Chapter 15 of 78 · Book 5, The Butcher's Masquerade

Chapter 15 — The kids' menu

Book: The Butcher's Masquerade · Part: The Hunt · Previous: Chapter 14 — Were-castors · Next: Chapter 16 — Clint and Holger · Floor: Floor 6 — The Hunting Grounds · Series: the series

Opening

» Donut: CARL, WHAT KIND OF BORING, COOKIE-CUTTER STORY HAVE YOU GOTTEN US INVOLVED IN?

Summary

Donut on the show: a cookie-cutter fantasy revenge story the CW would cancel; Zev on its ratings: 'okay' — good on the third floor, lagging since, fans fond of the six warriors and their caterpillar, afraid Signet has painted herself into a corner and that Carl and Donut will take the show over. Sensation will steer them back to a saferoom for Odette. Areson returns with an arrow in his head and a hunter over his shoulder he had to 'smoosh him a little to de-bleat him': Arwick, of the Dream — the pale, bald, space-faring elves whose leader's mother, Epitome Noflex, Carl carries in a photograph. Carl invents safe looting: put the blast chest into the corpse's inventory, transfer the items into it, take the chest. An Arrow of Enthusiastic Double Gonorrhea, and a children's menu from a Canadian diner with a coloured-pencil map on the back: the hunters have divided the floor — the Hive in the southwest, the Dream over Point Mongo, the unaffiliated around Zockau, the Crafters, the Nebular Sin Patrol, the Filigree, and in the southeast by the elf castle the Skull Empire — and claimed crawlers by name and colour: Carl and Donut by the Hive and the Skull Empire both, with an arrow to where they were that morning; Katia by the Skull Empire; Elle and Eva by the Crafters; Lucia Mar by the Hive; Prepotente and Miriam by the Nebular group; and the Dream's only name, circled until the pencil broke the paper, with a portrait and an X: Louis. 'It's not my fault they can't take a joke.'

Signet's camp: forty bush elves, a talking tortoise named Edgar, dryads, monkeys, three pixies who glare at Carl's goblin tattoo, two Ursine, about seventy at level 40, around a small white-barked tree in a fairy ring whose description says only 'This tree is old as shit.' Quasar, by court order: Sensation accepts the extension but will not sign for days — make the show more exciting without outshining its star, or 'they might decide to pull your plug'; and 'our other problem' is 150 million credits, enough to buy a planet, against a net worth of 117 and a tax bill of 50, and a bribe that is a crime out there — he has an idea. The quest: The Vengeance of the Daughter, Part One of Two — help Signet assault Fort Freedom, the Naiad's former river palace, and assassinate the leaders of the Naiad Confederacy who killed her mother; every survivor becomes twenty per cent more willing to follow Carl's orders.

Characters

• Carl — Safe looting; reads the hunters' map; a 150-million-credit problem.
• Princess Donut — Audrey Hepburn and Macho Man Randy Savage on public access.
• Tsarina Signet — Seventy followers around an old tree; the assault on Fort Freedom.
• Areson the Wise — An arrow in his head, a hunter over his shoulder, 'Yummy.'
• Arwick — A Dream hunter with a poisoned arrow and the map.
• Louis and Firas — Louis, the Dream's only target, circled through the paper.
• Zev — Ratings 'okay'; the hardcore fans' fears.
• Quasar — Court-ordered messages; 'nobody likes it when the guest star gets all the tail.'
• Edgar — A talking tortoise Donut chats with.
• Katia Grim — Circled by the Skull Empire; 'Wonderful.'

Locations

• Signet's camp — A clearing of soft grass around a white-barked tree that is old as shit.
• Fort Freedom — Named: the Naiad's river palace, held by the Confederacy's dukes.

Motifs

• The hunters — A floor divided on a kids' menu; crawlers claimed by colour; they know where everyone is.
• The Vengeance of the Daughter — Part One of Two: assault Fort Freedom.
• The Skull Empire — Orc hunters in the southeast; Carl and Katia on their list.
• The Dream — Pale space elves; Epitome Noflex's photograph; Louis marked for a joke.
• The lawsuits — 150 million credits; a bribe that is a crime; 'I have an idea'
• The show — Steer the guest stars back to a saferoom for Odette.