette tries to raise the subject, and is startled to learn Odette had sponsored her at all. Carl explains that he worked it out from the crab ranch Odette mentioned at their first meeting.
On air Odette deflects, blaming her husband and joking that he is still sleeping in the skiff over it, insisting she does not run the Crab Ranch's finances. Off air she corrects the record to Carl's face: it was not her husband, it was her, and she hopes one day to explain further. Carl remains unsure of her angle, guessing at money, at Mordecai, at hedging her bets in case he died, or at quietly helping the team by never giving Hekla loot boxes, and falls back on her first piece of advice, not to trust anybody until you know their motivation.
Role
Vanquished rival whose secret sponsor turns out to be Odette herself.
Relationships
Odette — Her secret personal sponsor, hidden behind the crab ranch.
Carl — Rival who deduced the sponsorship and called it out on air.
Earlier in this series
Also appears in books you've already read — spoiler-safe to their endings:
Sources — 10 recorded facts, by chapter
Chapter 7
- The Icelandic leader of Brynhild's Daughters, transformed into a towering Amazonian Shieldmaiden.
Chapter 19
- The stoic Amazonian Shieldmaiden appears in person on Danger Zone — a top-ranked crawler who asks Carl a personal favor.
Chapter 47
- The towering Shieldmaiden comes in person to reclaim Katia and recruit Carl's party for a thousand-crawler rescue at station 101.
Chapter 48
- The Shieldmaiden fights beside Carl all the way to station 101 while quietly shooting invisible assassin bolts into Katia.
Chapter 49
- The game's number two shrugs off attempted murder as a stupid risk, offers cigarettes all round, and dies mid-sentence.
Chapter 50
- Killed, raised, tripled and looted — Hekla's corpse fights for the party, is torn in half, and yields up her legendary crossbow.
Chapter 51
- Her tribute episode reveals the origin: she abandoned her dying husband, then killed a rat with his rib bone.
Chapter 56
- Dead, and reduced to the good part of the story Donut wants to tell first.
Chapter 58
- Dead, and now one of the three names Carl reaches for when he meets someone who will tell him the truth.
Chapter 61
- Defeated rival crawler revealed to have been sponsored personally by Odette, not by Odette's husband.