Character · Book 5, The Butcher's Masquerade

Circe Took

A minor hive queen of the mantis people: a businesswoman who owns an amusement park and whose family runs a fantasy hunter camp on a moon the Dream rents once a cycle, once a famous hunter, moderator of CrawlCon's 'Crawling Through the Ages' panel, and mother of Hunter Xindy and of Vrah. She cleaves a table through Carl on camera, sues to free her daughter, sponsors the god Diwata (selling half of all she owns to do it, Empress D'Nadia tells Donut), and dies in the castle pit torn apart by the god's children, screaming Carl's name.

Segment appearances

• Chapter 21 — CrawlCon
• Chapter 32 — The Ultimate Training Room
• Chapter 33 — Crawling Through the Ages
• Chapter 34 — How to kill a mantis
• Chapter 37 — The rainbow bridge
• Chapter 41 — The Society for the Eradication of Cocker Spaniels
• Chapter 55 — Save the toraline
• Chapter 62 — A squirrel with antlers
• Chapter 70 — Anaconda
• Chapter 73 — Wonderwall, again
• Chapter 76 — Cage Fight Extreme
• Chapter 77 — The mask

Arc

Named as the moderator of Carl's panel: a minor hive queen, an amusement-park owner, once a famous hunter, mother of Xindy and of Vrah (ch. 32). She cleaves a table through Carl on stage and storms out — 'I am not the Maestro' (ch. 33); she is coming to the Earth system (ch. 41); she sues to free her daughter and the AI overrules the court (ch. 53). She sponsors a god (ch. 55) who is born in a church and runs to her daughter (ch. 62), and comes into the castle inside the god (ch. 73). In the pit Laundry Day strips the god off her and a dozen of the god's children — her own — tear her apart, shrieking Carl's name (ch. 76).