Chapter 50 of 78 · Book 5, The Butcher's Masquerade

Chapter 50 — Uncle Morty's Insta Lawn-Kill

Book: The Butcher's Masquerade · Part: The Unhinged Child · Previous: Chapter 49 — Kiwi · Next: Chapter 51 — The howdah · Floor: Floor 6 — The Hunting Grounds · Series: the series

Opening

“He ate the ring?” Mordecai asked after we returned to the closest saferoom.

Summary

Fifty-two trophies; 673 hunters. 'He ate the ring?' Mordecai has seen classes that eat metal; this is not that. Prudence strokes Samantha's hair on the couch; the cubs and the cretins watch a 90s film with an animatronic T. rex. Mongo, Kiwi and four clockwork copies wreck the Belching Termite in a Prepotente-owned dryad town. Creeper messages roll in: Prepotente has three of the ten fallen. Katia arrives she-hulked and bloodied, level 54, Louis behind her: Gwen has two Creepers cornered in a bush-elf village with Eva's crew; Li Jun had secretly been a vampire and was cured by Miriam's death. Louis at the open door to the pub: 'Mongo has a girlfriend!'; 'I like the bigger ladies, too.' Mordecai's four moonshine jugs: Uncle Morty's Insta Lawn-Kill and Undead Repellant, Extra-Strength Edition — a weedkiller for odious blooms boosted with anti-undead, two to four kills a jug, flammable, useless if lit before absorbed; Louis's Tent the House can mist it over an area from the Twister, once every six hours. 'Nobody listens to Mordecai anymore, do they?' 'Apparently you’re ‘Uncle Mordecai’ now' Carl's delivery: hobgoblin smoke curtains with the smoke liquid swapped for weedkiller and a store charge that will not ignite — twelve curtains for one trash-can-sized triple package that must burst over the thing's head, and, no longer an 'explosive', unthrowable at distance; a Cookbook recipe he pretends took three tries. Mordecai: half a kilometre minimum, the vines squeeze crawlers to death and the thing adds their parts to itself; no levitating under poison darts. 'He is going to use me.' 'Not this time' Eva takes a Creeper. 'Bye Mongo and Mongo's girlfriend!' Samantha: 'Juice Box is so lucky.'

Characters

• Mordecai — Uncle Morty's weedkiller; 'nobody listens.'
• Katia Grim — Level 54, she-hulked, all business.
• Louis and Firas — Tent the House from the Twister; an Ursula story.
• Carl — Over-engineers a sprayer and lies about how.
• Princess Donut — 'It's not like you can get pregnant. Stop it!'
• Prudence — Strokes Samantha's hair.
• Samantha — 'He is going to use me.'
• Li Jun and Zhang — Li Jun was a vampire and told only his sister and Zhang.
• Kiwi — Loose in a pub with Mongo.
• Eva Sigrid — Credited with a Creeper.

Locations

• The Belching Termite — A dryad pub with dinosaurs in it; a Diwata temple in the town.

Motifs

• The vampire outbreak — Creepers as city bosses at 130-plus; ten down.
• Explosives — A smoke curtain with the smoke swapped for poison.
• The Dungeon Anarchist's Cookbook — A recipe used under cover of bravado.