Dungeon Crawler Carl

You know what's worse than breaking up with your girlfriend? Being stuck with her prize-winning show cat. And you know what's worse than that? An alien invasion, the destruction of all man-made structures on Earth, and the systematic exploitation of all survivors for a sadistic intergalactic game show. Join Coast Guard vet Carl and his ex-girlfriend's cat, Princess Donut, as they try to survive the end of the world — or just get to the next level — in a video game-like, trap-filled fantasy dungeon that is actually the set of a reality television show with countless viewers across the galaxy. Exploding goblins. Magical potions. Deadly, drug-dealing llamas. Survival is optional. Keeping the viewers entertained is not.

The training levels have concluded. Now the games may truly begin. The ratings are off the chart and the dungeon grows more dangerous every day. Carl and Princess Donut enter the Over City — a sprawling, once-thriving metropolis devastated by a mysterious calamity. An undead circus trawls the ruins. Murdered prostitutes rain from the sky. An ancient spell is finally ready to reveal its dark purpose. Carl still has no pants.

The top ten list is populated. The sponsorship program is open. The difficulty is ramping up. Carl and Donut now face the Iron Tangle — an impossibly complicated subway system built from the world's subterranean railway systems, all combined and knotted together. Up is down, down is up, and the exit is always just a few stops away. The cars are filled with monsters, and the stations are far from safe. For the first time, the crawlers are working together. The loot is better than ever. And the secret to unraveling it all may be hidden in the pages of a seemingly useless book.

A floating fortress occupied by warrior gnomes. A castle made of sand. A derelict submarine guarded by malfunctioning machines. A haunted crypt surrounded by lethal traps. It was supposed to be easy: one bubble, four castles, fifteen days. Capture each one and the stairwell is unlocked. But it is never easy — Carl and his team cannot go it alone this time. They must rely on the low-level crawlers trapped in the bubble with them. The question is: can they be trusted?

A lush jungle teeming with danger. Savage dinosaurs seeking blood. A fallen princess intent on vengeance. And an end-of-floor celebration for the top crawlers dubbed The Butcher's Masquerade. As the remaining crawlers battle for their lives on the sixth floor, a new and terrible threat looms: outside tourists are finally allowed to enter the game, and they are here to hunt. Among them is Vrah, a famed and veteran hunter intent on collecting the biggest trophy of her career. But their prey is far from harmless, and this season they are fighting back.

A pantheon of forgotten gods. An old grudge between a talk show host, an heiress, and the man they shattered. A rapidly deteriorating AI system. On the eighth floor, the surviving crawlers find themselves scattered across a map based on Earth's final days, where ghostly echoes of humanity go about their lives oblivious to impending doom. Each team must find and capture six legendary monsters tied to their geographical location — monsters that will be turned into battle cards. Among them is Shi Maria: intelligent, once married to a missing god, and possessing a special attack known to drive one insane. They call her the Bedlam Bride. If Carl and Donut want to survive, they must capture her — but she is no ordinary beast.

They call it Faction Wars. The ninth floor. Nine armies, each led by rich and powerful aliens from across the galaxy, each fighting to capture and hold a castle at the center of a battlefield. Strategy, alliances, pitched battles, and betrayal — all great television. Except this time, winner takes all, and those who fall stay in the ground. As the AI continues its rapid decline, Carl and company take advantage of the chaos. The crawlers are now one of the nine armies — and a tenth has emerged: the NPCs, once mere cannon fodder, now fully self-aware and fighting for themselves. For Donut and Katia, the stakes are even higher. Only one of them will be allowed to leave this level.

As chaos spreads outside the dungeon in the wake of Faction Wars, Carl and Donut find themselves on the tenth floor competing in a surprisingly normal set of tasks: races. Get from point A to point B, pick an upgrade for your vehicle, and try not to come in last. It all seems a little too simple — but strange glitches are occurring with increasing frequency, and whispers about the mysterious eleventh floor are growing louder. The AI has ominously dubbed it 'a coming-out party for the ages,' and nobody knows what that means. The rules of this floor have stripped Carl of his agency. That just will not do. He is planning a party of his own — one so dangerous he cannot even tell his friends.