Princess Donut and Samantha are companions in the Royal Court of Princess Donut from the fifth floor of the Earth dungeon onward. Samantha is the banished minor deity Psamathe, whose spirit inhabits the severed head of a Lika doll. Donut helps bring her into the Court, gives her a way to communicate with its members, and treats her search for a body and her missing child as more than an inconvenience. Their companionship is uneasy: Samantha is impulsive, threatening, and sometimes dangerous to the group she assists. Donut responds with a combination of practical restraint, concern, and reliance on Samantha's unusual knowledge and resilience. By the ninth floor, the once immobile head is taking part in operations on which Donut and their other allies depend.
A place in the Royal Court
Donut first encounters Psamathe as an animated doll head after Carl's party becomes involved in the affair surrounding Ghazi and the Gate of the Feral Gods. The head's description identifies its occupant as a spirit from the Nothing, separated from the rest of her essence. Donut immediately compares the discovery to a possessed doll in a horror film and bats the head so that it rolls. Carl addresses the entity as Samantha, a name the description says her friends once used. Donut's first reaction is curiosity and irreverence rather than deference to a deity. At this point Samantha can speak, but her vessel cannot reliably move by itself.
Keeping Samantha presents an immediate problem for the party. She cries, screams, and demands help recovering her body. Carl initially leaves the head in the training room and threatens to confine her more strictly if she keeps interrupting him. Mordecai sees a reason to retain her despite the noise: she knows people and events from divine history that the crawlers do not. Donut formalizes Samantha's presence by announcing that the Court has hired her as a trainer. The position places Samantha among the residents and workers of the party's personal space, rather than leaving her as an object Carl happens to carry.
The arrangement also gives Samantha a voice beyond the training room. When the feral demon Slit calls for Psamathe near the end of the fifth floor, Donut has approved Samantha for staff chat and changed the name shown there to Samantha. Carl can ask the head to identify the approaching demon before carrying her outside. Samantha's answer is more bravado than a reliable threat assessment, yet the chat access lets her participate while the party faces a danger drawn to her. Donut's decision has a continuing consequence: Samantha can warn, argue, and report to the group even when she is physically apart from them.
Slit's pursuit shows why accepting Samantha involves more than tolerating her speech. The demon recognizes her, and bringing her outside attracts attention from a far more powerful figure. Carl hurls Samantha away with his xistera while the confrontation develops. Donut is present as the group survives a threat connected to Samantha's past. The head's apparent durability makes the maneuver possible, but it does not erase the danger her enemies pose to the others. From the beginning, Donut's new trainer is also a person whose history can enter the Court's battles without warning.
Signet and the promised body
On the sixth floor, Donut tells Samantha that the party is in contact with Tsarina Signet. The news sets Samantha screaming from the training room, and Donut mutes her in chat after the outburst. Donut admits that she had not expected such a response. Samantha believes Signet, a naiad, may help her regain a body. She has also learned to roll across the floor, giving her a limited way to travel when Carl agrees to bring her to Signet. The episode captures Donut's divided role: she passes on information Samantha desperately wants, then has to manage how Samantha broadcasts that desire to the rest of the Court.
Samantha's meeting with Signet makes the moral difficulty plain. She proposes occupying Signet's body and acknowledges that Signet would die. Signet refuses. Afterward, Samantha rides strapped behind Donut on Mongo so that she cannot roll away. Donut pats the head and assures her that they will find another possibility. When Samantha complains that Signet would not simply surrender her body, Donut explains that Signet wants to remain alive. Donut offers comfort without endorsing the proposed sacrifice. Her response distinguishes Samantha's real distress from any right to take another person's life to end it.
The party nevertheless continues to use Samantha in the operation around Signet's enemies. Carl plans to send her toward the castle as a loud distraction, using the xistera to launch her and retrieve her. Donut watches the preparations and asks about the alarm trap Carl attaches to Samantha's head. The plan depends on Samantha's extraordinary resilience and her ability to communicate once inside the opposing position. It also depends on treating her as a participant with an assignment, even when she objects to the equipment. Donut and Samantha thus move from the saferoom's domestic friction into the same dangerous campaign.
Danger beside Donut
An encounter with Lucia Mar gives Samantha a more direct chance to protect Donut. Lucia switches places with Donut during an attack and throws Samantha's head at her, striking Donut as she reaches an elevated pub. Samantha then rolls through a doorway before Donut can reach it. The doorway contains one of Lucia's teleport traps, which sends Samantha back among Lucia's dogs and triggers a snare. Carl, watching the recorded encounter afterward, understands Samantha's move as deliberate. The interpretation rests on his observation of the sequence; Samantha does not explain a rescue plan in that moment. She absorbs an attack that would have been especially dangerous for Donut, and a dog continues to gnaw on the head while Donut survives and regains the saferoom.
Samantha's contribution does not make her a predictable defender. At Fort Freedom, Carl attempts to recall her from a mission without realizing that she is biting a large monster. The creature teleports with her, throwing Donut and Mongo away as it lands. Samantha survives being swallowed during the resulting fight, while the others must respond to a threat suddenly brought into their midst. The two episodes together explain why Donut can benefit from Samantha's toughness and still have reason to be wary of her judgment. Samantha may take a blow intended for Donut; she may also turn a risky assignment into an unplanned battle for everyone nearby.
During the attack on the high elves, Samantha gets into a security room that controls protections around the ballrooms. Her removal and replacement of soul crystals affect whether hostile hunters can use magic and inventory. Donut is in the wider operation whose survival depends on those protections. When Carl instructs Samantha to keep an attacker from restoring them, he explicitly warns that Donut and the others will be in trouble if she fails. Samantha's actions in the room are not a private adventure detached from Donut. They shape the conditions under which Donut and the allied crawlers can fight.
The eighth floor: rescue and disagreement
On the eighth floor, Samantha's mobility and powers are changing. Donut and Carl take her with them into Old Havana while Mongo remains sheltered from the city's traffic. Samantha scouts ahead, but Donut expects her roaming to cause trouble and asks about a hat she reports seeing on a rat-like monster. Their exchange in chat briefly follows Samantha's fascination with the creature rather than the tactical information Carl wants. Donut's engagement is characteristic of their rapport: she shares Samantha's interest in odd details even as Carl tries to bring the scout back to her task.
Samantha then allows Shi Maria, a spider-like demigod, to swallow her because she believes the creature can help animate a replacement body. Donut questions Samantha through chat about the monster and the circumstances of their meeting. As Donut and Carl approach the webbed territory, Donut tracks Samantha's position on the map and asks what will happen if Shi Maria retreats while still holding her. These are concrete rescue concerns, not merely irritation at Samantha's disobedience. Donut also recognizes that a supposed offer to restore Samantha's body matters deeply to her, and predicts how upset Samantha will be if the offer proves false.
The encounter tests how far Donut will accept Samantha's new attachment. Samantha introduces Shi Maria as a close friend and imagines her joining the party after giving Samantha a body. Donut assesses the creature's abilities and asks Carl whether Samantha is genuinely communicating with the spider or inventing the conversation. The doubt is warranted by Samantha's wish for the arrangement to work, but it does not lead Donut to abandon her. Once Shi Maria becomes a card, Donut and Carl discuss the loss of the mage they had hoped might help Samantha. Donut calls the likely setback sad, while Carl says they can seek another solution. Their exchange leaves the body transfer unresolved rather than pretending that Samantha's hope has been fulfilled.
Samantha remains physically useful in the later eighth-floor fighting. During the effort to escape the disaster around the beach, Carl sends her back to enhance Donut's spells. Donut and Samantha then act against Amayon while Carl is separated from them. Donut tells Carl that she and Samantha may have to do something drastic; Donut casts a spell that forces the demon to strike himself, although he also seizes Carl and Samantha. Their work is coordinated under extreme pressure, and Donut keeps reporting what she can see. Samantha's enhancement and presence matter to Donut's attack, but the result also places both Samantha and Carl in the demon's grasp.
After the fighting, Carl returns Samantha to the personal space so she can continue to the next floor. Donut's relationship with her is no longer limited to the training-room appointment made when the head could barely move. Samantha has been a scout, a rescue objective, and an ally in a confrontation with powers that recognize her. Donut has seen both the usefulness of Samantha's changed abilities and the dangers of promises made by creatures who claim they can restore her.
Limits and shared responsibilities in Faction Wars
The ninth floor renews Samantha's search for her child. When Samantha proposes attacking Tish, Donut tells her that Tish is not responsible for the earlier wrong Samantha invokes and attributes it to Ghazi instead. Samantha responds by threatening Katia as well. Carl intervenes over the threats, but Donut has already challenged the premise of Samantha's intended revenge. Donut then asks whether Samantha found her child. Samantha says she can sense the child in the dwarves' castle. Donut's question attends to the loss that drives Samantha while her rebuke refuses to make an unrelated target pay for it.
Samantha's attachment to Louis creates another point of tension inside the allied group. She wants to protect him and sometimes attempts to insert herself into missions without permission. Donut and Carl must account for the risk that the floating head's loyalty will turn into an unauthorized action. Yet Samantha also supplies abilities the Court cannot readily replace. When a distant dragon threatens Louis's operation, Carl considers how Samantha might mark a target beyond Donut's effective range. Donut explains what she can and cannot see or mark. The exchange puts their abilities into the same tactical calculation without claiming that either could solve the problem alone.
Near the end of the floor, Samantha proposes using the heart and lungs of Princess Lunette's flesh-golem body to save the gravely injured Louis. Donut presses Mordecai on why such organs should be impossible to use when Samantha herself survives as an animated head. Her objection is not a medical answer, but it forces attention onto the dungeon's inconsistent-seeming possibilities while the others evaluate Samantha's proposal. Donut also contributes a potion to the effort. Samantha's idea comes while she fears she can no longer sense her child, so Donut witnesses an ally trying to save someone else amid her own distress. The proposal is assessed by the group's healers rather than accepted solely on Samantha's confidence.
The last minutes of the ninth floor again place Samantha's past and Donut's survival in the same problem. Emberus seeks Samantha, and Carl considers using the xistera to send her toward him to buy time for Louis's treatment and Katia's escape. Donut warns that retrieving Samantha while Emberus holds her could bring the god back to them and burn both Donut and Carl. Her warning is specific to the equipment and the god's demonstrated power. Donut does not dismiss Samantha as expendable; she identifies a danger in a plan that depends on Samantha being captured and then returned. Samantha goes to face Emberus while the others finish their urgent work.
Donut and Samantha's bond remains defined by choices made under pressure rather than a simple promise of friendship. Donut gives Samantha membership and communication, consoles her after Signet refuses to die for her, looks for a way to recover her from Shi Maria, and works with her against Amayon. She also mutes her, disputes her accusations, and warns against plans that could kill their allies. Samantha's loyalty can be protective, as in the encounter with Lucia, and reckless, as in her pursuit of a body or revenge. Both qualities continue to matter to Donut as Samantha becomes an active member of the Court.