Chapter 27 of 78 · Book 5, The Butcher's Masquerade

Chapter 27 — Claude Sludgington the Fourth

Book: The Butcher's Masquerade · Part: The Vengeance of the Daughter · Previous: Chapter 26 — Wonderwall · Next: Chapter 28 — Premature Questjaculation · Floor: Floor 6 — The Hunting Grounds · Series: the series

Opening

I have never claimed to be a smart person.

Summary

'I have never claimed to be a smart person.' Samantha was biting the thing when Carl recalled her, so the thing came with her: a truck-sized green frog-alligator with no neck and a torn-off tail, eight feet tall and fifteen long, that vomits out Samantha and beaver-Holger and shoots lightning from its eyes. Claude Sludgington the Fourth, Eryops Gigantis, level 65 Borough Boss: a river squatter who came to the confederates' fundraising ball — thrown because their aversion to taxes left no money for the castle while they still tithe to the high elves, and attended by nobody because the starving naiads eat anyone who comes near the water — and never left; ten times constitution when rooted; 'They really dislike belly rubs'; lizard-class, twenty per cent more damage against Carl's Extinction Sigil. It swallows a bush elf whole, then Holger and Samantha again. Its eyes glow at Miss Nadine, in front of Carl: the former kindergarten teacher inflates, glows like a neon tube, and explodes in green gore and quills, a burning saddle clipping Carl's head. A summoning trap drops two dead naiad guards on the slope. From the far shore, fighting and a dinosaur's roar, bigger than a raptor's. Carl casts Protective Shell to flip it — too close, so it goes straight up instead, Areson, Carl assumes, still riding it. 'Shoot it! Quick!' Donut's first Fireball goes into its pink belly on the way down; it lands on the shield in flames and slides off head-first into the trees, wedged, legs scrabbling, lightning exploding trees at random. A hob-lobber and magic missiles into the wound; Mongo dives in head-first with Donut backflipping off; the shell fails and the bent trees fling the boss at Carl like a mousetrap. He lands in the wound and is crushed inside it, neck opened by Mongo's claw as the dinosaur eats his way out the back; Carl follows him out with Claude's guts in his gills. Thirty seconds. The body explodes. Samantha, soaked in gore, in his lap: 'I told you I’d kill it.'

Characters

• Carl — Teleports a boss to himself, launches it into the sky, and falls into its wound.
• Princess Donut — 'That wasn't to the side, Carl!'; her first Fireball.
• Mongo — Dives into the wound and eats his way out the back.
• Samantha — Swallowed twice; 'I'LL JUST KILL HIM FROM WITHIN'
• Miss Nadine — Killed by the boss's lightning as she attacks it.
• Areson the Wise — Rides the boss into the sky, Carl assumes.
• Holger — Vomited out twice, unconscious.
• Claude Sludgington the Fourth — A level-65 Eryops squatting in the throne room, killed in thirty seconds.

Locations

• Fort Freedom — Its throne room's occupant brought to the shore.

Motifs

• The naiads — A fundraiser nobody came to; tithes to the elves; no taxes.
• The Vengeance of the Daughter — A trap in the throne room; a boss where a plot point was.
• The Chee — The teacher dies.
• 'Goddamnit, Donut' — 'HE SMELLS LIKE ALGAE AND CHEETOS'