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Spoilers for Books 1–8
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World Dungeon · Floor 17
Floor 17: Backstage Death Maze
The Backstage Death Maze occupies Floor Seventeen. Creatures rescued from earlier floors build and staff it, training for battles most expect will never come. The Pineapple Cabaret stories follow their growing community and the promise of a life after the crawl. Later events turn their overlooked workplace into an obstacle on the route out.[1]
Choose Book 2 or later above to read this section.
The original design
Menerva appoints ten Dungeon Master Generals to build a miniature dungeon resembling Floor One. It must have a clear route from the entrance to two exits, and they can keep building until Floor Sixteen ends.
The design reverses the usual order of strength. Creatures from earlier floors return, with those from Floor One intended to become the strongest through training. Their initial staging area is separate from the active floors crawlers explore.
Menerva tells the workers that deep-floor designs are reused and crawlers are unlikely ever to arrive. Her promise of eventual sanctuary in the Pineapple Cabaret persuades Rory to cooperate, while Grandma Llama remains suspicious.[1]
Choose Book 2 or later above to read this section.
Builders and the community
Rory comanages the NPCs, and Grandma Llama handles construction and supplies. Larry organizes training, Nigel acts as psychologist, and the workers build homes beside the traps. Their new community develops friendships, factions and disputes.
Menerva is a level-249 high-elf noncombatant trustee. She plans to make Growler Gary the central rotunda’s gatekeeper because of his key binding: once the Iron Tangle collapses, he regenerates where he stands. Until then, she puts him to work testing lethal traps.
Gary’s binding requires administrator access to create. The builders cannot give everyone the same ability, and surviving each test means Gary endures the pain again and again.[2]
Choose Book 3 or later above to read this section.
Rooms, traps and construction limits
The maze contains four regular boss rooms and a central rotunda. Nigel designs a spiral of mirrors, portals and summoning devices. Defeating its boss turns an ordinary mirror into the route back to the rotunda.
Cock-A-Doodle-Doo creates a pet-shop trap. A delayed crusher releases hostile caged animals, driving intruders toward flamethrowers. A three-meter exclusion rule prevents him from placing the crusher directly over a safe-room entrance.
Materials installed in a testable trap are duplicated and logged in reports. Gary refuses to supply alcohol for one after Menerva bans it, knowing the records would expose him.[3]
Choose Book 4 or later above to read this section.
Created lives and disguised danger
The creation tools make living creatures, and removing an unwanted result requires paperwork and a team to deal with it. Gary’s attempts to replace Jumping Jen-Jen produce dangerous shadow mimics.
The mimics wear familiar faces while pursuing their own plans. Willow Joy’s attempt to replace the supposed Jen-Jen exposes them, revealing that the people Gary trusts may no longer be who they appear.[4]
Choose Book 5 or later above to read this section.
The Cabaret is a separate place
Akuma identifies Herot and Menerva as former crawlers given permission to design the floor many seasons ago. After the approving showrunner died, the design and its supervisors kept being reused until they were largely forgotten.
They created the Pineapple Cabaret as a pocket dimension attached to the maze’s entrance. It is a refuge beside Floor Seventeen rather than the maze itself.
Akuma says the Cabaret can protect its occupants from floor collapse while trapping them inside. Hostile beings have overrun it by the time he speaks to Carl, making his hopes of returning and eventually reaching the surface uncertain.[5]
Choose Book 8 or later above to read this section.
How to read the floor illustration
The illustration brings together the two exits, central rotunda, mirror spiral and pet-shop trap. Grandma Llama, Rory and Nigel represent the builders before their later injuries and disappearances.
The rooms form a representative cutaway, not a complete navigation map of the maze.[6]
Choose Book 4 or later above to read this section.
History
Book 7
This Inevitable Ruin
The guests activate the maze
When Scolopendra awakens, resort guests flee toward Floor Sixteen through the maze. An emergency announcement arms its defenses against these outworlders. The level-one visitors die quickly in the traps, their bodies disappearing afterward.
Menerva reveals that she and Herot escaped a place called the library and built the Cabaret. With Herot trapped in the infested refuge and their secret exposed, she leaves to rescue him and warns the workers not to follow.
The mimic posing as Larry meets Epitome Noflex, a Dream guest who wants to die so she can regenerate in her room. Biting her gives it access to her form. The visitors offer the mimics new victims and identities.[7]
Choose Book 7 or later above to read this section.
Book 8
A Parade of Horribles
The takeover leaves the builders trapped
The survivors report that the mimics added themselves to the pass-through codes, killed Kissimmee and destroyed the controls. Construction stops and builder chat fails. Ordinary same-floor chat still works between added contacts.
Grandma Llama loses a front leg but survives, along with Nigel, the hamsters, a few fairies and three goblins. Gary repeatedly dies and regenerates while clearing traps from their route.
The system exempts the floor’s NPCs from Scolopendra’s second attack because no crawlers are present. It repeats the exemption when the third attack is canceled.[8]
A home to reclaim, and a rescue still ahead
Grandma says Rory or Menerva must reset the locked floor. She now wants to restore construction and turn the maze into a defensible home. She believes the mimics have split between Eighteen and the Cabaret.
Gary, Next and Nigel are chosen to rescue Rory. Nigel will tag Grandma so he can find the way back while she remains to reopen the moving portal. The story ends before they depart, leaving the rescue and restoration ahead of them.[9]
Choose Book 8 or later above to read this section.
Sources
References are to Matt Dinniman’s novels. Book links open our recap guides.
- Carl’s Doomsday Scenario, Pineapple Cabaret, Part 2, PDF pages 12–16.
- The Dungeon Anarchist’s Cookbook, Pineapple Cabaret, Part 3, PDF pages 2–17.
- The Gate of the Feral Gods, Pineapple Cabaret, Part 4, PDF pages 2–6, 11–14.
- The Butcher’s Masquerade, Pineapple Cabaret, Part 5, PDF pages 2–4, 11–16.
- A Parade of Horribles, Chapter 38.
- The Gate of the Feral Gods, Pineapple Cabaret, Parts 2–4.
- This Inevitable Ruin, 87; Pineapple Cabaret, Part 7, PDF pages 3–8.
- A Parade of Horribles, Pineapple Cabaret, Part 8, PDF pages 6–11.
- A Parade of Horribles, Pineapple Cabaret, Part 8, PDF pages 8–11.