The Horribles
The audience the eleventh floor's parade was named for. Thousands of them stand ten deep in the knee-high fog on both sides of the yellow-brick road, human or human-like in every size from babies in arms to adults, dressed alike in filthy earth-brown rags and robes, their arms and legs grimed as though freshly dug up. Every one of them wears an oversized bulbous mask — a full head covering, round as a bobblehead — caricaturing a goblin, troll, hobgoblin or demon in bright carnival colours, packed so tightly that the masks turn sideways against each other. Examining one returns no combat data at all: a non-combatant who is not really there because she no longer exists, and a Primal under the mask. The System AI explains them as memories held by the Eulogist — not people, not photographs, just anonymous inklings of what the Primals were before they ascended out of physical form, and it says outright that it is them and they are it. When the war float fires, the horribles collapse in waves, their masks shattering like glass, and rise again unmasked with the faces of the monsters they were dressed as; a second examine identifies one as a marsh troll that died in the 3,424th season. They never appear on a minimap. What is left of them files into the arena bleachers to watch the last fight in silence.
Book 8 appearances
- Chapter 91 — Thousands of them stand ten deep in the fog along the parade route in rags and oversized carnival masks; Carl examines a child and is told she is a non-combatant who no longer exists, a Primal under the mask, and a memory the Eulogist kept.
- Chapter 92 — They creak their giant heads round to follow the procession, scream in unison when Grigori breaks the Resolution team's legs, sway to the story's beat, then collapse as the Destruction float fires — masks shattering like glass — and rise again unmasked with the faces of the monsters they portrayed.
- Chapter 93 — The survivors of the parade fill the arena bleachers in smoky shadow, sitting in silent witness to the slaughter; Carl works out that the mobs about to die will join them.
Related entries
- The Eulogist (Lore)
- Primal (Race) (Notification)
- The System AI (Character)
- A Parade of Horribles (Floor 11) (Place)
- The Residuals (Lore)
- Stand-In (Notification)
Browse
- All Creatures & Bosses
- Everything debuting in Book 8, Chapter 91
- All of A Parade of Horribles