Chapter 7 of 35 · Book 3, The Dungeon Anarchist's Cookbook

Chapter 7 — The Prize Carousel

Book: The Dungeon Anarchist's Cookbook · Previous: Chapter 6 — Banshee Station · Next: Chapter 8 — The Cookbook's first page · Floor: Floor 4 — The Iron Tangle · Series: the series

Opening

» Time to Level Collapse: 8 days and 18 hours.

Summary

Station 131, with the full yellow line in Mordecai's map. Mongo hits level 15 — full size: pony-high, thirteen feet with the tail, claws bigger than his whole body once was — and gains Earthquake. The transfer station has Ford's Fighting Supplies, a longbow guild, a druids' guild, an Arby's saferoom and a dive-bar Desperado Club. Katia spent a student summer at the Pushkin; Carl has petted a sloth in Costa Rica. Mordecai has spent Donut's two table-upgrade coupons on the alchemy table (level three) and brewed: two of Mordecai's Special Brew (thirty seconds of near-immortality, ten hours of potion sickness, two per lifetime), two Superb Constitution potions for Donut (+4, to a base of 8), and Fragmenting Potion Balls — any potion, thrown, works on a mob. 'I'm pretty sure I know how to get to the stairwells.'

Donut's fan box is a garish red-and-blue saddle for Mongo (+15% spell damage for the rider, +20% constitution and damage for him). Carl's is the Prize Carousel: game-show music, a merry-go-round, and a host — Chaco, a winged wolf-headed Song Bard, level 66, 'slayer of gods, former Crawler champion.' Mordecai hurls a chair with his tongue, is frozen with Naughty over his head, and vanishes into a seven-day time-out; his room goes with him. The fans voted for this, Carl reckons, to put the two in a room together. Chaco: 'It was a long time ago […] I was just doing what his manager told me to do. If I hadn't done it, he'd have died. And then we'd all have lost her. We'd have lost Odette.' Nine prizes, ten minutes: two skill potions, five hundred tar-coated hob-lobbers, two thousand Earth books, Carl's father's 1965 Panhead with the dent from the day of the belt, Best-Laid Traps, an untitled book with an anarchy symbol, enchanted chaps (Donut's choice), a strobing stat potion, and his own tool chest from the shop — with the top drawer, he thinks, empty. On a glint of light he picks the anarchy book. The Dungeon Anarchist's Cookbook, by Anonymous: 'Chicken and Goblin recipes galore!' Donut: 'We lost Mordecai for a book of recipes.' Then Escape Plan buzzes on the first page: 'Hello, Crawler […] Together, we will burn it all to the ground.'

Characters

• Carl — Picks the cookbook on a glint; sees his father's motorcycle and his own tool chest as bait.
• Princess Donut — A saddle for Mongo; +4 constitution; wants the chaps.
• Mongo — Level 15, full-grown, Earthquake; hates the saddle.
• Mordecai — Special Brew and potion balls; throws a chair at Chaco; seven days in time-out.
• Katia Grim — Iceland, Moscow, Paris; unimpressed by curly fries; silent on the chaps.
• Chaco — Host of the Prize Carousel; a Pterolykos bard, level 66; something he did to Mordecai for Odette's sake.

Locations

• The Iron Tangle — Ford's, two guilds, an Arby's, the Desperado Club.
• The Royal Palace of Princess Donut — The alchemy table at level three; the living room replaced by a carousel.

Motifs

• The Dungeon Anarchist's Cookbook — Chosen from nine prizes; 'Together, we will burn it all to the ground.'
• Loot boxes — Two Platinum fan boxes: a saddle, and a game show built to hurt Mordecai.
• The show — The Prize Carousel: the fans pay a credit a vote and vote for cruelty.
• Bea — Not this time — this time the bait is Carl's father.