The Butcher's Masquerade (Dungeon Crawler Carl, #5)

by Matt Dinniman

SHE’S TRASHED THE PLACE WORSE THAN THE TIME MISS BEATRICE WRECKED THE KITCHEN WHEN YOU TOLD HER SHE SHOULD STOP TRYING TO SELL THOSE AWFUL LEGGINGS.

THEY HAVE MAGNIFICENT HATS THOUGH. Samantha: THEIR HATS REALLY ARE FASHIONABLE. Carl: Goddamnit, did you read my instructions or not? Donut: I AM TRYING TO GIVE YOU IMPORTANT BACKSTORY, CARL. AND YES.

ALSO, WHAT IS A MOUSER? I DON’T LIKE THE SOUND OF THAT ONE BIT.

“Okay, this is it.” I said. A strange calm descended onto me. There was nothing peaceful about the sudden warmth that spread through me. Still, that was the sense I had. Calm. In the back of my mind, that feeling of movement, the hidden river, raged. This is where you belong, Carl, the river said. Jump into the rapids. Embrace the chaos. “Zev, if I die and Donut gets out of this, please watch over her.” “I’ll do my best, Carl,” Zev said as I felt the first tingles of teleportation, like hundreds of hands coming to drag me into the abyss.

I cast Ping. I received an error message. Oh shit! It didn’t work! It’s almost like the mapping system is blocked out in this town!

The mantis turned in the air, searching for me. Her companion also stopped, looking at the bug questioningly. The Enraged buff appeared over the first bug’s head. She reached over, almost casually, and yanked the head off of her own sister.

She also knew, as I now did, that Lucia regularly cast that spell while she was in a saferoom. This teleported everyone in the room away, allowing her to attack them outside the safety of the room. It was insidious, a way to cheat the saferoom protections.

According to some nerd kid at the panel, the system allowed them to be set within saferooms because the real trap module was actually set outside, at the destination. A loophole.

I took Drick’s advice and created chaos that I could hide within.

She was so disoriented, she hadn’t even attempted to heal herself.

Can they??

Carl: Coming in. Samantha, roll into the woods. Head south. Samantha: IS THAT SUPPOSED TO BE A PUN?

I recognized the two heads at the top of the pile against her insectoid shoulders, flanking her exposed neck like a pair of headphones. I had no idea how she attached them to her body. The one on the left was Langley, mouth wide in surprise.

all of whom will be born with the memory of this moment,

Has to do with how they communicate now

“Wait,” I said, holding my hand up. “Langley, I’m sorry I couldn’t help you before. I appreciate your help now.” Vrah cocked her bug head to the side. “What?” she asked just as the reanimated corpse head bit down on her exposed neck.

I jumped up, pulled the arrow of Enthusiastic Double Gonorrhea and rammed it into Vrah’s neck

Knew ittttt

“Cover your ears,” I shouted as I kicked the wheeled bomb out the door. It rolled and started to tip as I slammed the saferoom door shut. “We’ve gone over this before, Carl,” Donut shouted. “I can’t cover my...” Bam.

Notifications rolled down my screen.

Samantha: YO, WHAT THE ACTUAL FUCK WAS THAT.

But that guy, that sole remaining mantis, suddenly had a very big problem.

Trust me, buddy. You’ll want this. “What in the gods’ name did you do?” Mordecai asked. “Carl gave Vrah gonorrhea!” Donut cried.

“The bitch lives, correct?” someone asked. “I didn’t see a notification. Lucia survived?” The speaker was Florin the crocodilian. I hadn’t noticed him there in the back corner. “Yes,” Donut said. “She’s a cheater just like that Quan Ch guy, and she got away.” “Good,” Florin said. He pushed himself off the wall and went out into the guildhall common area. We all watched him go.

I turned to examine the people in the room. I felt a grin spread across my face as I took everyone in. This is it, I thought. This is my family now.

She still wore the anti-slip socks from when she’d been a 99-year-old resident of the Meadow Lark retirement home.

Katia was in her regular, human form. She stood next to Bautista, nodding. In fact, I noticed she actually had her hand on his orange, furry shoulder. Huh, I thought. I wasn’t sure what I thought about that.

“That was a potion bandolier. I can throw armor items on Katia, and it automatically equips itself as long as she has the spot open. We can do it with shoulder bandoliers, helmets, arm bracers. Pretty much anything you can think of.”

Hope you remember how you did it.

No dungeon-style circumcision.

Reward: You entered a building. You don’t get a reward for that. It’s not like you kicked it up a notch by defiling the shrine. Oh, wait. New Achievement! Temple Defiler!

They made it that way because you crawlers are always blowing up whole towns and submerging cities in water or burying entire populations of innocent NPCs with the guts of giant turkeys.

Hopefully you got some cool loot from the priests or monks or whatever because this box, while technically a prize, is sort of a good news/bad news thing.

New Achievement! That’s not how you use arrows, dumbass. You took an arrow, and you physically stabbed someone with it. That’s something a kid who eats glue would do. You know I’m pretty sure you have a bow in your inventory.

New Achievement! It itches when I pee! You infected another combatant with a venereal disease. Good job there, Derek Jeter. I hope you bought them dinner first. Reward: You’ve received a Bronze condom. Use it next time.

“Well, I got a John Wick achievement that I thought was very rude.

“You said the god was Diwata? That’s a weird one. She changes genders, but she’s usually referred to as her. She does some odd shit, like impregnates herself and then eats the offspring and then forms cities with her poop. Thankfully, she’s pretty rare. Go ahead. Open the boxes. We’ll deal like we always do.”

I now had 52 hunting trophies,

You will receive a 25% damage bonus against all adherents of Diwata. As an adherent of Emberus, you receive an additional 25% bonus against all adherents of Diwata, giving you a total of 50% bonus damage.

Unlike other tattoos, this one may not be hidden with a cover-up sleeve. If you’d like to remove this tattoo and the associated effects, you must either kill Diwata or chop off your arm. One of those is a lot easier than the other.

And then it hit me. Finally. Of course. I felt like an idiot for not seeing it earlier.

Donut jumped to her shoulder and started offering unsolicited advice.

New Achievement! What big muscles you have! Your base strength is now over 100. Rawr! Get thee to Chippendales!

Stepson. All kicks and foot-based attacks have an automatic 15% chance to inflict Ouch per hit.

“Carl, did you get bigger? Everyone, look at Carl. His arms got bigger.” “Yeah, he did,” Elle said. She reached over and touched my arm. “Imani, come touch Carl.”

“No,” Donut said. “Not at first. Watch how I expertly handle the situation.”

They also, for some inexplicable reason, digitally added a little cocktail to the table with an umbrella along with a bowl filled with what looked like strawberries and candy bars.

“Holy shit,” I gasped. “You almost got bitten in half.” “I know, right?” Donut said. She made a little karate motion and a wachaw! noise. “They don’t call them cat-like reflexes for nothing.”

The announcer completed his analysis of the five players, finishing with a frozen zoom-in on Samantha, who appeared to be screaming and rolling toward the skirmish with the dogs. A pop-up appeared and quickly went away, too fast to read.

Donut scrambled toward the door, but Samantha, who’d also landed on the raised deck, veered off toward the door and hit it first, pushing it open and rolling inside. She did that on purpose, I thought, watching the action unfold.

“Watch for traps,” I felt myself saying just before Donut hit the snare. “Nobody likes a Monday morning short stop, Carl,” Donut grumbled.

“Don’t attack her directly,” I said. “She has that other spell, remember? The damage reflect one she used to kill Ifechi.” “I’m not an idiot, Carl. The spell is called Rubber, and she hadn’t cast it yet because she wanted her dogs to eat me. Plus Mordecai said he thinks she can only do it when she’s in her pretty form.” “That’s not what I said at all,” Mordecai said. “I said I think it’s from an item she’s wearing, so she might be able to cast it in her skeletal form, but I wasn’t sure.” “Oh,” Donut said. “Well, she never cast it.”

She looked over her shoulder at an empty spot. “The fight is over. It is a draw.”

Ok but she could be talking to someone like maggie my was