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

by Matt Dinniman

Carl: She has to sing? Have you heard her sing yet? Mordecai: Everyone has heard her singing. Carl: Oh god.

Reward: Your reward is advice. Fatherly advice. Don’t be a little bitch. There’s your reward.

New Achievement! The Hand that Claws the Master (x35) You have permanently killed a non-crawler biological. They ain’t just dead. They dead dead. Their children are now orphans. Their mothers are gnashing their teeth and cursing your name. And you’re just sitting there all alive and shit, and girlfriend, I am all in.

“That’ll be me,” I called. “I’ll be the one responsible. And you should have thought of that before you sent them all off to die in my dungeon. It’s too bad you’re not in there, too. I guess you’re too old or too cowardly to face me.”

HELL YEAH CARL MY MAN

Violence breeds chaos. From chaos we were born and into chaos we will succumb.”

Donut: OH, HONEY. YOU USED TO BE A SEX DOLL. I’M QUITE CERTAIN YOU CAN HANDLE ALL MANNER OF INDIGNITY. Samantha: DON’T SLUT SHAME ME. I’M GOING TO KILL YOUR MOTHER.

I thumbed at the television, upon which some cartoon called Little Bear played.

Highlighted bc little bear was also on in our house 😳

“This is ‘Wonderwall,’” Horton said, and he started to play the song. Donut: OMG. I laughed. I laughed at the absurdity of it all. Here I was, about to get sucked into a literal hell, sitting down at a party, talking to a tattooed, topless fish woman while listening to a mushroom dude named Horton play a poorly-tuned guitar, singing my cat’s favorite song. All while the entire universe watched.

I AM UNWELL 😭

Thank you for doing this, and thank you for taking care of Donut. I’ll never forget what you’ve done for us tonight. Sledge: No let Bomo beat my Frogger score. Carl: I’ll unplug the machine the moment we get back. Sledge: Good.

my sledgey 🥹

A terrible buzzing filled my head. My hearing was coming back. But it was something else, too. It was always something else.

A surge of pride filled my chest. We’d all been bloodied today, but we were still standing tall. Unbroken.

“Eat a bag of dicks, Pony,” I said. He screamed in my face.