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Spoilers for Books 1–8
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All eight books included
Character profile
- Crawler number
- 4,122
- Age at the start of the crawl
- 27
- Before the dungeon
- Former U.S. Coast Guard member; marine electrician
Current Status
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Introduction
Carl is the main character and narrator of Matt Dinniman’s Dungeon Crawler Carl. Before the Collapse, he is a twenty-seven-year-old marine electrician living in Seattle. He survives because he goes outside after Princess Donut, his former girlfriend’s Persian cat, just before the buildings disappear. Carrying Donut, he enters the World Dungeon as crawler 4,122.
Carl’s electrical work and practical experience help him improvise, but he knows nothing about the dungeon or the interstellar audience watching him. He has to learn its rules, find allies and keep Donut alive as they become partners in the crawl.[1]
Appearance and Personality
Carl enters the dungeon at six feet three inches tall and about 230 pounds. He is wearing underwear, a leather jacket and borrowed pink Crocs because that is what he had on when he went outside. The dungeon soon starts giving him rewards suited to that outfit. His jacket is damaged in early fights, and by the time he receives boots that fit, his equipment already rewards him for keeping his feet bare.
Carl’s conspicuous equipment also keeps him alive. His Trollskin Shirt improves Regeneration, rings raise his attributes, and a transforming gauntlet reinforces his punches. These bonuses come from the items rather than his body, so taking off or disabling the equipment can remove them.[2]
Carl looks for practical ways to survive: wrapping a chain around his fist, turning salvaged furniture into shelter or using a low ceiling against a moving enemy. His Coast Guard service and electrical work help him spot opportunities and repair things. He starts with little fighting expertise and learns through mistakes, injuries and Mordecai’s advice.
Carl often promises help before he knows how to provide it. He commits to getting the Meadow Lark residents downstairs without a workable plan for the boss, then admits his uncertainty to Donut. Violence also affects him. Killing a helpless boss nearly makes him vomit, and he cannot accept Donut’s reassurance after learning that his explosion killed civilians.[3]
Carl chooses Primal without changing his human appearance. He rejects other races partly because he does not want to become another grotesque spectacle for the show’s producers.
Once Carl’s boxers are upgraded, wearing trousers would cost him some of their benefits. His initial embarrassment becomes an outfit reinforced by rewards and audience expectations. In private, he still finds time for ordinary comforts, building Donut a cat tree and letting her sleep on him.[4]
Carl’s protectiveness sometimes leads him to make decisions for other people. He objects to Katia taking a dangerous part in the Iron Tangle rescue, until Donut challenges how he is treating their friend’s choices and future. He apologizes and helps Katia carry out the role she wants.
Talking with the train workers makes Carl understand more of the suffering behind their assigned roles, manufactured memories and repeated losses. At the end of the floor, he writes in the Cookbook that the creatures forced to fight crawlers are victims too. He directs his resistance toward the people producing the spectacle.[5]
Carl begins to experience a growing sensation of flowing or rushing inside him. He describes it as neither quite a sound nor a physical feeling. Rest sometimes quiets it, while escaping Zockau makes it louder. Its cause is not established, including whether the Ring of Divine Suffering is responsible.
Carl’s anger increasingly frightens Donut. She objects to his execution of Alkand and later watches him kill the wounded Iota, who is no longer resisting. Carl also marks Miriam with the ring before sunrise. He refuses to kill her himself but gains stats when the sunlight does it. He is becoming willing to benefit from deaths he once might have approached differently.[6]
Having his childhood exposed in public shakes Carl, and the river grows louder afterward. Magical rest helps him function without resolving his grief. Donut also struggles with the pressure of leading their card squad. When she insists on a normal nap, he reassures her and makes room for the rest they need.
Carl watches a replay of his dying father, who cannot see him. Discovering Asher shifts his attention to a child he cannot reach or rescue from the recording. Later, allies arrive to help organize the floor’s escape, giving Carl hope and relief from carrying the responsibility alone. The river has not been permanently cured.[7]
A hair-restoration tonic gives Carl long hair that quickly grows back when cut. The effect is expected to last about two weeks. His base stats also make him party leader, but he keeps the Royal Court of Princess Donut’s name and reassures Donut about her place beside him.
Carl breaks down with Milk after the amplified Dread operation, then hides the experience from Donut by telling her it went smoothly. He also refuses a reward that would save his life by killing Katia and rejects the proposed colonization bargain. Even as he becomes more ruthless, there are costs he will not accept.[8]
After the Helix mercenaries die, Carl’s rage nearly gets Penelope and Taranis caught in a disaster. Donut stops him, and he returns with a targeted trap instead of continuing the uncontrolled attack. He later apologizes to Dong for treating his life and love as tools for a mission.
Renouncing Emberus turns the worship tattoos on Carl’s hands into raised scars called the Mark of the Damned. A debuff connected to his former ring also remains unresolved.[9]
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Attributes and Abilities
Carl starts with Strength 6, Intelligence 3, Constitution 5, Dexterity 5 and Charisma 4. His initial skills include Unarmed Combat 3, Basic Electrical Repair 6 and Swimming 4. The low Intelligence score limits game resources such as mana; it does not mean he lacks practical knowledge. His first recorded level increase gives him three attribute points to assign later.
Fighting raises several of Carl’s skills, including Pugilism, Unarmed Combat, Foot Soldier and Smush. His gauntlet reinforces his punches while preserving an unarmed fighting style, with its Strength bonus active when it forms a fist. His kneepads reflect some damage and cancel momentum-based attacks. Neither protects him from every injury, including damage from his own explosives.[10]
Carl learns basic healing early, but initially has too little mana to cast it often. His shirt’s Regeneration helps him recover between injuries. He still relies on healing supplies and knowing when to retreat.
Carl’s boxers grant Protective Shell, a stationary sphere that blocks hostile physical contact. When first described, it lasts twenty seconds, has a radius of about 4.5 meters at his current Intelligence and costs no mana. Its cooldown is thirty hours. Magic can pass through the barrier, as Carl discovers when Reverse Gravity affects him inside it.[11]
The Primal race lowers each of Carl’s base attributes by one but lets him train any skill up to level twenty. He accepts the immediate loss for a higher long-term ceiling. Reaching it still requires practice, training, potions or other help.
Compensated Anarchist is a Monk/Rogue hybrid unlocked by Carl’s use of explosives and enormous audience before the third floor. It helps him develop bombs and traps, grants Fear and improves Find Trap, Backfire and Escape Plan. Its minimum of twenty-five Charisma costs seventeen of his thirty-six available points even after the class bonus. Reduced damage with bladed weapons and higher mana costs for attack spells encourage him to keep using explosives and unarmed attacks.
Wisp Armor reduces magical damage and temporarily protects Carl from mind control, but does not stop physical attacks. He learns it so he can enter the circus’s parasite network without immediately losing control of himself. The spell gives him only a short time to act before the protection wears off.[12]
The Dungeon Anarchist’s Cookbook gives Carl access to earlier crawlers’ experiments, traps, strategies and discoveries. He has to hide it and judge which advice fits his circumstances. A plan that worked for a previous owner may depend on conditions he cannot reproduce.
Carl turns Protective Shell into a weapon by casting it on a moving train. The sphere stays fixed relative to the track while the train moves through it, forcing hostile occupants against its boundary. The tactic can also kill the engineers and leave the train uncontrolled. Carl is at risk if an enemy is already holding him. Experiments with combined explosives teach a similar lesson: he needs to know the blast’s strength before using it near people he wants to save.
Carl acquires and equips the Ring of Divine Suffering in the Iron Tangle. He does not yet use it to mark someone for a stat reward.[13]
Carl uses engineering and metalworking tools to build a dune buggy that comes apart for storage. He also adapts salvaged objects: a train chock braces a door, a kayak helps him escape the water, and a movable stairwell becomes part of the rescue effort. His first two-stage missile works as a weapon but falls short of the range needed to reach the castle.
Carl combines movement abilities with equipment to cross difficult terrain. Sticky Feet lets him walk upside down without changing his sense of gravity. Water breathing keeps him alive after a collapse, though he still has to contend with pressure and reach the surface. During the Orthrus rescue, he learns to fly the biplane with help from repairs and allies.
The magical writing kit lets Carl, Donut and Katia exchange synchronized messages privately. They use it to coordinate the final Gate operation without telling even Mordecai the full plan. Its useful feature is shared writing, not the power to create whatever they describe.[14]
Carl selects Agent Provocateur on the sixth floor despite Mordecai recommending Guerrilla. It adds one Intelligence for each future level, improves Explosives Handling, provides a bonus at the Sapper’s table and opens the Advanced Bomb Maker’s Workshop. Carl wants both the workshop and a stronger mana supply. He does not receive extra Intelligence for levels already gained.
The Ring of Divine Suffering lets Carl mark a target and gain stats when that target dies. While a mark remains unresolved, his ordinary healing is locked. He begins collecting rewards from marked deaths in the Hunting Grounds, with larger gains as the ring levels up. Miriam’s death shows that he can receive the benefit without making the killing blow himself.[15]
The Scavenger’s Daughter is a divine patch on Carl’s jacket. Applying it doubles the jacket’s stat benefits, including other patches, and adds further Strength and Dexterity. Its Soul Reaper function collects essence from melee kills. Spending a full charge unleashes the Daughter’s Kiss, a destructive attack that leaves Carl sick and shaky after its first use. Nearby gods can trigger additional changes to the patch.
Emberus’s promotion protects Carl from ambient heat and the conditions around lava, but direct contact with fire or lava can still injure him. Self-Immolation spends divine grace rather than mana to release a brief burst of Sheol Fire. It can ignite his clothes and surroundings.
Fusing with Shi Maria gives her control of Carl’s body and inventory. She casts Self-Immolation and burns his allies. Carl eventually returns to his own form and destroys the card, but the injuries remain, as does a voice inside him. He cannot rely on fusion leaving him in charge of what his body does.[16]
The Containment Interface lets Carl access the controls restraining the dungeon AI. He chooses Disconnect Containment instead of triggering the destructive fuse, after a warning that disconnection will disable the failsafe and most controls. He can free the AI from those restraints, but cannot dictate what it does afterward.
During Faction Wars, Carl refuses to use two Rings of Divine Suffering to double his rewards. He later gives up his ring rather than continue farming captive victims. Separately, a random effect caused by Eris’s proximity makes his level-fifteen Pied Piper boon permanent.[17]
A hotlist contingency upgrade gives Carl more ways to arrange automatic responses to danger. His final arena plan combines party changes, the modified carrier, Penelope becoming a crawler and several divine protections. Preparing Penelope also requires an Oxygenated piercing: the anti-asphyxiation potion will not keep her breathing indefinitely inside Scolopendra.
Eris’s arrival activates the Scavenger’s Daughter’s random inventory swap. Carl gets Donut’s hats, while she receives equipment she does not know how to use. The disruption to Carl’s prepared hotlist helps cause the wrong biscuit to be used.[18]
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History
Book 1
Dungeon Crawler Carl
The collapse and the first partnership
Before the Collapse, Carl serves in the Coast Guard and later works as a marine electrician. His relationship with Beatrice breaks down after he suspects her of cheating. When Donut gets outside, he follows her into the cold. Both are still outside when the buildings collapse, and he takes her into the dungeon because he sees no safe way to remain above ground.
Carl’s first fight with goblins shows him that his body works differently in the dungeon, though killing still troubles him. Mordecai helps him understand the rewards, skills and interface. Donut then eats an Enhanced Pet Biscuit and gains human-level intelligence and speech. After her insults, Carl threatens to leave. He accepts her apology and admits he had wanted to keep her before the Collapse, and they agree to stay together.[19]
Boss victories and the first resistance
Carl uses explosives and his surroundings to beat enemies too powerful to fight head-on. One early victory leaves him injured and forces him to finish off a helpless boss. Another explosion kills civilians in a workshop along with his target. Receiving rewards for the destruction makes him angrier with the people running the dungeon.
Carl and Donut discover that other crawlers can be dangerous too. Investigating Rebecca’s death leads them to Frank Q, whose story hides the fact that Maggie My is alive and helping him. Carl grows more suspicious of strangers’ explanations while still trying to protect survivors who need help.[20]
Helping Meadow Lark reach the stairs
Carl joins the caregivers and workers trying to get the Meadow Lark residents to safety. He promises to open the stairs before knowing how to defeat the boss guarding them. The group salvages furniture and gym equipment, builds a portable shelter and rehearses putting it together quickly.
Carl plans to trap the Ball of Swine between their fortified shelter and the low ceiling. As the rolling mass is squeezed into the gap, prepared shuriken increase the damage. The formation eventually breaks apart, but the group must still kill the Tusklings thrown from it before the stairs open. The residents can descend, and Carl stays involved in getting them through the dungeon.[21]
The second floor and Mongo
On the second floor, Carl and Donut train and collect more equipment. His new Protective Shell helps against physical attacks, but the Mind Horror encounter shows that magic can get through it. Their growing fame also brings gifts selected to reinforce the embarrassing personas the show has built around them.
After the others descend, Carl and Donut stay to train. Mongo joins them, and Carl helps Donut hunt with and protect the young dinosaur. Both crawlers reach level thirteen before leaving the training floors and choosing their races and classes.[22]
Choose Book 1 or later above to read this part of the history.
Book 2
Carl’s Doomsday Scenario
Choosing Primal and making Mordecai their manager
Carl reads all 398 race options before choosing Primal. It preserves his human appearance and raises his skill ceiling at the cost of immediate attribute points. He then chooses Compensated Anarchist, spending heavily to meet its Charisma requirement and committing to a class that needs money, training and specialized equipment.
Carl helps carry out a secret plan arranged through Odette to make Mordecai Donut’s manager. They present the appointment as Donut’s mistake, although Carl knows what they are doing. Having Mordecai travel with them is a major advantage, but it takes away the independence Mordecai had planned around.[23]
Signet, Grimaldi and the circus
The circus quest draws Carl into the conflict between Signet and Ringmaster Grimaldi, whose worm-linked performers are trapped in painful forms. Protective Shell keeps Carl uninjured during Signet’s attempted sacrifice. Later, the circus captures him, infects him with speaking worms and puts Donut in danger. He learns that the circus story is being sold as entertainment outside the dungeon and sees a chance to negotiate with its producers.
Carl poisons Grimaldi through the root system, then bargains with the production team for a chance to resolve the conflict. He learns Wisp Armor and enters the parasite network while protected from mind control, allowing Signet and Grimaldi to speak through him. Grimaldi lifts Signet’s banishment, Carl cures the infection and the quest ends. He then has to rescue Mongo and dismantle the shelter around Donut after it attracts janitors. By this point, he thinks of both of them as family.[24]
The murder investigation and Katia
Carl investigates the murdered women in the town and learns about GumGum’s life. His efforts also make enemies. Speaking against King Rust is followed by an assassination attempt during a show. Defending a pregnant NPC from guards makes him permanently hostile to the town authorities, and his escape spreads fire through the area.
Carl gives Katia a mirror and invites her into the party. She helps investigate and keeps an emergency remote outside the suspected reach of mind control. Attacking the magistrate’s office gives Carl temporary authority, but the NPCs do not simply obey him. Questioning Remex reveals a captive source of mana and a larger spell whose interruption has destabilized the area.[25]
Containing the explosion and escaping its aftermath
The interrupted spell threatens Carl, Donut, Katia and about eighty other crawlers. Carl and Donut could seek shelter in the Desperado Club but refuse to leave Katia, who has no pass. Carl traps the soul crystal inside the Sheol Glass Reaper Case. When it explodes, he puts the case into inventory just before it fails, creating Carl’s Doomsday Scenario: an explosion suspended in progress.
With that explosion contained, Remex begins charging another catastrophe. Pulses strip equipment bonuses, trigger magical weapons, destroy armor and activate abilities and hotlist items. Carl warns the other crawlers and leads them toward the stairs. Donut gives up her fleeting crown to survive, but remains bound by its faction obligation.
Katia triggers a final charge before the party crosses the exit. Carl hopes for additional experience; the explosion also has a rescue effect he had not anticipated. He leaves at level twenty-seven with a large bounty and the Doomsday Scenario in inventory. Once they are clear, he shakes from the ordeal and Donut comforts him.[26]
Choose Book 2 or later above to read this part of the history.
Book 3
The Dungeon Anarchist’s Cookbook
The Iron Tangle and the hidden Cookbook
The fourth floor puts the crawlers in a network of trains and stations. Carl uses Protective Shell to clear enemies from a moving train, then has to deal with the transport problems his tactic creates. A posthumous message from Brandon brings news of an ally’s death and shows how their communication network has failed them.
Carl selects a prize book that conceals the Dungeon Anarchist’s Cookbook. He reads its accounts from previous crawlers privately while keeping up an ordinary performance for the cameras. He also starts working more closely with other crawlers, despite advice that avoiding them would be safer.[27]
Katia’s choice and the train rescue
To reach groups trapped at the ends of train lines, the party needs to get through a horde. Katia volunteers to reshape her body into the train’s plow. Carl resists the danger she is taking until Donut challenges his attempt to decide for her. He apologizes and helps assemble the equipment and emergency healing she will need.
Carl fights and heals alongside Katia as their damaged train pushes through the horde. He leaves Li Jun responsible for the first rescued group, then returns to help those still trapped. Elsewhere on the floor, a coupon makes him suspect Donut’s loyalty. Learning that she asked for advice and refused it forces him to confront his own suspicion and secrecy.[28]
Overloading the generators and moving Grull
Carl uses maps, reports from allies and what he has learned from earlier explosions to plan an overload of the soul-crystal generators. First, he must clear Yard E, where a Mimic Rex has trapped crawlers. He plans to summon Grull through a mantaur, send the god against the mimic, then use a second summoning to relocate him to the Abyss.
The first vessel catches Carl’s insensitive foot and pulls him through the portal. He is forced into a staged duel with Prince Maestro’s sponsored manifestation of Grull. Mordecai’s Special Brew keeps him alive through crushing injuries while Katia distracts the god. Li Na preserves the second vessel in a form Carl can carry, and he throws it through the portal before Grull manifests again. The plan sends Grull into the Abyss rather than killing him.[29]
The Nightmare’s final journey
Overloading the remaining generators requires another mass killing in the Abyss. Carl packs the Nightmare train with explosives, but Brandy and Tizquick refuse to leave. Brandy remembers children repeatedly taken from her, while Tizquick has learned that his remembered family never existed. They choose to stay aboard and ask Carl to make their deaths quick.
Destroying the Nightmare overloads enough of the remaining generators for the gathered crawlers to reach the stairs. Carl leaves at level forty-one. In his final Cookbook entry for the floor, he writes that the creatures forced to fight them are victims too. He intends to make the people running the crawl answer for what they have done.[30]
Choose Book 3 or later above to read this part of the history.
Book 4
The Gate of the Feral Gods
The Bubbles, the castles and Bonnie
The fifth floor separates crawlers into bubbles and quadrants. Carl builds a dune buggy that can be dismantled for storage, modifies weapons and helps capture a balloon to reach the castles. His first extended-range missile falls short, forcing him to find another approach.
The Air castle turns out to be a house containing Bonnie, Kane’s body and Denise, a goose-like guardian. As the house falls, an anti-magic field disables the party’s usual equipment and spells. Carl follows a false lead involving a supposed potion that is only lemonade. He then realizes objects from the house can injure Denise when their own weapons cannot. He and Donut use the kitchen disposal to defeat her. Bonnie survives, and Carl saves bedding and photographs from what had been her home.[31]
Chris’s captivity and an attack on Loita
Personal details that do not add up make Carl suspicious when he meets Chris again. He realizes Maggie is controlling Chris’s body and nearly kills him out of mercy before Donut intervenes. The party keeps Chris alive and confined while searching for a way to remove the parasite.
Carl tampers with a toy to arrange an apparently accidental attack on Loita. The casing and smoke interact in ways he did not fully predict. During the interrogation that follows, he refuses to reveal the Cookbook. His detention outside costs the party five dungeon days. Katia and the others make progress without him, leaving Carl relieved but unsettled by how well they managed in his absence.[32]
The Gate and the rescue of Orthrus
The remaining castles bring collapsing buildings, ooze and deep water. Protective Shell briefly keeps the ooze away, but Carl and Donut risk being surrounded when it expires. Water-breathing supplies and improvised transport help them survive while the party collects the Gate’s components.
After the submarine crisis, Carl waits for other crawlers to shelter before using the Gate, then crosses last and helps get his companions home. Releasing a god creates a new emergency involving the enormous puppy Orthrus. Carl commits to rescuing him, relying on biplane repairs, healing and help from allies while Quan pursues his bounty. During the operation, Carl agrees to worship Emberus, gaining divine protection and taking on new obligations.[33]
Freeing Chris and flooding Larracos
A phasing remedy allows Carl to reach into Chris’s head and pull Maggie out without killing him. Carl briefly swallows the parasite to move her away from Chris. When she emerges, she attacks Carl, and Mongo kills her. Donut heals both men. With Chris free, Carl tells the group to give him Maggie’s possessions.
Katia builds a decoy Gate while the real device sits underwater, aimed at Larracos’s central market. Carl, Donut and Katia coordinate through the private writing kit, keeping Mordecai unaware of the full plan. They send ocean water and dangerous mobs into the market, destroying the trade through which sponsors supply their armies. Zev reports tens of thousands of deaths. Carl intends to hurt the people profiting from the crawl and knowingly accepts civilian casualties as part of the attack. He descends ranked first, having made the coming hunter campaign more dangerous.[34]
Choose Book 4 or later above to read this part of the history.
Book 5
The Butcher’s Masquerade
Turning the Hunting Grounds against the hunters
Carl chooses Agent Provocateur at the start of the sixth floor and arranges a larger workshop. Instead of waiting to become prey in the Hunting Grounds, he plans to attack Zockau during the protected preparation period. He keeps much of the plan from his friends, leaving them to improvise a rescue when his escape goes wrong.
The attack kills thirty-four hunters and more than two hundred NPCs. It also gives Carl his first marked-kill rewards from the Ring of Divine Suffering. Mordecai demands that Carl stop hiding plans he needs to prepare for. Donut becomes frightened by his anger, and the river grows louder after the escape, though rest temporarily quiets it.[35]
Beatrice, executions and CrawlCon
The show reunites Carl and Donut with Beatrice. Donut reveals that she knew Beatrice planned to give her away and chooses to stay with Carl. Carl accepts that his relationship with Beatrice is over. Despite the broadcast’s attempt to exploit the reunion, he and Donut leave with a clearer understanding of what they mean to each other.
Carl learns that Alkand, an accountant outside the dungeon, came to act out violent fantasies. He marks and executes him, gaining Constitution and frightening Donut. A later attempt to rescue Holger from the monster inside him goes disastrously wrong, killing Nadine and Clint. Carl accepts responsibility for those deaths.
At CrawlCon, Carl gains information from outside the dungeon and challenges the hunters’ public image. During his confrontation with Nihit, an attack with a pen causes a real injury. The charges that follow can pursue him beyond the dungeon through a labor warrant.[36]
Miriam’s sunrise and Iota’s death
Miriam chooses to face the sunrise rather than prolong her condition. Carl refuses to kill her and promises to care for Prepotente, but marks her with the ring before the sunlight kills her, gaining Intelligence. Her death clears the infection in living victims without destroying every undead creature involved.
Carl later kills the wounded Iota, who offers no resistance, despite Donut’s objections. The ring rewards him again, this time for killing someone he could have spared.[37]
The masquerade and a purchased faction
At the masquerade, Signet carries out her revenge. Her sacrifice breaks the first seal and kills her, ending the alliance Carl began on the third floor. Carl considers sacrificing others to kill Eva but does not follow through. He also rules out using the Doomsday Scenario because it would kill his allies.
Donut and Kiwi’s performance becomes part of the castle confrontation. Tripper kills the last hunter, and Carl is knocked unconscious before surviving Imogen’s defeat. The survivors buy a faction for the coming war. Carl has not yet learned that Eva passed another crown to Katia, placing her in conflict with Donut.
Prepotente destroys the seventh-floor maze, sending the crawlers straight to the eighth floor. Carl takes with him his promise to Miriam, the consequences of the hunter campaign and a faction whose responsibilities he has barely begun to understand.[38]
Choose Book 5 or later above to read this part of the history.
Book 6
The Eye of the Bedlam Bride
The new patch and the childhood interview
Applying the Scavenger’s Daughter greatly strengthens Carl’s jacket and unlocks Soul Reaper. The first fully charged Daughter’s Kiss causes widespread destruction and leaves him physically shaken. He now has a powerful attack that can endanger everything around its target.
Rosetta reveals Carl’s childhood during an interview. When he was fifteen, his mother poisoned his father and killed herself. His father survived and left him alone until school staff and police intervened. Carl let people believe he had killed his father so adults would pay attention, but police found the man alive elsewhere.
A boys’ home later gives Carl food and safety, though he never feels he belongs there. He joins the Coast Guard at eighteen and eventually returns to Seattle. Discussing his past upsets him. A coded conversation about Milk and stew also turns the interview into a way for the Cookbook’s wider network to contact him.[39]
Katia, Astrid and the card squad
Carl supports Katia through her crisis and helps her carry out the contract to kill Astrid. During the encounter, Astrid tries to protect him and frightened staff, including children. Carl nevertheless tears out her wings, and Katia kills her. They complete the contract by betraying someone who had been helping them.
Carl hires thirteen displaced performers and staff for two floors, giving them somewhere to go after the club’s destruction. Meanwhile, the squad’s search for cards and tokens puts Donut under increasing pressure as its leader. Carl accepts her need for an ordinary nap and reassurance, even though magical recovery is available.
At the turkey barn, Carl’s group faces two enemy deckmasters amid heat, early explosions and another Daughter’s Kiss. The battle destabilizes the cliff. After winning, they still have to recover injured companions and the remaining tokens before the structure fails.[40]
His father’s death and Asher
The Ghosts of Earth show Carl recorded moments from his father’s later life. His dying father cannot see him. Carl watches the man’s wife administer a lethal injection and discovers Asher, a younger half-brother he never knew he had.
Carl takes photographs and drawings from the home, along with a pistol and other objects he can recover. The recording does not tell him where Asher is now. The following trailer fight pits him against a hydra of faces, rather than his father himself. Carl burns the trailer while questions about Shi Maria’s earlier intervention and his changing eye remain unanswered.
Emberus grants Carl stronger heat protection and Self-Immolation, while raising his tithe from five to ten percent. The benefits protect him from environmental heat, but direct fire or lava can still injure him.[41]
Ren, the keys and a shared escape
Quan’s attacks, disease and scattered key holders complicate the escape. When Ren cannot get out, she entrusts Garret, her cards and her equipment to Carl. He does not mark either her or Khulan for ring rewards. After Ren dies, he takes responsibility for what she left in his care.
Carl infects mercenaries as part of a proposed weapon. Imani insists that they receive treatment, challenging his willingness to put people at risk for the plan while continuing to help with the rescue.
The escape comes together through information shared between squads and public instructions to key holders. When allies return to take on some of the work, Carl feels hopeful again. He no longer has to carry every part of the rescue himself.[42]
Shi Maria takes control
During the final confrontation, Sam’s low-health Martyr’s Path strengthens Amayon, who then fails to keep the expected arrangement. Carl fuses with Shi Maria in desperation, but she takes control of his body and inventory. Her Self-Immolation burns his friends. When Carl returns to his own form, he loses consciousness.
Mongo survives badly injured and missing a wing. Donut destroys Shi Maria’s card, but Carl can still hear the voice inside him. Paz is released and identified as a former crawler rather than counted as another player-killer skull. Carl ends the floor at level seventy-three, with Donut at sixty-three.
The final votes reshape Faction Wars: sponsor safety protections are removed, the NPCs gain a faction in Larracos and a large force of former crawlers prepares to return. Carl is about to help lead an army while his closest companions are still dealing with the injuries from their escape.[43]
Choose Book 6 or later above to read this part of the history.
Book 7
This Inevitable Ruin
Containment, the veterans and the opening of war
A Christmas flashback reveals Carl’s use of the Containment Interface during the previous floor. He considers its destructive fuse but thinks of the allies and surface survivors it would kill. He chooses Disconnect Containment instead, ending most restrictions on the AI without detonating the dungeon. What the freed AI will do is beyond his control.
Former crawlers return to join the war, making the Cookbook’s history suddenly tangible to Carl. Their gratitude overwhelms him because he must ask them to risk their lives again. Veterans train alongside current crawlers, but a coerced assassination attempt and killings carried out under Shi Maria’s control expose danger within the group. Carl wakes after violence he did not knowingly direct, and the war starts before he can resolve what happened.[44]
Assaults and demands made outside the dungeon
Carl joins the opening assaults and sees the cost to the people following him. Learning how Signet’s family has been exploited nearly makes him lose control, but he lets Donut carry out their agreed plan. He spares pleading inherited soldiers while allowing brutality elsewhere. Using Tina in battle also troubles him after his efforts to protect other children.
Carl is brought before Orren. He demands freedom for the crawlers, restoration of Earth and an end to the crawl before offering cooperation, and asks for Quasar. Orren warns that Carl’s actions could cause suffering far beyond the dungeon. Their exchange gives Carl competing explanations of the AI and Residuals without resolving them, and he keeps some of his intentions to himself.[45]
The Dread operation and rejected bargains
Carl refuses to exploit two Rings of Divine Suffering for double rewards. He also rejects betraying Katia as she insists on joining the rescue. Recruiting Prepotente brings him relief, although he remains frightened of the operation ahead.
The amplified Dread operation uses Li Na’s developing ability to turn victims’ blood against them. The effects become much worse than Carl expected. He asks for it to stop but leaves the wire connected and continues the extraction. Afterward, Milk recognizes his distress and Carl breaks down with her. He tells Donut the operation went smoothly.
Carl turns down a reward that would save him by killing Katia. He also rejects the colonization bargain put before the audience and publicly threatens the leaders profiting from the crawl.[46]
Losses in Larracos and the chain lattice
The final defense of Larracos involves more hidden plans and the loss of the Gate. Li Jun dies drawing Harpocrates away from Donut. Carl receives his farewell message while also grieving Burcu. Later, Carl reacts to a rescue attempt with a bombing that activates the city’s defenses ahead of schedule, putting the larger plan in danger.
Learning that Lucia’s death may kill children outside the dungeon makes Carl insist that she survive. During Donut’s final attack, her Astral Paw summons gather enemies in the air while their allies fall away. Li Na’s chain lattice delivers the killing effect. Carl holds Donut afterward with only one percent of her health remaining, unable to heal her himself. He reaches level eighty-one, and Eris’s proximity has made Pied Piper permanent.[47]
Rescues, surrendering the ring and the exit decision
Carl helps rescue Louis from Reaver’s castle, storing a miniature nuclear weapon in inventory before it can finish detonating. The resulting EMP destroys the biological remnant controlling the drake. Louis survives catastrophic injuries and receives cybernetic replacements.
Zerzura gives the group a way to move the joined cities of Shanty Town and Larracos to the twelfth floor. Carl puts captured mercenaries to work on the evacuation rather than executing them for ring rewards. He gives his ring to Donut, who eats it. Crawlers preparing to leave donate skills to create the consumable pages of Carl’s Book of Boom and Donut’s Banquet Fit for a Princess.
The city has to depart before its faction loses. Once the inhabitants transfer and the warlords leave the realm, the Princess Posse wins Faction Wars. Donut forces Huanxin out of Eileithyia and kills her with Mordecai’s bolt. Katia leaves through the orchid’s pregnancy route. After the remaining rescues and farewells, Carl and Donut descend. At Outreach, they reject the exit deals and choose to continue together.[48]
Choose Book 7 or later above to read this part of the history.
Book 8
A Parade of Horribles
A race without Katia
On the tenth floor, Carl is back in a smaller team, but working on the vehicle repeatedly makes him think of asking Katia for help before remembering that she is gone. The races create a new problem: killing rivals can force more of his friends into later heats. Winning his own race is not enough to keep everyone safe.
Carl adds hotlist contingencies that respond automatically to danger. They later help him survive a wreck through a health scroll and potions after he grabs the steering controls in an emergency. During a broadcast, he turns a prepared question into a warning about escaped gods. He also disrupts a rigged coin toss and receives an unexplained tattoo, then gathers allies to discuss the threats they face.
Li Na’s worsening condition makes a rescue through the Cabaret urgent. Carl insists on agreeing to risks and a signal rather than promising the route will be safe. Despite having a smaller party, he is again responsible for a wider group.[49]
Rage, the task guild and an apology
The Helix mercenaries’ deaths send Carl into a rage at the garage. Donut stops his attack before he can endanger Penelope and bring Taranis down on them. Carl admits he was wrong and returns with traps aimed specifically at the Tigrans.
Lucia passes on a goddess’s warning about the river. Questions from the child involved in the encounter lead Carl to identify Azra and Yaz’s father through Mehmet Or’s donated Book of Boom entry, without fully explaining the river itself. Carl later earns permanent task-guild access through a performance. His handling of the task also makes him recognize how he has treated Dong, and he apologizes for using Dong’s life and love to pursue an objective.[50]
Ad Infinitum and the deaths that buy time
Ad Infinitum presents alternative lives that tempt people to stay. Carl helps Prepotente leave a simulated Miriam behind, while secrecy puts more strain on his own relationship with Donut. An encounter involving Marjory also reveals more about the abuse Beatrice had protected her from.
Carl detonates a beer bomb to buy time for his friends, killing the friendly racers Jasha and Radoslav. Osvaldo’s apparent progress turns out to be a bluff. Carl knows that the people he killed had treated him kindly, even though he believed the rescue required it.
During Mitch’s attack, Carl is trapped in a dog’s body. He refuses the Eye’s offer to take control, but it acts during the confrontation anyway.[51]
Preparing the parade and entering Scolopendra
Before the eleventh-floor arena, Carl changes equipment and leaves Donut’s party. His separate personal room is connected to Safehome Yolanda, and his royal bodyguard title disappears. During the mandatory parade broadcast, he condemns the society watching and profiting from the crawl. He sends Donut toward the protected group, then drives the float into the arena with Bigs and the sluggalos.
Carl gives Penelope a Nothing Special Pet Biscuit, turning her into a crawler who can communicate through chat, then adds her to his party. He stages a threat with his father’s pistol to bring Taranis to her defense. Carl apologizes to Penelope and does not intend to shoot her, though his plan still puts her in danger.
Inside Scolopendra, Carl has to prepare for the next attack while dealing with Emberus and keeping Penelope supplied with air. An anti-asphyxiation potion is not enough for a long stay, so he gives her an Oxygenated piercing. He removes Emberus’s ring and renounces the god after provoking him with a claim about Geyrun’s death. The accusation is part of his plan, not a confirmed account of who killed Geyrun.[52]
Donut’s bolts and the death of Emberus
Donut uses a Loop-de-Loop trap to trade places with Penelope. Outside beside Taranis, the pig receives ninety seconds of invulnerability from Kina’s kneepads. Inside, Donut uses the Bolt of Ophiotaurus to strip Emberus’s protection for fifteen seconds and pins him with a Danforth bolt. Carl’s Four-Leaf Clover patch redirects the god’s smite to Penelope. Donut then uses Puddle Jumper to take herself and Carl back to the arena entrance.
Taranis sees Penelope seemingly reduced to bubbling remains, although she is still alive under her protection. When Emberus emerges, Taranis kills him with lightning with one second left before his invulnerability returns. The blast hurts allies and splits the RV in half. Scolopendra and Krakaren Prime remain alive, with another attack approaching.[53]
The wrong biscuit and a purpose on Twelve
Eris arrives and triggers the Scavenger’s Daughter’s inventory swap. Carl receives Donut’s hats, while she gets his unfamiliar supplies. He plans to turn Scolopendra into an ordinary pet, trap it in the modified carrier and store the carrier. He tells Donut to combine a biscuit with a ball. Confused by the unfamiliar inventory and her smaller hotlist, she picks the wrong biscuit, and Carl launches it into Scolopendra’s mouth.
The biscuit creates Sexy Scolopendra, a level-one crawler: a human-sized, centipede-like creature with a humanoid face and speech. Carl’s plan to contain an ordinary pet will no longer work. Donut admits her mistake afterward, and the new crawler’s remaining powers are still unknown.
The door on the eighteenth floor is open, but an Ascendency victory will restart the remaining collapse schedule. The eleventh floor’s timer is still running. Carl commits to staying on Twelve and preventing a winner until the other inhabitants can escape. Emberus’s memorial crystal, Taranis taking Prepotente’s crystal and Carl’s new Mark of the Damned leave further problems unresolved. The larger rescue is still ahead.[54]
Choose Book 8 or later above to read this part of the history.
Relationships
Princess Donut
Carl already cares about Donut before the Collapse and secretly hopes to keep her after separating from Beatrice. Once she gains intelligence, she can choose to stay with him. They reconcile after their first argument and become partners. Carl also confides in her when he is frightened or has promised help he does not yet know how to provide.[55]
Donut challenges Carl when other people struggle to get through to him, particularly over his attempts to control Katia’s choices. Their trust is also tested when he suspects Donut of accepting a dangerous coupon, only to learn she asked for advice and turned it down. Both keep secrets to protect the other, sometimes causing the hurt they hoped to avoid.[56]
Donut chooses Carl when Beatrice returns, knowing her former owner had planned to give her away. She remains willing to oppose him. Alkand’s execution frightens her, and she objects when Carl kills the wounded Iota.[57]
Carl reassures Donut when leading the card squad overwhelms her. After Shi Maria uses his body to burn their friends, Donut tears up the card. Her love for Carl does not make her trust the dangerous powers he turns to.[58]
Donut stops Carl’s reckless attack near Penelope and later carries out the plan to strip Emberus’s protection. Carl leaving her party changes their titles without ending their partnership. When the wrong biscuit transforms Scolopendra, Donut admits she selected it; Carl had launched the combination she prepared.[59]
Mordecai
Mordecai teaches Carl how the dungeon works, from reading the interface to combining skills and equipment. Carl relies on his knowledge while constantly looking for unexpected uses of the rules.[60]
Carl secretly helps arrange Mordecai’s appointment as Donut’s manager and pretends it was her mistake. He gains an invaluable adviser at the cost of Mordecai’s independence, beginning the arrangement with a deception.[23]
Carl chooses a different specialization from the one Mordecai recommends, then hides much of his Zockau plan. Afterward, Mordecai demands to know what Carl is doing before he creates dangers the party has to survive. Carl wants freedom to act, while Mordecai needs enough information to help him.[61]
Mongo
Katia
Carl gives Katia a mirror and a place in the party. She soon helps with both investigations and dangerous plans, including keeping an emergency remote outside the suspected range of mind control. When she cannot enter the Desperado Club, Carl and Donut refuse to shelter there without her.[64]
Beatrice
Carl and Beatrice have separated before the Collapse after he suspects her of cheating. His suspicion is not confirmed in the opening. He still cares for Donut, whose escape from the apartment leads him outside and saves his life.[67]
Beatrice’s return forces Carl and Donut to address their past in front of an audience. Donut chooses to stay with him, and Carl accepts that his relationship with Beatrice has ended.[68]
A later apartment scene reveals the abuse from which Beatrice protected Marjory. Carl realizes he had dismissed a situation he did not understand, changing how he sees his former girlfriend without restoring their relationship.[69]
Li Jun and Li Na
During the Iron Tangle rescue, Carl trusts Li Jun to take charge of rescued crawlers while he goes back for others. Li Na also plays a crucial part in moving Grull into the Abyss. Working together lets them carry out plans that Carl’s small party could not manage alone.[70]
Miriam and Prepotente
Before facing the sunrise, Miriam asks Carl to look after Prepotente. He promises to do so and refuses to kill her himself, although he marks her with the ring and benefits when she dies. His connection to Prepotente is shaped by both that promise and their loss of Miriam.[73]
Prepotente joining the war effort brings Carl such relief that Katia notices him trembling. Having another capable ally helps him face the responsibility of leading so many people.[74]
Carl helps Prepotente leave a simulated Miriam in Ad Infinitum. Buying time for the rescue includes killing Jasha and Radoslav, leaving Carl with the deaths of friendly racers as he tries to honor his promise to her.[75]
His parents and Asher
Carl loses his mother to suicide and is abandoned by his surviving father. He lives alone until adults intervene. Years later, a dungeon recording lets him witness his father’s death without being seen or heard. He also discovers his half-brother Asher through those recorded events. The photographs and drawings he takes are his only tangible connection to a family he cannot reach.[76]
Ren and Garret
When Ren cannot escape, she asks Carl to take Garret, her cards and her equipment. He accepts and does not mark her for a ring reward. Caring for what she leaves behind becomes another promise he has to keep.[77]
Samantha
Carl names the spirit in the doll head Samantha and helps make space for her in the party’s home. She wants to recover her missing pieces and fears being returned to the Nothing. He launches her with the xistera to lure Slit, then retrieves her after the god she calls her mother kills the demon. She becomes part of the group while much of her past remains unknown.[78]
References
- Dungeon Crawler Carl, chapters 1–4. ↩
- Dungeon Crawler Carl, chapters 1–3, 6, 15, 43. ↩
- Dungeon Crawler Carl, chapters 8, 11, 13, 18–19, 22–23, 26–27. ↩
- Carl’s Doomsday Scenario, chapters 2, 8, 12–13, 17. ↩
- The Dungeon Anarchist’s Cookbook, chapters 14, 18, 21, 24, 34. ↩
- The Butcher’s Masquerade, chapters 8, 12, 22–23, 41–42, 47–48, 53. ↩
- The Eye of the Bedlam Bride, chapters 13, 40, 43–47, 63. ↩
- This Inevitable Ruin, chapters 5, 27, 55–58. ↩
- A Parade of Horribles, chapters 45–46, 60, 98. ↩
- Dungeon Crawler Carl, chapters 2–6, 10–12, 19, 25. ↩
- Dungeon Crawler Carl, chapters 4, 6, 35, 38. ↩
- Carl’s Doomsday Scenario, chapters 2, 11–13. ↩
- The Dungeon Anarchist’s Cookbook, chapters 1–2, 7–8, 11, 14, 19, 27, 32–34. ↩
- The Gate of the Feral Gods, chapters 4, 13, 18–19, 22–23, 27, 30–34. ↩
- The Butcher’s Masquerade, chapters 1, 4–8, 22–23, 47–48, 53, 61. ↩
- The Eye of the Bedlam Bride, chapters 3, 7, 40, 46–47, 71–72. ↩
- This Inevitable Ruin, Christmas Morning Interlude; 40, 52, 57, 76–77, 85. ↩
- A Parade of Horribles, chapters 25, 89–98. ↩
- Dungeon Crawler Carl, chapters 1–8. ↩
- Dungeon Crawler Carl, chapters 10–20. ↩
- Dungeon Crawler Carl, chapters 21–27. ↩
- Dungeon Crawler Carl, chapters 28–47. ↩
- Carl’s Doomsday Scenario, chapters 1–3. ↩1 ↩2
- Carl’s Doomsday Scenario, chapters 4–12. ↩
- Carl’s Doomsday Scenario, chapters 14–23. ↩
- Carl’s Doomsday Scenario, chapters 24–25; Epilogue. ↩
- The Dungeon Anarchist’s Cookbook, chapters 1–9. ↩
- The Dungeon Anarchist’s Cookbook, chapters 14–24. ↩
- The Dungeon Anarchist’s Cookbook, chapters 27, 30–33. ↩
- The Dungeon Anarchist’s Cookbook, chapters 34. ↩
- The Gate of the Feral Gods, chapters 1–17. ↩
- The Gate of the Feral Gods, chapters 14, 18–20. ↩
- The Gate of the Feral Gods, chapters 21–31. ↩
- The Gate of the Feral Gods, chapters 32–34. ↩
- The Butcher’s Masquerade, chapters 1–12. ↩
- The Butcher’s Masquerade, chapters 18–24, 33–42. ↩
- The Butcher’s Masquerade, chapters 47–53. ↩
- The Butcher’s Masquerade, chapters 61, 63–77; Epilogue. ↩
- The Eye of the Bedlam Bride, chapters 3, 7, 13. ↩
- The Eye of the Bedlam Bride, chapters 18–19, 26, 30–34, 40–43. ↩
- The Eye of the Bedlam Bride, chapters 44–47. ↩
- The Eye of the Bedlam Bride, chapters 52–63. ↩
- The Eye of the Bedlam Bride, chapters 67–72. ↩
- This Inevitable Ruin, Christmas Morning Interlude; Prologue; 4, 12–19. ↩
- This Inevitable Ruin, chapters 23–39. ↩
- This Inevitable Ruin, chapters 40, 45–58. ↩
- This Inevitable Ruin, chapters 62, 68–77. ↩
- This Inevitable Ruin, chapters 78–87; Epilogue. ↩
- A Parade of Horribles, chapters 1–6, 14, 22–28, 32–39. ↩
- A Parade of Horribles, chapters 45–46, 51, 54–60. ↩
- A Parade of Horribles, chapters 65–66, 72, 74–77, 84–86. ↩
- A Parade of Horribles, chapters 89–95. ↩
- A Parade of Horribles, chapters 96. ↩
- A Parade of Horribles, chapters 97–98. ↩
- Dungeon Crawler Carl, chapters 1, 8, 22–23, 46–47. ↩
- The Dungeon Anarchist’s Cookbook, chapters 18–21, 24. ↩
- The Butcher’s Masquerade, chapters 19–20, 22–23, 53. ↩
- The Eye of the Bedlam Bride, chapters 40, 71–72. ↩
- A Parade of Horribles, chapters 45–46, 89–90, 96–98. ↩
- Dungeon Crawler Carl, chapters 2–8, 28–35. ↩
- The Butcher’s Masquerade, chapters 1, 8–12. ↩
- Dungeon Crawler Carl, chapters 46–47. ↩
- The Eye of the Bedlam Bride, chapters 71–72. ↩
- Carl’s Doomsday Scenario, chapters 15–25. ↩
- The Dungeon Anarchist’s Cookbook, chapters 14, 18–21. ↩
- This Inevitable Ruin, chapters 47, 57, 87; Several Days Earlier. ↩
- Dungeon Crawler Carl, chapters 1. ↩
- The Butcher’s Masquerade, chapters 19–20. ↩
- A Parade of Horribles, chapters 76. ↩
- The Dungeon Anarchist’s Cookbook, chapters 24, 30–34. ↩
- This Inevitable Ruin, chapters 52, 68, 76–77. ↩
- A Parade of Horribles, chapters 35–39, 54, 65–66. ↩
- The Butcher’s Masquerade, chapters 47–48; Epilogue. ↩
- This Inevitable Ruin, chapters 48. ↩
- A Parade of Horribles, chapters 72, 74–77. ↩
- The Eye of the Bedlam Bride, chapters 13, 44–47. ↩
- The Eye of the Bedlam Bride, chapters 59–60. ↩
- The Gate of the Feral Gods, chapters 21–24, 28, 34. ↩
- The Eye of the Bedlam Bride, chapters 40. ↩