The narrator re-introduces Mulch Diggums, the dwarf with whom Holly interacted when she first arrived at the LEP. Because Mulch has consistently stolen from humans and broken the Book’s rules, he gave up his magic. He has been arrested a number of times and spent three hundred years moving in and out of prison.

Mulch is an expert tunneler. Dwarves tunnel by unhinging their jaw, eating dirt, processing it, and “eject[ing]” it. He gets into a fight with a group of goblins after being arrested, but it is broken up by LEP officers who tell him that Commander Root needs him above ground.

In Tara, Mulch surreptitiously steals Root’s field-access card before he follows him to a view of Fowl Manner. When Root reveals that he wants Mulch to break into the building since he has already lost his magic, Mulch bargains for a lighter sentence: 70 years in a solitary cell (because he knows that he can escape from it).

Starting to dig, Mulch aims for the wine cellar. Following the wine’s residue through the earth, he tunnels into Fowl Manor. He creeps through the house, looking for Holly and for clues about Artemis’s knowledge of fairies.