Chapter 6 of 26 · Book 2, Carl's Doomsday Scenario

Chapter 6 — Signet

Book: Carl's Doomsday Scenario · Previous: Chapter 5 — Boxes at the Pug · Next: Chapter 7 — The lion's heart · Floor: Floor 3 — The Over City · Series: the series

Opening

Donut took out the sleeping lemur with a magic missile.

Summary

Three dead Bautista women, looted in haste: an oak anklet Donut wears on a back leg for the constitution, two strength rings for Carl. From a ruined house they watch Grimaldi's circus fortify for a battle — barbed wire, cauldron-mortars, cages of tentacled things, a poster of a tattooed elf woman marked TRAITOR that a clown urinates on. Mordecai, sober, orders them out; a magical mortar drops them through the wooden street into a basement.

On the street above stands Tsarina Signet, a level-60 Elite, half naiad and half high elf, naked but for a thong and a skin of moving tattoos, and Carl is instantly, chemically in love. The cure is to break his own finger. She has been waiting for them; the cages open, and the mold lions come.

Characters

• Tsarina Signet — Introduced; charms Carl; springs the trap.
• Carl — Snaps his pinky on Mordecai's instruction.
• Princess Donut — 'HE HAS AN ERECTION, MORDECAI.'
• Mordecai — The finger trick; 'Holy fuck. Get the hell out of there.'

Locations

• Grimaldi's Traveling Circus — Fortifying at dusk.

Motifs

• The Krakaren — Tentacles in a circus cage remind Carl of her.
• Elites — Meet an Elite — 'usually they're just assholes.'
• Vengeance of the Daughter — Written above the poster: 'Wanted. Traitor.'