The Dungeon Anarchist's Cookbook (Dungeon Crawler Carl, #3)

by Matt Dinniman

“I know,” he said. “But we couldn’t have made it here without your help. And for that I’ll be forever grateful.” He gave me a wink and pulled the hat off his head. He put it on the ground in front of Donut, who looked up at him with wide-eyed surprise. “For you, Princess Donut.” “It’s not necessary, I’m sure,” she said, suddenly switching to her imperial voice. “Please, keep it. I insist.” But suddenly there was a line of people, all of them putting their hats in a pile of front of Donut. Her eyes shined, and her jaw trembled, revealing her two lower fangs as the people, one by one bowed in front of her and dropped the stupid train hat on the ground in tribute. “Thank you, Princess,” they said, one by one. “Of course,” she said to each person. “It was nothing. Our pleasure.” Carl: Was this your idea? Bautista: Your partner, Katia, suggested it. I looked over at her, and she grinned. Donut gathered all the hats up into her inventory, tail swishing with pleasure. I suspected now that most of the crawlers were all at the front of the lines, shopkeepers would be less likely to give us money for these things. But we held onto the moment. I didn’t know what was going to come next, or if we’d even done anything here today other than delay the inevitable, but it felt good. By god, it felt good.