The Butcher's Masquerade: Dungeon Crawler Carl 5
- its.brittanyb
- 1 day ago
- 46 min read
“You aren't my person anymore, Carl is. He always has been.”
REVIEW
Would I read this again? Yes No Maybe
Trigger Warnings: Death, Violence, Apocalyptic Events
SUMMARY
Characters
New Characters
Orren - A Syndicate liaison who makes decisions as an impartial third party.
Quasar - Carl's lawyer given to him by the Syndicate.
Emberus - The god that Carl worships.
Imogen - Signet's half sister who is the elf Queen and the big floor boss.
Kiwi - a lady Mongo (aka Raptor) who becomes Mongo's girlfriend and a minion of Donut.
Tina - Kiwi's daughter who is an allosaurus.
Dimitri and Maxim Popov - brothers who picked a race that combined them together but when they die, they split again and are re-born. Gravy Boat/Ferdinand - Donut's "boyfriend" from before the collapse. Was found on the surface with Bea and brought into the Dungeon to be used against Donut. Hurk - Judges the kid drawing contest at Comic Con with Carl. Designer of the Desperado Club. Talkative and friendly with Carl.
G’valt - Judges the kid drawing contest at Comic Con with Carl.
Uptown Hal - At CrawlCon with Carl on the talk panel. Used to be a Game Guide and now has a popular talk show
Sydnee Iglacia - At CrawlCon with Carl on the talk panel. Historian.
Drick - At CrawlCon with Carl on the talk panel. Used to be a Crawler, took a deal on the 11th floor.
Cascadia - The voice that makes all the dungeon daily announcements...well its actually a person, not just the AI.
Vrah - A Mantis Hunter - she's fucking awful.
Circe - Vrah's mom...she's also awful.
Not So New Characters
Elle McGibbons - Frost Maiden - one of the residents of Meadow Lark
Imani - Obsidian Butterfly - one of the caretakers from Meadow Lark
Brandon - One of the caretakers from Meadow Lark who died as the last floor was collapsing.
Chris - Igneous rock guy - Brandon’s brother, also from Meadow Lark. He left Brandon’s party shortly after getting their new races and no one has heard from him.
Li Jun - Monk Class - Travels with his sister, Li Na, and his friend, Zhang.
Ifechi - Human, Healer. Travels with Florin (Crocodilian)
Miriam Dom - Human Shepherd/Goat lady
Prepotente - Goat creature called Caprid - travels with Miriam Dom. Prepotente and Bianca came into the dungeon as Miriam’s goats. Prepotente got turned into a Crawler (class Profane Vitiate) but Bianca turned into a Hellspawn Familiar.
Lucia Mar - psycho Crawler; 13 year old girl with a pair of Rottweilers.
Bautista - Crawler that helped Carl in Book 3.
Quan Ch - The crawler who managed to keep the Celestial box from the last floor.
Eva - Half Nagini, Half Orc, Nimblefoot Enforcer - was part of Helka’s gang.
Frank Q and Maggie My - Carl and Donut first meet them in a safe room on the first floor where they try to attack them. Carl and Donut get away and set a trap for them. They find out later that Maggie’s daughter got injured by Carl’s bomb, and Maggie killed her. Maggie gets gifted a tracking spell from Maestro and implies she will hunt Carl down and kill him and Donut.
Odette - Host of “Dungeon Crawler After Hours with Odette”. Used to be a crawler, was human-ish until she lost her legs in a battle. Now she uses crab legs to get around on her show or a little moving platform. Wears a weird get up for her show, Carl describes her as a “naked crab-taur wearing a bug mask”. Was Mordecai’s trainer when he was in the Dungeon. Appears to be on Carl and Donut’s side.
Zev - Was Carl and Donut’s PR agent, becomes their social medial manager. Works for the Borant corp but is on Carl and Donut’s side. Donut and her bond over Gossip Girl and other TV shows.
Lotia - Carl and Donut's new PR agent after Zev got in trouble.
Borant Corporation - Led by the Kua-Tin species. They are in charge of this season of Dungeon Crawler and they are currently in massive debt and hoping to get out of it with this season.
Gwen - Race of Boring Ol’ Fighter. Currently in Carl and Donut's area and they have to work together.
Louis - Race of Pest Exterminator. Carl finds him and his friend, Firas (race: Hammersmith), drunk. Moredaci gives them a potion that makes it so they can't drink anymore so they stay sober and can help get off this floor.
Langley - Race of Archer. He has a group of other Archers and they all join up to help.
Vadim Zbar - Race of Gut Rearranger - A doctor from Ukraine, ends up dying in an underwater mission with Carl
Britney - Race of Pit Fighter from Ukraine, came in with Vadim and stays with Firas after Vadim dies.
Florin - Crocodilian Race. Was in a relationship with Ifechi. Got into a fight with Lucia Mar at the end of the fourth floor. Lucia Mar used a very powerful spell (Rubber - reduces a high percentage of incoming damage and reflects it onto a target of your choosing) and Florin accidentally killed Ifechi.
Juice Box - changeling that ends up in love with Louis.
New Rewards/Purchased
Carl | Donut |
Carl’s class upgrade: Agent Provocateur +1 to intelligence, +1 skill level to a Sapper’s table, +2 to Explosives Handling, access to advanced Bomb Maker’s workshop, faster explosives training. | Donut’s class upgrade: Legendary Diva - Sings songs and can cast spells. But she must sing in tune. |
Night Wyrm’s Nasty Little Web of Suffering tattoo - Bearers of this sigil are given access to the Guild of Suffering. | Standing Ovation spell - increased everyone’s dexterity; Entourage which created multiple illusions of everyone; Encore could remove multiple debuffs; Laundry Day which removed an item of armor from an opponent. |
Hunting Trophy - every time he kills a hunter, he gets one of their hands. Then at the end of the floor is a party, Butcher’s Masquerade, and you can turn in the hands for prizes. | Enchanted Collar Charm of the Effete Bourgeoisie, a charm she gets by becoming the mayor of a town. If she keeps control of the town upon the collapse of this floor, she will get a stipend every 10 days. Snitch skill makes it so she can summon town guards to her. |
Levitation potions - looted off a hunter Carl kills. Allows you to rise up into the air for as long as your intelligence times two seconds. Arrow of Enthusiastic Double Gonorrhea - sets someone’s genitals on fire. Then heals them and does it again. The only way to heal is to pass it on to someone else. | Enchanted Obsidian Bracelet of the Raggle Rouser - +10 Constitution, +5 Dexterity, +15% Fire resistance, can cast a Fireball spell every 20 minutes. Special training room with a vocal coach to work on her singing for the spells. |
Enchanted Venomous Elven Rock Chucker - Contraption Enemy of the Church Tattoo - an enemy of the goddess Diwata. Upgrade Patch, small - +5 dexterity and 5% damage to all ranged projectiles Upgrade Patch, medium - +11 to constitution, +6 damage to all explosives, +2 to explosive handling skill Permanent upgrade - Swole - every one point of strength now becomes 2 points. Upgrade Patch, medium - Protection against vampires and werewolves. +25% damage to all undead. Purchased with the Hunter skulls: a shrink wand, eighth floor lore book, music sheet of skedaddle, case of 24 feather fail potions, case of healing potions. | Enchanted Silver Bracelet of the Absolar - Protects against vampires and werewolves. +25% magical damage against the undead. Enchanted Hammer of Fast Forward - Imani gets this in a sponsor box and is told to give to to Donut. The description is incredibly unhelpful in explaining what this is for or what to do with it. Enchanted Stick of Cascadia’s Screams - Dimitri gets this in a sponsor box and is told to give it to Donut. Just like the Hammer, the description is absolutely no help in understanding what it is for. |
Katia Access to Desperado Club. Upgrade to Find Crawler skill Beanie that increased all her stats by 3% "I Need My Personal Space" spell which violently knocks everybody back with a powerful blow - enemies or party members. |
Crawler count at start of 6th floor: Approximately 83,995
Crawler count at the end of the book can be found at the end of the summary.
So much stuff happened at the end of book 4, so if you need a refresher on that - click here.
This floor is the Hunting Grounds. There are over 1000 hunters ready to start killing off crawlers.
Carl and Katia do not immediately go to the next floor. Instead, they go to the Desperado Club and have a meeting with Orren (Syndicate liaison). Donut does not appear there, she arrived on the floor with Mongo and Chris. Orren tells them that there are a bunch of other people in the room too but they can’t see them. Orren says Katia is there because she had the Gate in her inventory but that before Carl arrived, she told them it was Carl’s. So Orren zaps her out to the floor and Carl messages her and tells her to find Donut.
Orren says that one of the factions, Dreadnoughts, have backed out of the Faction Wars and now no one will join because they won’t be able to get an army. Orren says not everyone in the room, which appears to be spokespeople from Borant, Valtay, and others, are in agreement about what should happen to Carl. Borant wants him to stay in the game. But none of them want him to keep the Gate but they can’t take it from him. Orren says that if Carl keeps the Gate, he could destroy the entire dungeon and kill everyone. So Orren gives him three options - 1) they can turn off all transport spells and shit and that would kill thousands and they wouldn’t have access to their safe spaces anymore; 2) they can kill Carl; 3) Carl can willingly hand over the Gate and they will give it back to him at the end of the 9th floor.
Carl asks for a lawyer.
He gets one (shockingly) - Quasar. Quasar is a Null (or as we know them, a Grey). Him and Carl work out a deal that we learn about throughout the whole book but I’m going to summarize it right here. First, they get 4 mercenaries - Bomo, the Sledge, Clay-ton, and Very Sullen. Bomo and Sledge stay with Carl and Donut. Very Sullen goes with Katia, and Clay-ton goes with Chris. They get them on the sixth, seventh, and eighth floors. If they die, they regenerate but not until the next floor. Bomo has a Teleport to Stairwell level 15 spell. Sledge’s spell is Zerzura - the ability to transfer a whole city full of NPCs down to the next floor, obviously comes with some risks. Carl also asks for the program, Vengeance of the Daughter (the show that he is involved with in that quest with the Signet), to be continued onto the next floor. By the time Carl leaves this area, they still haven’t completely decided this. The Borant is okay with it but they need to make sure the company that makes the program is willing to go another season.
After Carl speaks with his lawyer, he gets transported to the area to pick his class upgrade, he meets up with Donut and Katia. He purchases the Advanced Bomb Maker’s workshop and starts tinkering around. He then takes Donut and Bomo out and has Bomo transport them to the stairwell in Zockau - the city in which all the hunters are sequestered until they are to be released after 30 hours. Carl puts on his Ring of Divine Suffering that he got back on the fourth floor. (If he marks someone as a target, then kills them, he gets +1 to one of his stat points - whichever one the target had highest. If he marked someone, then didn’t kill them, he would get a debuff and wouldn’t be able to heal until they were dead. Also - he doesn’t have to personally kill them, they just have to die.) Carl basically fucks up the town by setting up multiple bombs in the town. He blows up the Desperado Club and tries to kill as many hunters as he can (he ends up killing 34, and Donut gets 1). He also wants to kill the mayor, Vrah (a mantis and a very experienced hunter. She comes on every season and kills as many crawlers as she can), because if he does, he will become mayor and then he can tell all the guards to kill all the hunters. He ends up killing Vrah’s little sister and not Vrah.
Carl and Donut are trying to get out of the town. The hunters can’t leave yet so if they can get out, they’ll be safe (well as safe as you can be in the dungeon). But Carl gets shot by a crossbow bolt. A few of them actually. He ends up going unconscious as Donut starts yelling at some people that approach for help. It’s Miriam Dom, Prepotente, and Bianca. Miriam is now a vampire (but still a healer). Prepotente (Miram calls him Pony) doesn’t like Carl much and insults him. When Carl tells him to suck his dick, Pony bursts into tears and cries in Miriam’s arms. Then they both have to apologize to each other and hug it out.
Carl starts complaining (to himself not outloud) about this river he is hearing in the back of his mind. Sometimes it’s really loud and other times it’s quiet. It only gets quiet when he's really calm and relaxed - which he never is. Even when he’s playing Frogger (that he got in a fan box) or trying to relax, he’s constantly thinking of ideas and how to destroy everyone and survive this.
Carl and Donut get back to the safe room and open up their prize boxes. Carl gets a tattoo that gives him access to the Guild of Suffering, all of the hand trophies of the hunters he killed, and a potion that increased his Fear spell to level 10.
Louis, Firas, and Britney meet back up with Carl. Louis says the changelings have a village in the woods they are going to hide out in and await the floor collapse.
Recap episode top 10:
Carl Level 54 - Bounty 1,000,000 x3
Lucia Mar Level 48 Bounty 500,000 x3
Pony - Level 55
Donut Level 41
Dimitri and Maxim Popov Level 44
Miriam Dom Level 52
Elle McGib Level 47
Bogdon Ro Level 44
Eva Sigrid Level 40
Quan Ch Level 48
They don’t want parties bigger than 30 Crawlers but they will allow you to have a guild. Five separate parties can join together to form a guild. Their personal spaces will be together and there will be a common room. Basically, they can form neighborhoods. They can share certain things if they want and they can also control who goes in and out of their personal spaces.
At the end of this floor, there will be a party - Butcher’s Masquerade. The top 50 Crawlers and their plus ones, along with some hunters and celebrities, will attend.
When Bomo had teleported Carl and Donut to Zockau, he had gone into the Desperado Club and entered the safe room there. Now, if he wants to leave, he will have to go out the same door. Carl wants to load him up with a bomb and send him out into Zockau and blow him up. He won’t really die, he’ll regenerate on the next floor but Donut is against this. She has the idea of making a Clockwork Bomo and blowing him up instead. But when they go to do this, there is a note attached to the door. It's from Vrah, it says she has somehow protected all the hunters from explosives and she has also told all the town guards to worship Emberus. If Carl gets any of them, then he gets in trouble with Emberus as well. So there goes that plan.
Katia has made a map of the floor. There is a river running through it which means a bunch of bridges. Carl asks her, and the rest of his friends, to blow up all the bridges except 1. He believes this will help herd the hunters where he wants them. As Carl and Donut travel to the next town, he starts leaving hunter traps along the route. He doesn’t think it’ll work, but can’t hurt right?
Carl, Donut, and Mongo arrive in the next town. This one has a sign outside of it, which the guards point to, stating that dinosaurs are not allowed. Donut finds this unacceptable and requests to speak with the mayor. Since her charisma is so high, and her name is Princess, the guards mistake her for royalty and get the mayor. Donut kills the mayor and becomes mayor of the town - that she renames Point Mongo.
Carl starts getting notifications that his hunter traps are working. He gets another hunter's hand in a prize box and waves it in the air. He says if any friends or family are watching, maybe they should remember this the next time someone wants to go hunting innocent people for fun, oh and they can go fuck themselves. Mordeacai tells him maybe he shouldn’t do that because people have long memories. Carl says, “Good. I don’t want them to ever forget.”
Now that Donut has control of the town, she starts making new rules and renaming all the guards. Carl gives them weapons and sets up bombs around the perimeter. The residents want Donut to reinstate the no-dinosaur rule. And this triggers a quest - The Recital: figure out why the dinosaurs are attacking the town and get rid of them or give them what they want. Donut refuses to reinstate the rule. All of sudden, Mongo (with Donut on top) takes off running out of town. Carl tells Donut to jump off but she won’t leave Mongo. Mongo runs off into the woods with Carl chasing after them. He ends up in a clearing, surrounded by other raptors. Carl catches up and takes Donut off of him. Donut still doesn’t want to leave him but Carl thinks he’ll be okay, he hopes they won’t attack Mongo because he is one of them. Carl takes notice of the leader, Kiwi. The AI description says all of the dinosaurs in the area are female, isn’t that weird? Donut is so afraid that they're going to attack and kill Mongo but killing Mongo isn’t what Kiwi is interested in. Her and Mongo start fkin and Donut is appalled! Carl and her back away towards town all while she is yelling at him to come back when he’s done. She tells Carl that as soon as Mongo gets back, he is going in his cage, and she is reinstating that no dinosaur rule.
They go back to town and Carl can tell Donut is really upset. It takes her a bit but she tells him that everyone always leaves her - Katia left the party, Carl is doing stupid shit and going to die, Mongo is going to go off with some floozy, and she’ll be all alone. She wonders if she is really that awful. Carl doesn’t know where this is coming from and asks Donut if someone said something online (she reads the message boards). Zev interrupts their convo to tell them they will be going to Odette’s at a different time. Carl realizes that Zev must know what Donut is talking about and wants Carl to drop it. He promises Donut that he will tell her his plans from now and he isn’t going to leave her. She asks him what about the ninth floor?
If you recall - Donut got the Enchanted Crown of the Sepsis Whore back on the first floor. Even though she doesn’t have it anymore, she still cannot leave the ninth floor until every member of the Blood Sultanate is dead. Donut is worried that Carl will leave her if they can’t complete the mission. Carl promises her he would never leave her.
Mongo comes back to town and Donut can see on her map that all the other dinosaurs have now turned to white dots.
Carl notices a bunch of dots out in the woods - it’s Signet and her gang. She has come to ask Carl for help just like she said she would. Carl tries to get ahold of his lawyer to see if he ever heard from the company that makes this program but he isn’t answering.
Carl goes out to Signet and she is with another elite, Areson the Wise. He has six Were-kin’s with him. They have joined up to help Signet with her mission.
Signet’s half-sister, Imogen, is now ruling the high elves. Signet wants revenge on those who killed her mom and also wants to take out Imogen and as many high elves as she can.
Carl and Donut both get their last sponsor - The Apothecary.
When they get back to their safe room, Samantha is driving everyone crazy with her constant screaming. Donut had told her, via chat, that they were with Signet, and she hasn’t shut up since. Mordecai and Bomo had shut her mouth but she has learned how to roll around and move it on her own. When Carl goes to talk to her, she rolls right over to him, which makes him nervous. He’s afraid of her getting more powerful. Samantha wants to go with Carl to see Signet next. She thinks Signet can help her get back her body. Carl promises to take her if she’ll shut the fuck up.
Carl and Donut get transferred to Odette’s show. They land in the trailer and Zev is there. So is Odette. Which never happens. Odette says that she has something to tell them regarding Bea. Odette says Bea survived the initial collapse, Borant was hunting her to turn her into a country boss so Carl would have to fight her, but Odette saved her in time. Carl wants to know what Odette is getting out of this. She asks him if Mordeaci ever told him why he doesn’t like Odette. Maybe if Carl knows that, he will understand. Zev interrupts and says that Odette is blackmailing Borant and is getting a higher revenue share for the rest of the crawl. Odette tells Carl that wasn’t her main motivation, it was something she thought of later. Zev tells Carl that the fan box he got is going to whisk him away to an event (think Comic-Con) where he will be interacting with fans. A program is planning on ambushing Carl there and telling him about Bea. Odette wants to bring Bea’s hologram (she isn’t physically there) onto the show tonight to head that off. Carl tells her to go fuck herself but Donut tells her that they will do it. She also thanks Odette for saving Bea from becoming a country boss. Odette leaves and Zev says this is terrible timing and this shouldn't be happening now. Carl asks her wtf she is talking about and Zev basically tells him to shut up.
On the show, Odette explains how exactly they got Bea - which is a lie - and that she will remain in Syndicate space and is now a full citizen (is this true? Who knows with Odette). When Bea comes out, she attempts to hug Carl but obviously passes right through him. She tries to pet Donut and Donut ignores her. When Donut does talk, Bea is shocked. Bea appears drugged and doesn’t give much responses to Odette’s questions. Donut ignores her most of the interview as does Carl. When the interview is over, and the cameras are off, Donut lets loose on Bea. It’s quite sad actually. She yells at her that Bea was her entire world and she was just going to get rid of Donut just because she was getting older. She also yells at Bea for what she did to Carl. Carl tells her that he’s glad she’s okay but he’s over it. Odette has her hologram shut off. Donut says Zev was right, this was terrible timing.
Carl then gets two messages. First - he lost his Valtay Corp sponsor and will get a new one. Second - the Borant Corp (not Borant System Government) is now an independent, non-government entity. Because of this, Valtay Corp now owns 51% of Borant. Borant remains in control of the crawl but the Borant System Government no longer has any control or stake in the crawl. Now Borant Corp and Valtay Corp are in charge.
Donut looks at Carl and says, “She did it. Viva la revolucion.”
As they return to the green room, where Odette’s right hand lady, Lexis, is awaiting. All the lights go off as Valtay resumes control. Lexis starts talking quickly telling them that Imogen is a country boss. Bea was supposed to be used for her and now they don’t know who it will be. She also tells them that Borant Corp is still in control of the crawl and they used to be controlled by the Borant government but now they aren’t. But Valtay Corp isn’t going to be happy not being 100% in control. Odette’s advice is that Carl and Donut go down the stairs early and avoid the big party at the end. They believe this party is set up to take out some of the top crawlers since only the top 50 are invited. Donut doesn’t want to go down early because that means that someone else will go in their place and they might not be prepared.
Donut says, “This is most distressing. I certainly would never have smuggled all those Valtay secret agent guys to Zev and the Borant Emancipation Front if I’d known this was going to happen.”
What does that mean? The fuck if I know. Clearly Donut is smarter than me.
When they return, Mordecai says he has been checking out the interface and menus and stuff and nothing looks like it’s changed which is good news. Also, Katia has talked Imani into being the guildmaster. After the recap episode, the announcement states that the hunters will no longer be allowed to communicate with those outside of the dungeon. Meaning they can’t cheat anymore. Carl has been very vocal about this, which made the public be vocal, so that Borant had to do something. It also says that nothing will change with the Crawl even with the transfer of power - everything should stay the same for the Crawlers.
Point Mongo starts getting attacked by some hunters outside of the town limits. Carl has a plan to turn Samantha into a weapon. He can attach some bombs to her, or shove them in her mouth, and use his xistera to launch her. Then he can recall her with the xistera and she comes back like a boomerang. He does this, manages to get some hunters, and when he recalls Samantha, she brings back one of the hunters (she clamped onto him with her mouth). The hunter says he is just an accountant and he got paid to come here. His group wasn’t even after Carl. He begs Carl to spare him but Carl tells him that he had a world once, a whole world, and now it's gone, and Carl has to kill people and things even though he doesn’t want to.
Carl, Donut, Mongo, and Samantha meet up with Signet for the first phase of her plan (take back her family’s castle). While there, Carl gets a notification that someone has died and a hunter has claimed the bounty. Katia messages and tells him she isn’t sure what is going on but Langley and his whole team is dead. Carl and Donut don’t do much fighting, and the fight they do participate in lasts about 30 seconds, but finally Part 1 of the quest is complete. Part 2 is to help Signet kill Queen Imogen.
Later, on their way back to a safe room so that Carl can go to the CrawlCon thing, Zev tells him that if he’s not in a safe room, he’ll get transferred anyways. They are too far away from Point Mongo but they are close to a different town. Unfortunately, this town is run by Lucia Mar (remember crazy girl with rottweilers). Carl gets told that she’s there, as he’s in the doorway of the saferoom, and then immediately gets transferred away, leaving Donut, Mongo, and Samantha alone to fight Lucia Mar. He gets transferred to a security vessel first and gets searched all while he is losing his shit with worry over Donut. One of the security guards tells Carl that if he gives his granddaughter a perfect score, then he will turn a blind eye to whatever Carl steals later. Carl has no idea what he is talking about.
When he finally lands in the production trailer, Zev is there. She tells Carl that it was a crazy fight, but Donut is okay. Carl is supposed to do three events and wants to get them done with so he can go back to Donut but Zev tells him that he’s actually going to stay, spend the night, and then go back after the second event in the morning. Zev tells him that they are in a constant surveillance in this trailer and tries to tell him, without telling him, that what she is doing is in his best interests, he needs to trust her, and trust that she knows Donut is okay.
The first event is judging kids' art pieces. Carl makes sure that the security guard’s granddaughter gets perfect scores so she can win.
Before the next event, Zev has Carl wait in the trailer. She has security come in, set him up a bed, and a training room. She again reassures him that Donut is okay and that Donut isn’t the one in danger back at the safe room. Carl understands that he will be the one in danger when he goes back. He asks Zev how she is doing and she said, “we don’t know what is going on back home…those of who stayed on after the change don’t know if we’ll be welcomed home or executed as traitors. Plus, you know, my entire family was slaughtered because I refused to wear a pin.”
When the security comes to install his bed and training room, one of the guys tells Carl that the captain is thankful - this training room is a tier-four and they will turn his inventory back on right before he transfers back, and he’s a smart guy *wink wink*.
This training room isn’t just for practicing fighting or skills. He can make bombs and use an advanced bomber’s studio.
Four hours later, the security guards come back to get Carl. The next event is a panel and moderator is Circe Took - Vrah’s mom. Which will be uncomfortable seeing as how Carl has already killed one of her daughters and is actively trying to kill Vrah. As they walk him to the panel, they pass an older guy, Dr. Ratchet, he tells Carl good luck at the panel….and when he returns. The security guards stay with him and smoke a vape pen that smells like weed.
Carl is a hologram in this panel and at first he can see everyone else, but they can’t see him. Two of the other panelists start talking, Sydnee and Drick. Sydnee thinks Carl will die soon and this will be his last public appearance. Drick says he is probably listening right now, while Sydnee disagrees. Drick looks at the area of Carl and says “it’s gonna be chaos…he’s gonna need to go straight on the offensive. Both the nebs and the mantids will be there.” Sydnee makes a comment that she doesn’t understand why “they” told them he’d be there and it’s a betrayal. Uptown Hal pipes in with summoning the hunters was a good thing after Lucia cast some spells. Hal and Drick exchange a smile and say they wish they could tell Carl all of this (obviously they know he is listening).
Circe comes in and she can see Carl. She walks right up to him and he mouths off (like Carl does) and she takes her arm and cuts the table. The table is really there - Carl is not so he didn’t get hurt. Carl makes a comment about her daughter (the one he killed).
Circe starts the panel - they are all there to discuss the history of the crawl and how it's changed. She rambles on for ten minutes and Carl gets bored and so he dramatically throws his head down on the table. Circe is annoyed that he is interrupting her and tells someone to cut his mic off. A woman from the crowd, who is wearing a cloak with a pattern that Carl thinks looks familiar, tells them not to do that. Everyone seems terrified of her and Carl asks who she is? “She’s kinda hot,” he remarks and then realizes that he is acting a little more loose than normal and it's because he is feeling the effects of the vape pen the security guards are smoking.
The woman says she is not allowed to communicate with him because she is one of his sponsors but she is also a sponsor of CrawlCon and she is telling them they can’t shut off his mic, and then she leaves.
Circe is super pissed off and says she is leaving when Carl yells to the crowd, “Can someone tell me the best way to kill Vrah?”
When everyone goes quiet he goes on a tirade about how that’s what the Crawl is about right? Killing. Everyone loves to see Crawlers getting murdered so let’s talk about how to kill hunters. He doesn’t want to cheat, he just wants to have the same information as those he is forced to fight against.
The audience finally pipes up and tells Carl that there are 7 mantis (all Circe’s daughters) are in the village and another male in Zockau. Carl invites the other panelists and the audience to help him think through the issue he will encounter when he returns to the dungeon. Circe threatens to kill anyone who harms her daughters and Carl is like ohhh that’ll be me. Then he says he would kill her too but she must be a huge coward and won’t come into the dungeon. She storms out of the room and Carl asks the audience what’s the best way to kill a mantis?
When the security guards take him back to the trailer, he finally gets his interface turned on and gets a message from Donut warning him about Lucia Mar and the mantis. There’s also a Level 5 Automaton Table and a book - Dr. Ratchet’s Guide to Building Automatons for Fun and Profit.
Carl messages his group and sends them a plan he came up with. Samantha is mad at Donut because she abandoned her outside and now Samantha is stuck to the back of Vrah (she collects decapitated heads and wears them). Donut tells Carl that Lucia Mar and one of her dogs (Donut killed the other one) are in the safe room waiting for Carl. Donut is in the guildhall and there are a bunch of hunters outside.
Zev is there and seems really nervous for Carl. Carl asks her to please watch over Donut if he dies.
There is A LOT going on when Carl gets back. Lucia Mar has set up teleport traps all over the outside and inside of the safe room. Donut sends some Clockwork Sledges out to trip the trap and then Lucia Mar follows it. They landed right where Vrah was. Vrah got pissed, ditched Samantha, and took off back towards town to deal with Carl. Carl was running around with invisibility potions throwing grenades at hunters and racking up kills. As Carl is running back towards the safe room, which is now trap (and Lucia Mar) free, Vrah lands in front of him. She is wearing two heads that Carl recognizes - Langley and another Crawler - Bogdon Ro.
Donut sneaks out of the safe room and uses Second Chance on the decapitated heads who start biting Vrah and distracting her. Carl uses this time to stab Vrah in the neck with the Enthusiastic Double Gonorrhea arrow. Carl and Donut run to the safe room. Since there are still other manti and hunters in the town, Carl kicks his giant bomb out, the one that he had planned to use on Zockau.
Vrah got away but Carl knew where she was going. There was only one male manti in the dungeon and Vrah would be wanting to get rid of that gonorrhea. Carl gives Bomo a note to take to the manti in Zockau. It says that he can protect him, but he must come now, and bring all the gear he has.
Carl finally looks around the guild hall and sees his family - Katia, Elle, Imani, Bautista, Louis, Firas, Gwen, Tran, and Britney. Florin was there but he just left. And some new people that Carl doesn’t know. Elle tells him that Chris is with Li Jun and Li Na. Carl notices that Britney is cuddling on Firas’ lap and Katia has her hand on Bautista’s shoulder.
Carl has a bunch of boxes to open and notices that the AI seems mad at him.
Carl finally gets to see the fight between Donut and Lucia Mar on the recap episode.
There’s a lot of teleporting as Donut and Lucia Mar keep hitting the traps she has put out. Finally, they are back in the safe room and Donut is almost in the guild hall when she steps on a trap that freezes her in place. She had managed to set Lucia Mar on fire beforehand and while Donut is standing there frozen, Lucia Mar says it was a good fight, they should call a truce. Then she says that she has a youth assistant and he is telling her to kill Donut. Lucia asks the bopca for milk. She tells Donut that she had friends on the last floor, but she fell asleep, and she didn’t tell Gus to fall asleep, he’s the bad one, Cici is too (I’m gathering that her rottweilers ate her friends). Then she starts hitting herself upside the head. Cici, one of her dogs, walks in and Lucia changes personalities again. She tells Donut that soon she will be “tossed through the veil” and she will “have enough points to get across the bridge and back home with my papa.” Donut ends up escaping using her Hole spell and Cici looks down the hole to see where Donut went and Donut turns off the spell - cutting the dog’s head off. Lucia Mar is, obviously, upset and is shown rocking her headless dog saying that Donut killed the wrong one.
The announcement says that they are redesigning the seventh floor. If they decide to go down the stairs within six hours of collapse, they will “get good placement”, but going down too early will have the opposite effect.
Bomo shows back up with the male mantis, Edict. Edict attacked Bomo twice in the safe room, if he attacks a third time, he will lose all of his gear and get teleported to the closest monster nest. Edict says that he is going to die regardless. Either he mates with Vrah, and she kills him while mating, or he doesn’t mate with Vrah and her family gets revenge on him later. He asks Carl for help just as Vrah comes in. Carl lets him in the safe room and Edict attempts to attack Carl. This makes him get teleported to a nest where he can die in battle and maintain his and his family's honor. Vrah looks super pissed as her genitals are on fire. Donut tells her she should probably get that looked at and then they shut the door to the safe room.
They leave the town they were in and take control of a few more towns as they travel. They end up in Prepotente Town Number Four and there’s just dead NPCs everywhere that were killed by Big Tina. Big Tina is an allosaurus that has been harassing this floor and Carl and Donut have a quest that involves her called The Recital.
Zev tells Carl to get to the safe room because he has to do his last CrawlCon experience and she needs to talk to him about something in person.
When he arrives, there’s another Crawler there - Dmitri and his brother Maxim. They had chosen a class that fused them together so they share a body. If they were to die, they would split into a new creature, one for each head, and start again as children. So they basically get another life. They seem to like Carl. Dmitri is sad that Donut isn’t there - he really wanted to meet Donut.
They have to sign autographs and take pictures with fans for over 3 hours. Carl meets Jennifer who is a chapter president of the Princess Posse Inner System number 43. She tells Carl to tell Donut that they are trying to destroy the DNA of cocker spaniels just like Donut requested.
Carl finds out that his new sponsor is The Plenty.
A reporter, Nihit who is a naga, comes up to the table and is super pissed at Carl. Accuses him of cheating. Carl said you should be pissed at Odette, not him. The naga says he doesn’t have to travel to hurt Carl, he can do it just fine from the inner system. Carl takes his sharpie that he has been signing autographs with all day and jabs the guy in the neck. How he managed to hurt him when they weren’t even really together in the same room is above my brain power but Zev tells him later that the naga has been healed and wants to press assault charges. She said that if he survives the dungeon, he will have to face the charges. Basically prisoners are sold as slaves and work their time off. Carl asks if he can buy out his own warrant and it does sound like it's possible.
Donut gets a sponsor box and Carl gets a new one from his sponsor. Both of their items protect against vampires. Mordeaci says they obviously know something you don’t, put them on now.
Then they get a message from Miriam Dom asking if they are still in Town number 4 because she needs help. She is trapped and dawn is approaching. She said that she has been trying to get ahold of him for hours but the system wouldn’t let her. She was in a quest with an Elite so Carl couldn’t get involved but that Elite is now dead. Prepotente got himself paralyzed for 35 hours and Bianca is in the pet carrier and is stuck there until Prepotente is un-frozen. Miriam says that Prepotente’s arm is around her waist and she can’t break it or he will shatter completely. She has been keeping herself alive with spells and blood potions but that she is running out.
As Carl and Donut are running to help Miriam, they find some NPCs huddled in the pub that’s attached to the safe room. They are hiding from Big Tina. Carl finally gets the story out of them and then sends them to safety inside their room. When Scolopendra struck, almost everyone died, but some changed. Most of the females were turned into dinosaurs. Dancing is a crime (very Footloose of them) but some of the moms got together and were teaching their daughters ballet. They were going to have a secret performance. Tina was the best dancer, and she was going to have a solo at the end. But her dad found out and stopped right as Tina was going to go on stage. Tina’s mom, Kiwi, slapped her dad and then her dad whipped her and almost killed her. He was going to punish Tina next but then the attack happened. Kiwi tries to stop Tina from killing but Tina is getting stronger. The Recital quest updates - Give Tina what she wants or kill her.
Now somehow, Tina is a vampire.
Stay with me here.
Miriam was fighting against Tina and then Tina escaped. Now a lot of the dinosaurs are vampires. They are killing NPCs and then those body parts are forming together to make something stronger.
Miriam tells Carl a long story involving a battle with an Elite but the short of it - they were trying to make the Elite the head vampire, so when they killed him, everyone in the area infected (including Miriam) would be healed. But there were some difficulties and now Miriam is the head vampire. Also, Prepotente also has a Ring of Divine Suffering and by accident, he marked Miriam. So now he has the Left to Fester debuff on him until Miriam dies. Also, if she dies, everyone gets healed. She didn’t ask Carl and Donut there to help her - she asked them there to kill her. Carl tells her he won’t kill her, she is going to die when the sun comes up anyways, but he will stay with her and he will protect her and Prepotente.
When the sun comes up, Miriam dies. The AI announces that everyone who was infected with vampirism have been cured but Tina (godsdamnit Tina) has been busy building an army of the undead and now those things are going to be a huge problem. Everyone gets a world wide quest to kill all the undead things or bad shit will happen. Carl wakes up Prepotente, who is very distressed, just as all the female Mongos, including Kiwi, approach.
Mordecai has used Mongo’s blood and made a Charm Animal potion. Donut is going to take it and charm Kiwi in hopes that they can get all the female mongos on their side. Donut succeeds in charming Kiwi, who is the leader, so all the other female mongos will listen to Donut.
Prepotente gets an emergency box from his benefactor. He has a wand that allows him to create a safe space wherever and he uses it to open his box. He says he has one more charge on his wand. He thanks Carl and Donut for being with Miriam when she died and then he and Bianca take off to go kill the undead things.
Carl and Donut go off to start killing the undead things and they run into some of Queen Imogen’s guards and her Familiar. The Familiar stays behind a curtain inside a basket (or something like that) while riding on top of a guard. The Familiar says that the Queen is very interested in Carl and wants to dance with him at the masquerade ball. He is bitching about how they have had to leave the castle to help kill these undead things. As they leave, he says that the Queen has a message for Signet. The curtain opens for a second and a lightning bolt shoots out aimed at Mongo. Donut jumps in front of it and takes the majority of the impact. Her Cockroach skill saved her life. Mongo and Kiwi also got hurt. Carl freaks out, uses a healing scroll on her while he holds her. After a minute she wakes up and uses Heal Critter on both Mongo and Kiwi. She asks Carl if he saw who was behind the curtain. Carl didn’t but Donut did. She said it was Ferdinand (Gravy Boat - Donut’s “boyfriend” from before). They brought him down there, changed his memory, and now she is going to have to fight him.
Carl wants to go down the stairs now. He doesn’t want to put Donut into a situation where she is going to have to fight Gravy Boat. Everyone, besides Mordeaci, pleads with him not to do this. They need him to finish the quest. They are worried about the party at the end of the floor. They need him to help get the changelings down to the next floor. He agrees to talk to Donut before making a rash decision.
Donut tells him they won’t be going down the stairs early. She isn’t going to let her ex boyfriend ruin the talent show that will be at the ball.
Tina, the big ass dinosaur, shows up but before anything can happen, the AI interrupts and says that the killing all the undead quest has failed, and now there will be consequences. There is a new bar in their interfaces. All safe room access, including personal spaces, is now timed. You can’t just hide out in there if you’re a Crawler or a Hunter. You have to go out and kill things. Once the bar is full, then you can go into your safe room for 10 hours, but if it goes completely empty while you're in there, it will transport you out to a bad location. Oh, and also, there were two remaining undead creatures, and now a spell has been cast where they are. The spell transforms every plant it touches into thorn-covered vines that if you get pricked by them, your blood boils and you explode. Oh, and the blood bar thing is back timed, so if you’ve just been hiding out in a safe room and haven’t killed anything, you’re about to get transported out.
A Hunter appears in front of Carl and Donut. He’s drunk but tells them that the AI is going rogue. He said that the Mantis’s sold a used AI to Borant for the crawl, so it’s going “primal” early, and now it's doing its own thing now. It is doing whatever it wants to make the game more entertaining.
Tina appears again and Kiwi, Mongo, and Donut approach her. Donut is able to make her dot turn white instead of red. So now, they have a recital to prepare for.
Carl gets a box from one of his sponsors. It has a potion called Pawna’s Cries and a note that says “Save the toraline” (which was the vegetable that they had used half of last floor to save Chris). Mordecai tells him that it might be in code and as Carl is reading it, his Escape Plan skill activates and he can read the real message. “Circe sponsored Diwata. Give potion Donut. Need 15, but make it a secret. Use temp boost. Prepotente + Imani + Samantha all same time can do it. Or use other Pawna potion if have to. Will replace. ~P. Hu”
They wanted him to give his potion to Donut. Vrah’s mom, Circe, sponsored a god (Diwata) and is coming into the game.
Announcement: The seventh floor is now the eighth but they've made it harder because the humans are doing so well and not dying fast enough. The new seventh floor will be called “The Great Race”. They highly encourage NOT to go down early or they will be at a disadvantage. The Masquerade will begin 30 hours prior to collapse and will last 4-5 hours. The Hunters will be at the party and will appear to be in the same room but they will physically be in a different location and neither party can harm the other. Also, no weapons, explosives or traps allowed.
Prepotente messages Donut and says he has something for her. Carl is a little nervous since the last time they saw him he said he was going to make everyone pay for the death of Miriam Dom. But when he arrives, he drops off the potion he got in his sponsor box, says he doesn’t know why his sponsor sent him something for Donut, and leaves. His note says, “Give this to Princess Donut. Use when the time is right. Do NOT give to Tina.” The potion is “I take it all back” - removing any effects of Scolopendra’s Transmutation spell.
Elle and Imani also receive boxes from their sponsors - all for Donut.
Carl also needs to get all the changelings down onto the next floor as he promised Juice Box. Him and Donut go to meet some of the changelings at the Desperado Club but where they are vs where Carl and Donut can get to are on separate floors so Carl and Donut sneak in there. They are able to talk with them and pass them some notes about the plan before Astrid, the assistant manager of the club, shows up. Luckily, she doesn’t want to kill Carl. She does knock him out and when he wakes up, he is sitting in front of Orren.
Orren tells him that he is leaving and won’t be back until the Faction Wars but he wanted to warn Carl of something. He tells him that he should think of liaisons as wild west sheriffs - some are good, some are bad, some are too passionate. Carl hasn't been able to talk to his attorney, Quasar, because now he needs a court order to talk to Carl and the courts have all been frozen because the AI has gone primal. But they are making an exception and Quasar shows up.
Everyone, aka Carl and his found family, works together to conduct multiple raids on towns to kill Hunters. They need to try and take out as many Hunters as they can before the party.
Signet meets up with Carl and is telling him how she plans to attack Imogen’s castle at the same time as the party. Carl tries to tell her that the people running this world aren’t going to let her plan work and she will fail. Signet gets really confused because she doesn’t know she’s on a TV show. Zev messages Carl and tells him to drop it. Carl decides to convince Signet to go along with his plan which is using her as a distraction.
Three more people get sponsor boxes with potions that stated they were for Donut. Katia didn’t get one, she got a beanie that increased her stats and gave her a spell that knocked everyone back. Imani’s box was a Enchanted Hammer of Fast Forward; Dimitri got Enchanted Stick of Cascadia’s Screams; neither one’s description was very helpful. Both had tiny little 7’s carved into them.
We start to see Carl’s entries into the Cookbook and we start to see the plan that Carl has been working on. He has been using the coffee shop author’s kit in the bathroom (the only room not watched) to pass messages to the other Crawlers. Donut, Katia, Imani, Elle, Florin, Louis, Firas, Li Na, Daniel Bautista, and Chris have all been in on the plan. Carl has a map of the castle and wants everyone to study it. Carl said there will be 3 different ballrooms - Hunters in one, Crawlers in another, and Queen Imogen in the other one. There are goodwill rules in place meaning no one can hurt anyone else. There will be a talent show and a pet show - Donut will be able to pick up things on the stage during their performance, for example, if there’s a magic wand up there, she will be able to use it. Louis makes a comment that this is confusing like the Iron Tangle and he hated the Iron Tangle.
Louis - I agree with you, this is confusing, and the Iron Tangle was my least favorite floor.
With 1 hour to go until the party there’s a total of 59,259 Crawlers remaining with only 23,385 still on the floor, the rest having gone down the stairs already. There will be 73 Crawlers attending the party, the top 50 plus their plus ones, and 264 Hunters.
On the way into the party, Carl has one of the changelings change into Signet in hopes of drawing Imogen out. It works. Carl was afraid of who they would get to be Imogen seeing as how they wanted Bea and didn't get her. It’s Ifechi - Florin’s girlfriend who was killed by Lucia Mar on another floor. Carl sends out a message to everyone telling them who it is. Katia answers and says it's not her, it's her twin sister (how she knows this, I don’t know). Carl tells Florin he needs to go down the stairs, that was the agreement they all made if it was one of their loved ones. Florin tells him to go fuck himself.
Once they arrive in Imogen’s castle:
In the room before the ballroom, Carl left a bunch of dinosaur repellant and half-splat potions for people to take but Lucia Mar took a bunch.
Donut talks to Princess (now Empress) D’Nadia.
Vrah comes over to threaten Carl, crotch no longer on fire (because she mated with her mom (Circe) who was in the body of a god (Diwata) who can shapeshift and now we all say “ewwwww”).
Carl messages Bomo and Sledge and tells them its time.
Britney uses one of Bautista's stuffed animals that turn into a butterfly, it flew up and wrapped itself around the warning light, a light that would flash brightly every time it was turned on or turned off as a safeguard, and the light faded away.
Bauistia has to stop Katia from attacking Eva.
Carl thinks Florin is going to attack Lucia Mar but he notices that something seems really off with her and he leaves her alone.
Prepotente comes up to Carl and says that he wants to join their party, only until they get to the next floor. Carl says no because he’s a higher level than him and Donut and he would end up being a party leader. Prepotente tells him that he’s been collecting the clues, he knows of the boxes Donut has been getting, and he thinks he knows what’s going on.
Outside of the castle, Sledge was meeting with some changelings and heading into a secret underground entrance to the castle with Signet’s crew. Signet was already hiding in the basement awaiting Carl’s cue. The changelings would change into guards, proceed to all the towers, take out the guards, and then the other changelings would land the Twister (flying house) on top. Signet is supposed to wait until Imogen arrives in the ballroom then show up which would hopefully make Imogen attack and break the peace seal and then all violence and magic would be allowed. But the AI decided that wasn’t fun enough, and had a goddess appear to Signet, telling her to go to the ballroom early. Once there, she notices the three “off worlders” who are judging the pet show. Carl encourages her to go talk to them.
One of the Hunters talks to Carl. He tells Carl that he only managed to kill 25 Crawlers. Carl asked him why he does this - why does he travel across the universe and hunt people for fun, people who are scared and helpless? The Hunter says he understands what Carl is saying but he does this for the survival of his people. He said they aren’t citizens, oxygen and land is not a right, there aren’t a lot of jobs. If they didn’t have any money, they would have to be slaves to someone else. So he does the Crawl, hunts Crawlers, and makes money so his people can live free.
For all of his skulls, Carl trades them for a shrink wand, eighth floor lore book, music sheet of skedaddle, case of 24 feather fail potions, case of healing potions.
Sledge messages Carl and tells him that there are too many Mantises and they can’t go through the tunnels so they are going from above.
Florin talks to Lucia Mar and finds out that she has multiple kids trapped inside her head. Florin says it has something to do with some guy named Alexandro and the dog. It controls her somehow.
Gravy Boat aka Ferdinand shows up. Now that he is distracted, Samantha can use his cat tunnels to travel through the castle into the security room and Donut can flirt with him and get him to switch his allegiance to her.
Louis is in the chat helping Sledge fly the Twister because they are currently fighting elves in the air while the changelings drop bombs. Then the goddamn mantises take over the Twister, the changelings turn into birds and fly away, while Sledge and the bear cubs jump out, but everyone is okay. Louis is about to have a nervous breakdown at the thought of losing the Twister.
Everything seems to be falling apart.
Samantha was supposed to drop a potion into the security room and knock out the guards but when she arrives, they’re already dead, which is lucky, since she forgot the potion.
Imogen arrives in the ballroom, covered in blood, and is mad because Gravy Boat is physically there, having left the safety of her ballroom, so he could be there for real with Donut.
Imogen asks Carl why he’s trying to ruin her party, he said it isn’t him, it's Vrah. She said oh those aren’t your changelings or your friends hiding in the trees? He tries to send a message to Gideon, the crawler in the tree, but it says “This crawler is deceased.” Him and 30 other Crawlers.
Carl says outloud, “The sink is running. We’re not supposed to let it run.” Which is some trauma from his childhood (he heard water running, went down to the basement to investigate the noise, found a note from his mom, and then found his mom’s dead body) and it comes out when he's super stressed. He gets control of himself though and says that he has nothing to do with what's going on outside. Then there’s an explosion and a message from Sledge - he blew up the Twister.
Samantha, in the security room, pulls out two soul crystals to remove the protections of the Crawler ballroom. Thanks to Britney, the warning light did not flash to let the guards know. The Crawlers noticed when their interfaces turned on but Carl’s people went around telling everyone to shut their mouths.
Samantha tells him the other two soul crystals, which had the protections on the Hunter ballroom, were already out. Samantha tells him the guards were killed by Mantises. Carl tells her to take the soul crystals that she removed from the Crawler ballroom and put them in the Hunter ballroom to turn their protections back on.
Circe/Diwata is in the castle and Carl tells Samantha she will probably come back to the security room and Samantha swears she will fuck her up.
Sledge messages - too many manties.
Carl is so overwhelmed and he is starting to not be able to see a way out.
Signet comes to talk to Carl. She has been speaking with D’Nadia and she told Signet about how this all is a show. Signet asks Carl why he brought the girl here, Tina. He said that it has to do with a quest and her recital. Signet says that's not what she wants, she wants her mother back, just like Signet does, just like Carl does. Carl says but Kiwi is her mother and she’s with her. Signet says she doesn’t know that.
Sledge says there are too many of them, he’s sorry, he will protect the little ones as long as he can.
Samantha says that Circe/Diwata is breaking in, she tried to hold her off but she isn’t able to.
There’s a huge explosion and Samantha messages, “Okay. That was my bad.”
She chomped down on a soul crystal in hopes to kill Circe/Diwata. It only knocks her out.
Signet pulls an acorn out of nowhere and eats it. She tells Carl that D’Nadia said she was sad Carl wasn’t going to make it through the night because she wanted to meet him on the battlefield in Larracos. Signet wants Carl to show her who she is fucking with. Signet normally needs three people to cast her spell - a sacrifice, herself, and someone to kill the sacrifice. But she could use herself for all three, it just means she’ll die.
Sledge messages again - says all the Manties that were surrounding him were actually changelings so everyone is safe…for now.
Donut comes on stage for the talent show, she drank a Charm Animal potion, and now Gravy Boat is a minion of hers. The charm animal potion she drank combined with her insanely high charisma seems to have an effect on everyone in the room, including Hunters and Crawlers which it normally doesn’t. After Donut sings her song, Tina comes out. Tina has her magic wand that she’s been carrying and Donut put a spell on it that made everyone want to watch Tina. For a long time, no one was noticing Signet, who had begun to glow, until Vrah noticed.
Carl tells Sledge to cast his Zerzura spell that takes about 5 minutes to cast. Carl tells Sledge that he will also be transferred to the ninth floor with the changelings and Gravy Boat. He thanks Sledge for everything he has done including keeping Donut safe this whole time. Sledge asks him to please not let Bomo beat his Frogger score and Carl promises to shut the game off until Sledge gets back.
Signet asks Carl to please take care of his family and hers. The Crawlers all start pulling stuff out of their inventory, knowing shit is going down, while the Hunters look concerned. Signet goes over to Imogen and then slices her own throat. Signet, having broken the no violence rule, gets pulled into the Nothing. But she left behind her tattoos, giving them life.
All the lady Mongos who were on stage with Tina start attacking the Hunters on Donut’s orders.
Samantha comes out of fucking no where to help Mongo and Kiwi kill Vrah.
Carl asks Prepotente to use his last charge on his wand that lets him use any area as a safe room in exchange for Prepotente joining their party for a day. Carl had grabbed a bunch of potions, and some other stuff, while using the room.
Donut uses one of the potions on Kiwi and turns her back into a bear. Tina roars and then her roars turn into words but she remains as a dinosaur.
Sledge messages Carl and says 5 seconds. Then the house, with all the changelings, Signet’s tattoos, and minions of Donut, gets transferred to the ninth floor.
Everything freezes as the AI launches a Boss Battle while using ACDC’s Thunderstruck as a soundtrack.
The Boss Battle is between 4 teams - Crawlers, Hunters, Queen Imogen, and Circe/Diwata.
With the castle gone, they are all falling into the sub basement but Carl had a plan for that and that's why all the Crawlers had some type of falling potion - to fall with style.
Taking all the potions and boosts that Donut had gotten from everyone else’s boxes she managed to remove Diwata from Circe. The god returned back to the Halls of Ascendency and left Circe mortal. Once she’s taken care of, and the last Hunter was killed, they only had to defeat Imogen.
Carl sees Gwendolyn Duet dead. Tran is alive but legless. Louis and Firas are unconscious. Britney is screaming. Carl throws a bomb and as he passes out he gets the notification that they won the Boss Battle.
Carl wakes up a few minutes later to Crawlers fighting. Firas is dead. The Popovs brothers are “dead”. Half of Britney’s face is burnt. Elle, Chris, and Bautista are dragging unconscious Crawlers towards the stairway that had appeared when Imogen died. Imani was healing people. Katia walks by and tells Carl that Eva is dead.
Donut asks Carl why it doesn’t hurt as much as it should. She's sad but thinks she should be sadder. Carl tells her that this is protecting her right now and one day, when they’re safe and it's over, she can feel it all.
Carl remembers that the Popov brothers aren’t really dead. Their race combined them together but when they die, they split again and are re-born. Everyone starts searching for them, they dig them out and find 2 toddler creatures who get zapped away. Carl messages Zev and is starting to get mad until Zev tells him that they were transferred to the Kinder facility on the surface. They got out, they’re safe.
Knowing that they got out seems to ease some of the tension in the room.
Carl and Donut get a notification.
They are a team in the Faction Wars on the ninth floor. That means that Sledge and the changelings made it to the ninth floor. They have 15 action items that need votes. They have an action item they've submitted - removing safety protections for faction sponsors. Meaning if the Crawlers have to die for real … so does everyone else.
Carl starts talking to the audience saying look at us, the Hunters are dead, the Crawlers won, and now they are coming for the Faction Wars. Two teams have already dropped out of the Faction Wars because they’re scared. So that has allowed a new non-profit corporation called The Princess Posse to take a spot. Empress D’Nadia’s Prism Kingdom has taken the other.
Carl continues talking to the audience saying that he wants to remove the safety protections but only the Posse and the Orcs have voted Yes because no one else wants to die for real. But there are three teams that have populations who are allowed to vote so the people have the ability to change the game. Oh, and did these populations know how much money it cost to buy their way into the Faction Wars? How much money their governments have wasted just to go play a game?
Zev messages Carl and tells him he’s been muted. Now everyone in the universe is watching two Crawlers fight their way through the brambles. Reminds me of Big Brother Live Feeds when someone is talking about something they shouldn’t so all the live feeds get turned to someone doing something super boring.
Ren asked Carl how they were able to buy their way in and Donut says, “Crowd-funding, honey.”
Prepotente encourages Donut and Carl to go down the stairs now insisting it won’t matter even though the announcements keep saying it does.
Katia asks when did these three join up? Prepotente says its only for a bit, he really only needs Donut, but Donut insists are keeping Carl. Carl responds, “Eat a bag of dicks, Pony.” And Prepotente screams in his face.
Epilogue - Seventh Floor
Carl - Rank 3 on the Leaderboard; Bounty 1.6 mil gold
Donut - Rank 1 on the Leaderboard
Carl, Donut, and Prepotente start the seventh floor in a “fish tank” (according to Donut) with stairwells for the Eighth Floor floating around them. They start getting debuffs that are immediately rejected by the AI. An Administrative Hold happens for a few seconds, then goes away. Some guards appear in their fish bowl, then disappear.
Donut needs to pick a class, but can’t chat with Moredaci so doesn’t know what she wants. Carl tells her to read them and she immediately picks Viper Queen without asking him.
They notice multiple glass “fish bowls” around them with other Crawlers (and Agatha) in them. Prepotente starts fucking with something in the back of the fish bowl. Prepotente asks Carl about his book that he got at the “party” that’s about the eighth floor and what it is called. Carl wants him to tell him what he’s doing. Prepotente said Borant is trying to stop him but the AI is forcing them to obey their own rules. Prepotente said he believes the 7th floor is based on a fairy tale in the universe called the Great Race. He was on a program recently, and Cascadia was there (who’s that? Carl also asks and Prepotente says that she’s the lady who is always giving the annoucements in the dungeon) and even though they muted the discussion, he gathered what they were talking about when they were unmuted. Also, Miriam Dom got some boots before she died and the description told the fairy tale story.
Prepotente says the fairy tale is about a boy who is stuck in a maze, keeps taking the wrong turn, ends up in danger, and when he dies, he gets resurrected by a god and has to start over. Prepotente asks for the hammer and stick that Donut got in a box. She gives them over and he pulls a few things out of his inventory and leaves the Princess Posse party at the same time. As he starts doing whatever it is he is doing, an announcement starts. Cascadia starts talking really fast trying to describe the floor, she interrupts herself and says, “Godsdamnit, Prepotente. Don’t do this. Please. I worked so hard to make this floor happen.”
Pony doesn’t give any shits.
Prepotente picks up the stick, sticks it in the wall after spraying it with a potion, and uses the hammer to hit it. It doesn’t happen right away but within seconds, all the glass walls start exploding and everyone gets sucked into the floating stairwells. Cascadia starts screaming.
Donut and Carl arrive in an empty chamber on the Eighth Floor. The announcement tells them to pick a location and it shows them a globe of Earth. They are in a squad of two and they have six spots remaining. Carl believes they should go to the Bahamas because that's the subject of the book he got from the “party”. Donut chooses, but she doesn’t choose the Bahamas. She chooses Cuba.
We get Katia’s POV now right after the big boss battle. We learn a few things - she and Daniel are in love, they had sex before the “party”, she is addicted to Blitz sticks, before the collapse she had a foster baby named Annie, and she used to date some asshole named Fannar.
She and Li Jun go to kill Eva. They find her and Katia stabs her with a sword. She leans in close and tells her to die. Katia was supposed to be wearing a beanie on her head, but she had given it to Carl. As Eva was dying, she took something and put it on Katia’s head - The Crown of the Sepsis Whore.
Let's recall this crown shall we. Donut got it on the first floor and put it on before Moredaci could stop her. The crown placed Donut in the succession line for the Blood Sultanate on the ninth floor. Even though she took the crown off, she is still in line, which means she will have to kill everyone else in the line to be able to descend to the 10th floor. Now, Katia is also in line. Meaning - one of them won’t make it down to the 10th floor.
Crawler count at the end of the book: 38,532