Chapter 32 of 78 · Book 5, The Butcher's Masquerade

Chapter 32 — The Ultimate Training Room

Book: The Butcher's Masquerade · Part: The Unhinged Child · Previous: Chapter 31 — The juvenile quickdraw · Next: Chapter 33 — Crawling Through the Ages · Floor: Floor 6 — The Hunting Grounds · Series: the series

Opening

“Zev,” I said as I returned to the green room.

Summary

Zev names the moderator: Circe Took, a minor hive queen of the mantis people — a businesswoman who owns an amusement park, once a famous hunter, not of the military or the Burrower clan — and Xindy's mother; a hive queen has ten thousand children, so 'try to avoid talking about her government.' If she can talk to Vrah, Vrah will know exactly when and where Carl returns. The other con crawlers: the Popovs (ten events), Chirag Ali, and Tserendolgor the dog soldier, whom Donut dislikes. Lucia Mar no longer does events: 'too… unpredictable'; 'Donut is okay for now […] She's not the one in danger.' Zev on herself: the home system has gone dark; those who stayed after the change may go home to be executed as traitors; 'my entire family was slaughtered because I refused to wear a pin.' Two gnoll guards, Frito and Moxo, install a tier-three bed panel (thirty hours of buffs) and a door: the Ultimate Training Room, tier four, twelfth-floor gear — 'The captain sends his regards […] a smart guy like yourself can be creative' — and mention they will switch his inventory back on just before his return. The room trains six skills for six hours, shows progress, and folds in every workshop: an AI trainer, a one-eyed badger with a hook, tells him the weapon he wants is not a bomb or a trap and needs a hypnotist's bench, a necromancer's altar or a spider nursery — 'something that'll allow for multiple minions […] or a bunch o' suicidal friends' — then fixes his sticky bombs in a two-hour module. Powerful Strike goes from nine to ten; enhancements past fifteen give diminishing returns even to a Primal. On the way to the panel, a dwarf named Dr. Ratchet borrowing the studio for a demonstration can see him: 'Keep your head down.' A ladder into a 'zero zone' where the gauntlet will not form and the Syndicate script on a door is legible 'like an old language I hadn't spoken in a long time'; Studio Three is class two. A Valtay porter bot, Biff, seats him at a table for four before a packed stadium, with an empty space beside his chair; Carl thinks: 'That's where she'll be parked.' The guards smoke something skunky in the corner: 'We got the best seat in the house.'

Characters

• Carl — Trains with a real AI; reads a script he should not be able to; sits down next to a space.
• Zev — Her family slaughtered over a pin; a system gone dark.
• Circe Took — Named: hive queen, amusement-park owner, Xindy's mother, Vrah's.
• Frito and Moxo — Gnoll mercenaries who deliver a captain's regards and smoke on duty.
• Dr. Ratchet — A dwarf visiting the planet who can see Carl and tells him to keep his head down.
• Biff — Valtay Porter Bot 6.ff.
• Tserendolgor — At the con; Donut will be pissed.

Locations

• The Valtay landing vessel — Conduit corridors, a child's ladder, zones with and without enhancements.
• CrawlCon — Studio Three, a packed stadium, a table for four.

Motifs

• The hunters — Circe Took's grief as a panel; Vrah will know the time and place.
• The Valtay Corporation — A captain's regards; zero zones; a script Carl half-knows.
• Explosives — A weapon that needs minions; sticky bombs fixed.