Pets, Summons and Mercenaries: Dungeon Crawler Carl Guide

Choosing a pet does not complete its bond

The Master Pen Key gives the party a timed visit to choose one pet. Donut names the young dinosaur Mongo. His marker changes from red to white after they hunt together, but Mordecai warns that he is not yet bonded to her.

Donut completes the bond by rescuing Mongo after he is injured. His marker turns orange and the system adds him to the party as her pet. He still bites her afterward, leaving her with an animal to understand and care for rather than a perfectly obedient servant.

Most crawlers can have one pet. Some races and classes allow exceptions, as can sufficiently high Charisma. Donut is a crawler herself, so she does not count as Carl’s pet. Familiars also follow separate rules.

Reward pets stay at level one until they bond and cannot descend with an owner while unbonded. Mongo reaches physical maturity at level fifteen, but can continue gaining levels afterward.[2]

Receiving a spell before it can be used

Donut receives Minion Army before she has enough mana to learn it. The spell requires fifty mana, so the book stays unused until her capacity increases.[3]

A carrier provides a special way to transport a bonded pet

Carl pays fifteen thousand gold for a Magical Pet Carrier. It holds a bonded pet in restful stasis and allows the occupied carrier to be placed in inventory. Its special permission does not extend to any living creature the party wants to store.

Mongo needs treatment suitable for pets. Ordinary crawler healing supplies do not always work on him, so the party has to obtain or modify remedies for his use.[4]

Clockwork Triplicate creates temporary copies

At level one, Clockwork Triplicate costs twenty-six mana and creates two physical copies of a pet or minion for one minute. Donut uses it on both Mongo and an undead lion.

The copies act independently of the original and disappear when their duration ends. This lets the party send them into danger without sacrificing the source creature, but they must reach their target before time runs out.[5]

Hired allies have roles beyond their contracts

Bomo and The Sledge begin as hired Desperado Club bodyguards. Carl intervenes when they face punishment, helping earn their loyalty. Bomo provides a shield against physical attacks, while The Sledge offers magical protection.

At level five, Clockwork Triplicate’s copies last ten minutes. Donut uses Second Chance to animate Hekla’s corpse, then copies the resulting minion. The duplicate produces no genuine loot.[6]

Learning Minion Army still leaves practical limits

When Donut learns Minion Army, its level-one cast holds her in place for five minutes and has a five-hour cooldown. Each intelligent mob in its initial thirty-meter circle has a two percent chance of turning against its allies. The area depends on her Charisma. Casting it leaves her exposed for a long time with no guarantee of success.[7]

The four cretins arrive under an unusual agreement

The party receives four free mercenary contracts as compensation while its Gate is withheld. Bomo is assigned to Carl, The Sledge to Donut, Clayton to Chris and Very Sullen to Katia. These special contracts apply to the current floor and include regeneration.

Bomo can teleport to the floor’s stairs, but the ability’s twenty-five-day cooldown is longer than the time left on the floor. The Sledge has a transport ability called Zerzura, whose function is initially kept secret.

Ordinary mercenary contracts can leave a crawler owing fees even after the hired person dies. Their costs and protections depend on the terms of the particular hire.[8]

Ownership and copying restrictions

Carl considers sending Bomo on a suicidal bombing mission because his contract promises regeneration on the next floor. Donut objects to treating their friend as disposable. They discuss making him her personal minion instead of a Royal Court party minion so she can create a clockwork copy.

The test is interrupted and the bombing mission is canceled. Donut later successfully sends copies of The Sledge into danger while the real Sledge waits elsewhere.[9]

Summoning Trap requirements

A Summoning Trap is a single-use device that takes two seconds to call two owned minions or town guards. It requires the user to have those minions or control the town; otherwise it can misfire. Selection is normally random, but a sapper can program particular targets.[10]

G’hee capture puts creatures under squad rules

The card floor gives squads six monster slots alongside their crawler members. Capturing a living legendary target requires reducing it below five percent health and piercing it with a capture flag held in the hand. A ranged attempt fails, and incorporeal targets cannot simply be captured in the same way. The squad leader must collect the resulting card to activate it.

The dying crawler Paz becomes a common card, showing that the system can capture people as well as monsters. Squads may cooperate, but each retains its own roster.

A card minion killed in battle becomes unavailable for the rest of that fight rather than being permanently lost. The leader operating the deck also loses free use of ordinary inventory and magic while doing so.[11]

Fusion and reserve totems

Combining the Combo Card with Glow Up makes a fusion permanent. Asojano and Heyzoos become Lazarus, whose greater power comes with changes to the card, including fewer utility slots.

Two reserve slots later raise the number of owned creature cards to eight, although only six totems can be active. Other card types occupy the deck as well. Alpha Carl and the system’s version of Frank are copies of the original people.[12]

Mercenary contracts can offer refuge without freeing everyone

With Rosemarie’s approval, Carl hires thirteen displaced Desperado performers for two floors: eleven male performers, a skeletal DJ and a crocodile assistant. He needs a mercenary facility, enough capacity and money to pay them. Other displaced groups remain behind.

The party later considers increasing its capacity from twenty to one hundred for almost five million gold. Earlier, Yemaya sends Bomo ahead to reunite with the other cretins on the ninth floor, leaving Carl without his local protection or stairwell teleport.[13]

Minion Army finally works under dangerous conditions

Donut casts Minion Army during the demon battle while Imani and Samantha help her. She must stay rooted throughout the cast as the fight continues around her. Elle separately attacks with Graupel.

When the spell finishes, many demons turn on one another. Donut has disrupted their attack without gaining control of every demon present.[14]

Carl bonds with Ren’s regenerated pet

Carl bonds with Garret, Ren’s former pet Tummy Acher, and agrees to rename him Sir Rendlegore. The regenerated pet is level one. Donut worries that Carl is replacing her, while Mongo repeatedly swallows and spits out the new arrival.

Rend’s description says he can regenerate only if his body survives and he has reached level five. Returning adds a weakness, resets him to level one and gives a twenty-five-percent increase to his base stats. The description also says he loses his memories and must bond again. Deliberately killing him risks adding a weakness that makes him easier to kill next time.[15]

War makes deaths and evacuation conditions immediate

A programmed Summoning Trap can fail when the guard it is meant to call has already died. A trap left in place is not a guarantee that reinforcements are still available.

Bomo dies defending the Nest. His earlier regeneration agreement belonged to a different assignment, leaving his return uncertain.

Kiwi, Tina and their daughters leave with the city’s evacuation. Mongo and Rend remain in the dungeon because the evacuation has specific eligibility rules.[16]

Resurrection and special bindings

After his sixth death, Rend returns with his memories and identity intact, unlike the earlier description of his regeneration. The system increases his strength by twenty-five percent and adds a weakness to potatoes, making his fondness for the truck’s fries dangerous.

The two jinnikin workers hired by Rosetta and Tipid die in the fighting. Other creatures survive the loss of their teams, including the Onikuma and Old Shuck mounts.

When Carl hires Team Helix, Quemada sees the Emberus shrine and demands triple payment. Carl accepts the price. The demand is tied to that encounter rather than the separate rule that mercenary deaths can raise future hiring costs.[17]

A modified carrier can transport a crawler with serious limits

A modified XL carrier can hold a crawler who consents, but breaks after roughly ten seconds. It ejects the occupant with about twenty seconds of Bonked. Ordinary personal inventory cannot hold a carrier containing a crawler.

Li Na’s transfer uses the cleaner Suckira’s different inventory rules. Zhang activates the carrier, Suckira takes it in, Mordecai deactivates the cleaner and Donut lists it for Herot’s standing order. The sale succeeds. The group still has to wait for a signal that Li Na has survived and been released rather than remaining trapped in storage.[18]