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event

The Plan

Carl's Plan

The scheme to save both teams' people by transferring a whole city down while the warlords forfeit the war.

Story so far

The plan's pieces all landed in these final minutes. Sledge cast Zerzura to move Larracos and Shanty Town to The Twelfth Floor, where the NPCs would settle in the cotton fields below the halls of Ascendency, protected by the rule that NPCs are untouchable until the event begins and by Juice Box's Changelings disguised as basilica guards. It wasn't safe, Carl admitted — squashed mortals would rise as Children of Inpewt — but it was life, and it was the way to make certain both teams would survive.

The second half was the war itself. Ferdinand and Juice Box's transfers were engineered to come from the defeat of Team Retribution and the victory of the Princess Posse; by leaving the realm they abandoned their warlord posts, forfeited their positions, and handed the Faction Wars to Carl's faction without a final battle.

Role

The combined evacuation-and-forfeiture scheme that ends the ninth floor with both sides' people alive.

Relationships

Carl — Its architect.
Zerzura — The evacuation half of the plan.
Faction Wars — The war ended by the plan's forfeiture mechanism.
Ascendency — The legal window the plan exploits to land NPCs safely.
Sources — 15 recorded facts, by chapter
Chapter 24
  • Carl's prearranged defensive scheme, invoked at code red with the fortifications only half built.
Chapter 36
  • Carl's stated withdrawal doctrine for indefensible captured territory: loot, break, trap, then run home.
Chapter 50
  • Take the naga castle by subterfuge: infiltrate quietly while faking a massed push on the north.
Chapter 51
  • Carl's scheme to kill the naga warlord within hours, already in motion while he sits across from her.
Chapter 52
  • Carl's imminent operation against the Blood Sultanate, built to turn their paranoia into their defeat.
Chapter 54
  • Carl and Donut's synchronized transfer-return assault, immediately derailed and improvised around.
Chapter 57
  • Mostly Rosetta's design, resting on a prediction about what would rise from below the naga castle.
Chapter 79
  • Mordecai's scheme, which Katia was about to endorse in the dream before Shi Maria cut her off.
Chapter 85
  • Carl's War Crime plan, which he prays will fail even though failure means they don't survive.
Chapter 86
  • Rosetta's scheme to tattoo Donut with Bijanbi and combine it with Wall of Fire through War Crime.
Chapter 87
  • The synchronized assault: drop the ball, cast War Crime, drain the castle, and storm it — all in one window.
Chapter 89
  • Carl's unstated endgame, to be finished once both remaining throne rooms are taken.
Chapter 91
  • Donut's plan for what comes next, whose key instruction to Carl is the baffling phrase "Carl it up."
Chapter 96
  • The crawlers' long-prepared endgame, dragged forward days early by Emberus's arrival.
Chapter 97
  • The scheme to save both teams' people by transferring a whole city down while the warlords forfeit the war.
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