Chapter 5 of 78 · Book 5, The Butcher's Masquerade

Chapter 5 — Zockau

Book: The Butcher's Masquerade · Part: The Hunt · Previous: Chapter 4 — Golden Throat · Next: Chapter 6 — Miriam, Pony and Bianca · Floor: Floor 6 — The Hunting Grounds · Series: the series

Opening

<Note added by Crawler Forkith.

Summary

Forkith's Cookbook note on the Hunting Grounds: the monsters change every season but the map does not — a round world, half metropolis and half jungle before Scolopendra's nine-tier attack, a named city in the north above a valley of low-level mobs for the hunters to train on, a high-elf city in the thickest jungle to the southeast that even hunters avoid, naiads in the river between; the moment the hunters arrive one of them kills the named city's NPC leader and becomes its Grand, and the guards attack crawlers on sight. Bomo's spell takes thirty seconds to activate. He puts on the Ring of Divine Suffering — no cooldown on this floor, marks form instantly, a Left to Fester debuff until the mark is dead — and calls 'Predator': invisibility for both, Donut on infrared. They land in a manicured park around Zockau's stairwell, the guards armoured bear-men, the city a 1950s American downtown with a row of seven pubs and a mid-century Desperado Club ('So Fun It Hurts') at the end. The park is a minefield of alarm traps set by Hunter Ontario; Donut puddle-jumps them to the alley beside the club. Carl places four barrels — gunpowder, hobgoblin dynamite and delayed smoke curtains — along the row while drunken hunters party on their last night.

A Draconian named Chin'Dua, level 50, Striver, unaffiliated, leans snoring on a barrel with a Dirty Shirley. Carl marks him — 'I'm using you as bait' — and casts Ping to light every hunter on the map; a flare-casting mantis in the sky is Hunter Xindy, level 61, Blood Tracker, of the Dark Hive; Carl's toe ring's second ability, Super Spreader, infects her with his own Left to Fester, and homing rockets, fired in groups of five at the 'Fastest-moving Hunter-class creature', blow her out of the air with the first group. 'That was Vrah's little sister.' He beats Chin'Dua to death and crushes his head, and the barrels go off as he and Donut dive into the Scuttlebutt, the street's one true saferoom — a hallway of six personal-space doors, one of them a hunter's. The block is fire and fog, the Desperado's façade collapsed on the hunters inside. Running for the trees under two cretin shells, Donut trying to sing Entourage, Carl steps on an alarm that plays 'Kickstart My Heart'; an invisible flying hunter on a roof — level 70, the star on his dot, the Grand — puts barbed, bleeding, poisoned crossbow bolts through Carl's shoulder and thigh and shoots down an incoming pet hawk to protect his kill. Over the border the map goes blank and the town opaque. Carl is dying of bleed and a debuff that fogs his mind — his mother in the basement, the bike he never got — when blue dots arrive: 'Mother, you should feed on him before he dies.' 'Pony, I am not going to feed on Carl.'

Characters

• Carl — Marks a drunk as bait, kills Vrah's sister with rockets, and bleeds out at the border.
• Princess Donut — 'THAT'S NOT HOW THIS IS SUPPOSED TO WORK'; puddle jumps; sings Entourage on a rollercoaster.
• The Sledge — Bomo, invisible, walks into a bar; two cretin shells.
• Chin'Dua — A drunk Draconian Striver used as bait and beaten to death.
• Xindy — A mantis Blood Tracker of the Dark Hive, Vrah's little sister, blown out of the sky.
• Vrah — Her sister is dead before the hunt begins.
• Ontario — Named on the traps around the stairwell.
• The Grand — A level-70 invisible flier who shoots down a pet hawk to keep her kill; barbed bolts.
• Mordecai — 'You motherfuckers are in the goddamned capital?'
• Miriam Dom — 'Pony, I am not going to feed on Carl.'
• Prepotente — 'Mother, you should feed on him before he dies.'

Locations

• Zockau — A 1950s downtown with bear guards, seven pubs and a Desperado Club; the block blown to fire and fog.
• The Desperado Club — Its Zockau entrance collapsed on the hunters inside.
• The Scuttlebutt — The one true saferoom on the row: a hallway of six personal-space doors.
• The Selva — Over the border the map goes blank and the town turns opaque.

Motifs

• The Dungeon Anarchist's Cookbook — Forkith on the floor's map: the named city, the elves, the naiads, the Grand.
• The Ring of Divine Suffering — No cooldown here; a mark, a debuff, +1 stat per kill.
• The hunters — A flying mantis killed before the release; a Grand who shoots down a pet hawk to keep his kill.
• Explosives — Four barrels take out a block; a bomb that fires smoke curtains.
• The count — 'There's no going back after this.'
• 'Goddamnit, Donut' — Carl thinks Donut may have made the Dirty Shirley famous.