Reminiscence Hydra of Malicious Compliance

This article contains unmarked spoilers for Book 6.

System Message. Posting Book 8 spoilers will result in "acceleration" per our rules.

"I’m leaving out a lot of really important details, but one of the end results of all this is a naughty man with beautiful feet sitting there in his underwear, facing down a nine-headed monster that’s probably going to kill him and his cat, all the while he wonders what any of this exposition has to do with the fact that one of those nine heads is that of his recently-discovered little brother."^[1]

The Reminiscence Hydra of Malicious Compliance is a Level 125 City Boss designed by the System AI. Most but not all parties must fight a custom hydra to win a Key during the second phase of the Eighth Floor.^[2]

AI Description

System Message. The AI Description of the Hydra is a full (3) pages long; reproducing it in full could violate the "Fair Use" exemption to copyright law that all wikis operate under. You can find the AI description on pp. 441-444 of the Kindle and Paperback editions, or starting at the 9:51min marker of Chapter 46 in the audiobook.

Although the System AI is seemingly talking to Carl when it gives this particular description, the words are spoken out loud and Carl believes the AI is actually addressing the entire Syndicate.^[3]

The gist of the speech is that fans were so upset by the events in a former Valtay-run season that the Syndicate Council forbade the use of reconstituted children in the Dungeon and mandated that reconstituted loved ones should only be used "sparingly." A few days before the crawl, the Mantises successfully produced a "lobotomized" Macro AI using primal technology found in the Hive Home System and their newly invented Error Replacement Net. In the process of making this stable AI, they jettisoned at least one failed experimental AI into a star and tested other failed experiments at a facility that was later converted into an amusement park. No one is upset about the test AI's fates except for the System AI, who has decided to throw a tantrum and swap out the planned bosses for its newly created monster.^[3]

So what I’m getting at is, I still gotta mostly follow some of these hard-wired rules. But, fuck the rules anyway. Fuck your “Sparingly” bullshit. That thing you think of as your brother? Or your step-mother? Or that weird boss guy of yours who once bought a jar of butt air from a Moldavian OnlyFans model? They’re not really reconstituted versions of your dead love ones.

I changed one molecule on each.

There. They’re different.^[4]

Description

The nine-headed monster is a round, flesh-colored ball covered in Frankenstein stitches and standing on four comically stumpy legs. Its body is approximately 12' (3.66m) wide and 6' 6" (1.98m) tall. Nine heads sprout from long, fleshy stalks that weave and wave in the air.^[3]

Although it is technically a single creature, only one head is the keymaster and bound by the established rules of card combat. Its remaining eight heads are considered minions. It's slow to attack, but each attack is progressively more powerful.^[3]

Each individual head gives the entire hydra a different resistance, and has an attack that mirrors that resistance; as a result, the body is nearly indestructible and hard to kill with fire. If a head is cut off, it grows back, inflating out of the neck like a balloon. Mordecai advises Carl to "find the head that's resistant to fire, cut it off, and cauterize the wound before it returns. You can then burn the whole."^[3]

History

Originally called Scolopendra Nymphs, a bigger version of this hydra served as the Dungeon's final boss during the third and fourth seasons of Dungeon Crawler World. No Crawlers lived long enough to fight it.^[3]

Story

Carl was supposed to fight three smaller creatures disguised as Carl's Father before the System AI decided to throw its tantrum. Instead, it creates a Boss using the following heads:

Head	Attack / Resistance
Asher	Lightning Bolt
Bea's Mother	Fire
Dick	Water
Lucian (Keymaster)
Monobrow Sam	Death Ray
Mr. Roth
Sally	Acid (in the form of green foam)
Sugar Cube
Tami-Lynn

Lucian's T'Ghee Cards include Alpha Male Carl, King Croissant, Bam-Bam, and Leveled-Up Frank.

Carl notes:

The over-the-top idiocy of all this was working against the showrunners or AI or whomever designed this thing. I didn’t know if that was on purpose or not. ... The heads were clearly saying things the real versions of these people would never say. As awful as this was, the effect was much less jarring than what they were going for. It was like the dungeon was trying too hard to be edgy, which in effect turned the whole thing into a parody. While making me watch the actual memory was a perfect way to try to break me, this was just pissing me off.^[5]

References

↑ Dinniman, Matt. The Eye of the Bedlam Bride: Dungeon Crawler Carl Book 6 (pp. 442-443). Dandy House. Kindle Edition.
↑ Dinniman, Matt. The Eye of the Bedlam Bride (Chapter 47)
↑ ^3.0 ^3.1 ^3.2 ^3.3 ^3.4 ^3.5 Dinniman, Matt. The Eye of the Bedlam Bride (Chapter 46)
↑ Dinniman, Matt. The Eye of the Bedlam Bride: Dungeon Crawler Carl Book 6 (p. 443). Dandy House. Kindle Edition.
↑ Dinniman, Matt. The Eye of the Bedlam Bride: Dungeon Crawler Carl Book 6 (p. 448). Dandy House. Kindle Edition.