The Dungeon Anarchist's Cookbook (Dungeon Crawler Carl, #3)

by Matt Dinniman

Katia: I’m going to be sick. Oh my god, Carl. I’ve never seen anything like this. Donut: YOU BETTER GET USED TO IT.

That was it, wasn’t it? Sleep was my sanctuary. No matter how fucked-up the world now was, I could still get away for part of the day. Now, that luxury was being eroded.

I grumbled, but the moment I lay down, it felt as if I was encased in a warm hug. Donut jumped onto my shoulder, curling up near my neck. Then Mongo hopped onto my legs, and I didn’t feel the weight of him. I fell asleep in seconds.

Finally, we’d like to address the especially high mortality rate of the third floor. This occurred due to a high instance of group quests gone bad. While the number of crawlers are still in the acceptable range, we are all concerned about early extinction. That does not mean we will be letting up. So quit sucking. It’s as simple as that. Now get out there, ride the rails, and kill, kill, kill! “Quit sucking?” Katia asked. “Is that supposed to be a joke?”

The sudden loss was so unexpected, so out of nowhere I thought I’d had the breath knocked out of me. This is just like with mom. Deep breaths. Deep breaths.

I hadn’t known him long. But he was a good man. He was my friend. In all of this death, he would barely be a blip. And that enraged me unlike anything else that had happened so far.

You will not break me. Fuck you all. You will not break me. I went to work.

“That was the worst prize ever,” said Donut.

“What do you mean there is no wife?” Katia said. “He was lying?” “No,” I said. “He believes, or I guess believed, he had a wife. This floor has only been open for a day. Before this, he was probably a dwarf doing something else. Whatever the fourth floor theme was the last time they ran the dungeon. When these floors are generated, the NPCs are given artificial memories. It’s all part of the story. This entire floor is probably just the trains. He says he can go home, but where’s that? There is no home. No wife. It’s really fucked up because these aren’t computer programs. These are actual, living creatures who believe this is the real world.” “I never really thought of it that way,” Katia said. “That’s… that’s horrible.” I nodded. “It’s just as bad as what they’ve done to us.”

Zev: Well you need to do something. What’s the point of adding a new character if she sucks? It’s like when they added April to Gilmore Girls. But worse. Donut: OH NO. I WILL HELP HER.

Donut: SURE WE CAN. WATCH. “You need to grow a mohawk,” Donut said to Katia. “And maybe get a catchphrase. That really worked for Carl.” “Goddamnit, Donut,” I said. I regretted it the moment the phrase came out of my mouth.

Mordecai’s Special Brew A potion designed by a shifty Changeling who has a tendency to kill those who count on him the most, this special potion combines the effects of a Gold Standard Healing Potion and the Troll’s Second Wind to create a de facto immortality for a period of thirty seconds. It has a few unfortunate side effects.

Hello, Crawler. As you’re about to find, this is a very special book. If you’re reading these words, it means this book has found its way into your hands for one purpose and one purpose only. Together, we will burn it all to the ground.

“Look at how beautiful she is,” Donut whispered. “She’s like a vision of pure elegance.” “Yo,” Elle cried at the bartender. “Whose dick do I gotta suck to get another drink? Christ.”

“I didn’t want to kill anybody,” Donut said once again. “Maybe those stupid dogs. But not a person. Not a real person.”

“Mongo and I have a psychic bond, Carl. You’ve never been a mother, so you wouldn’t understand.”

“That’s brilliant,” I said to Donut, scratching her on the head. She beamed. I’d also come up with that idea, but I wasn’t about to say that now.

“I think my fans should have a name, wouldn’t that be great? Like the Princess Patrol or something.” I grunted. “How about the Donut Holes?” “Don’t be crude, Carl.”

<Note added by Crawler Forkith. 20th Edition> Backpacks only slow destabilization now, not negate it. Found that out the hard way. Rest well, little sister. I pray those who read this kill an enemy in her honor today. That is all we can do, no? Her name was Barkith, and she was all I had left. I feel lost, but I will persevere.

Once lit, a fire is easier to stoke than it is to extinguish. Remember that. Fuck the snakes. Fuck the rats. Fuck them all. One day they will all burn, and while I’m certain I will be long dead, I will laugh. I will laugh long and hard, and I will be waiting for them on the other side of the veil where not even the vast expanse of stars or time will withhold my wrath. If you are reading this, friend, I pray you will join me. Side by side we will exact our revenge.

“I don’t know, but that’s our jacket,” said Donut. “He didn’t even do anything to get it. It’s not fair!” “Nothing is fair,” I said.

I can see through doorways now. “Oh hell yeah,” I said.

New achievement! Three Cheers for Slaughter! You killed three boss monsters with the same attack! I’m starting to think your survival so far isn’t just a fluke. You’re either scary good at this, or you’re just one lucky mo-fo. Either way, holy shit. Good job. Reward: You’ve received a Platinum Big Daddy Box!

Donut: CARL? Carl: Yeah? Donut: DON’T EVER DO THIS TO ME AGAIN. I THOUGHT YOU’D BEEN SQUISHED.

Carl: I’m sending this message out to everybody on my chat list. You guys aren’t going to believe this shit.

It is us or it is them. There is consolation in dying in the pursuit of justice, no matter how small or big that death is.

“Goddamnit, Donut,” I said. “Don’t cast it unless I tell you to. You’ll get frozen in place for five minutes. If we’re in a situation where a two percent chance to turn someone on our side is our only hope, we’ll be running, not waiting five minutes.” “Don’t be so pessimistic, Carl.”

The thing was, I liked Katia. I liked her a whole lot.

I hated this. Why does everything need to be so complicated? Can’t people just be loyal?

This man didn’t deserve for his story to be told, not after what he did. In a way, people like him were worse than the Syndicate and the aliens who’d destroyed us. He was one of us, and he’d turned against his own.

“Those are the ones we need to worry about the most, Donut.” “Why do you say that?” “When someone has given up, they no longer care about the consequences of their actions. That can be dangerous.”

Carl: Don’t make shit up. Donut: I AM TELLING THE TRUTH THAT NEEDS TO BE TOLD, CARL.

Carl: Donut. Don’t say stuff like that. Let’s wait to see what Hekla wants before we all jump into bed together. Donut: OMG YOU SHOULD DATE HEKLA. THE AUDIENCE WOULD LOVE THAT. THINK OF THE VIEWS.

Before this was done, people like him would kill people like me by the thousands. And people like me would cleave through his kind, wreaking even more damage. All the while the real culprits sat back and watched and laughed.

Carl: Katia! Disengage! Lose your mass! Now! Now!

“You tried to kill Katia you fucking bitch!” Donut cried. She blasted a full-strength Magic Missile right into Hekla’s face.

Katia had a special ability she didn’t like to use very often. Rush, it was called. It turned her body into a battering ram.

Instead, she inadvertently became the first crawler on this season of Dungeon Crawler World to kill one of the top 10 and claim a bounty.

We all just looked at each other and started to laugh. There was no reason to laugh. None of this was funny. But we laughed. We laughed long and hard. It didn’t make sense. None of this made sense, but we were alive, for now at least, and we had each other, and that was something.

I shook my head. “I don’t know. There’s a whole train of people out there. I’m sure someone would love to join up with a healer and two mages. It won’t be us, though. We’ll never trust each other, and that sucks. It really does. It’s exactly what they want to happen, and it breaks my fucking heart.”

Is this what we’ve become? Is this who we really are? I refused to believe it.

Yes, I thought. There is hope for us. Not a lot. But it’s there.

At that moment, it hit me. Katia was now and forever a part of the team. Nobody needed to say it out loud. We all knew. While this would never be “home,” this space was just for us and only us. The three of us.

It was painfully clear what the dungeon wanted us to do. You will not break me. Fuck you all.

God, so many dead. Every time I saw something like this, I felt the anger start to rise in my chest.

But we held onto the moment. I didn’t know what was going to come next, or if we’d even done anything here today other than delay the inevitable, but it felt good. By god, it felt good.

Katia had, for a few days now, been saying that we were missing something when it came to the way the Iron Tangle was set up. She kept saying, “I don’t understand how there can only be six station mimics.”

“Why is it every time there’s a big explosion, you immediately think I had something to do with it?” “Because it usually is you,” she said. “She does have a point, Carl,” Donut said.

Carl: Holy shit I have a glorious idea. Mordecai: No. Carl: You don’t know what it is yet. Mordecai: I don’t care what it is. If it’s a Carl idea, it’s probably a brilliant idea that’s going to get you killed.

There was a lot of that, in these last, desperate hours of the fourth floor. Cries for help. Rumors of groups in need. You will not break me. Fuck you all. You will not break me.