Chapter 77 of 78 · Book 5, The Butcher's Masquerade

Chapter 77 — The mask

Book: The Butcher's Masquerade · Part: The Butchering · Previous: Chapter 76 — Cage Fight Extreme · Next: Epilogue — Epilogue · Floor: Floor 6 — The Hunting Grounds · Series: the series

Opening

Multiple pages of achievements filled the darkness.

Summary

Pages of achievements come in the dark; the ceiling is still coming. A treasure map from Imogen's body went to everyone, and Osvaldo, a Curupira ranger, got there first; Prepotente, with the killing blow, says the thing protects against Scolopendra. Donut recites the losses: Firas, Gwen, Horton and the Popovs dead, Tran legless, Britney's face burned past healing, the raptors dead or fled; Lucia teleported to a stairwell before the fight began; Eva, bitten and buried, still alive, with Katia hunting her with Li Na and Jun. Levels: Carl 63, Katia 60, Donut 55, Prepotente 71. 'A champion has fallen. A bounty has been claimed.' Katia passes with a second golden PK skull: 'It's done'

Then the question Carl has dreaded: 'Why doesn't it hurt as much as it should?' Carl's reading: the spell's name has one butcher, so Imogen could never win, and she had the masks backwards — 'You're wearing a mask right now, Donut, and you don't know how to remove it […] That mask is protecting you.' One day, somewhere safe and unwatched, it will fall off and she will cry for the dead. She cries into his neck, and Carl has never been so relieved to feel someone else's pain.

Find Crawler leads to Maxim and Dmitri, now Level X Nodling Yearlings, fat baby ogres; their game guide made them pick the race for this. As children they are ineligible and are transferred to the kinder facility on the surface. 'Those crazy bastards escaped.'

Carl and Donut become Co-Warlords of The Princess Posse, a spot inherited from the Burrowers, with fifteen action items including a contractual one, Remove Safety Protections For Faction Sponsors; Donut is flagged as royalty of the Blood Sultanate. Carl improvises an election speech to the cameras: the Dreadnoughts and the Burrowers dropped out, and D'Nadia's Prism and the Princess Posse took the spots; of nine teams only the crawlers can die; the vote on the safety protocols stands two to seven; and the Operatic Collective, the Lemig Sortition and the Viceroys let their citizens vote — at which he is muted. 'I got the important part out.' Donut explains the raptor trick: a deep Hole cast on stage opened on every stage at once, dropping the dinosaurs into the hunters' ballroom. Prepotente, party leader, will descend now; the vote needs two more. The crystal from Imogen is a Memorial Crystal of Apito — impossible unless the goddess is dead — and Emberus updates Find Out Who Killed My Son: obtain it and speak to the high cleric at the Emberus Shrine in Club Vanquisher.

Characters

• Princess Donut — Asks why it does not hurt; wears the mask; Co-Warlord; Best in Show lost to a meatball.
• Carl — Explains the butcher's mask; finds the Popovs; addresses the universe; muted.
• The Popov brothers — Reborn as yearlings; Ineligible; free.
• Katia Grim — Kills Eva; a second golden skull; 'It's done'
• Eva Sigrid — Dies under the gore, bitten and unrepelled.
• Prepotente — Killed the queen; party leader; wants Apito's memorial crystal.
• Cleiton — His teammate Osvaldo, a Curupira ranger, took the crystal.
• Louis and Firas — Dead; the best man who never was.
• Gwendolyn Duet — Donut: 'She was mean, but I liked her.'
• Horton — A fellow musician lost.
• Britney Proskurina — Burned past healing.
• Tran — Legless.
• Florin — Sobbed and went down.
• Lucia Mar — Escaped before the bell.
• Tserendolgor — Best in Show.
• Zev — Mutes the feed.
• Imani — Heals and hugs.
• Emberus — A quest update in his voice.
• Queen Imogen — Dead; her crystal was Apito's.

Locations

• The high elf castle — A pit of the dead with a stairwell in it.

Motifs

• The Butcher's Masquerade — One butcher; the mask worn the other way.
• Faction Wars — The Princess Posse fields troops; the safety-protocol vote; leverage.
• The Popov brothers — Children are ineligible; a race chosen for this.
• The gods — A memorial crystal for a living goddess.
• 'You're not going to break me' — 'Something inside of me has broken.'
• The show — Trash talk to the cameras until the mute.
• The Blood Sultanate — Donut's succession complication.