The Gate of the Feral Gods (Dungeon Crawler Carl, #4)

by Matt Dinniman

The zombie, reanimated gnome growled and snapped.

Knew itttt

Donut scoffed. Above us, the line of airplanes continued to circle. She waved at me. “I will take my manservant, or there is no deal. Besides, who’s going to carry him? Me? Surely you jest.”

“No funny stuff,” the sniper called to Donut. “If we gotta fight our way out of here, you’re getting the first chest hole.” “And you’ll get the second,” I called back to the sniper. “There’s no need for such talk,” Leon said. “Surely this… dog creature… would never be stupid enough to attempt to trick us. There would be no purpose.” “Excuse me?” Donut

The potion was actually a vial of Mountain Dew I’d gotten from a saferoom on the second floor,

Louis: You know a plan is really desperate when it requires confidence in people like us. Firas: Shut the hell up, Louis. He’s trying to build our self-confidence.

“Wait,” I asked. “Does this mage guy have the artifact?” Crixus and Leon exchanged a look. A small grin played across Crixus’s face. “He only has a third of it.”

“Wow,” Donut said, peering over the edge. “They’re still falling. Nope, not anymore.” She did a little jump on the edge of the basket that almost gave me a heart attack. “Level 34! Carl, I got a lot of experience for that!” “Jesus, Donut. Get off the goddamned edge.” “Really, Carl. I’m a cat. A master of balance. Whoa!” She slipped, but thankfully she fell inward.

there were dozens of round, smaller-yield bombs hanging there like water droplets.

The round balloon rushed past us, continuing its upward trajectory. The balloon remained intact, but the basket was a bloody mess, hanging by a single line. The interior of the basket dripped with gore. A single clockwork Mongo screeched in greeting from the bloody basket as it passed.

To my left, I could hear Donut bitching as she pulled herself out of her hole.

Ugh tg I always get so nervous about Donut

The notification sounded oddly disappointed. I wasn’t certain why.

Sorry, Crawler Donut.

Now get back out there and kill, kill, kill!

New Achievement! Cannonball! You fell from a great height, and you survived! You know who else fell from a…? You know what, never mind. Fuck you. Reward: You’ve received a Silver Skydiver’s Box! Not that you deserve it you little punk. The system AI was always fluctuating back and forth from adoring to outright hostile, but this was the moodiest I’d ever seen, and I didn’t know why.

Donut was going around collecting their little red hats.

with an assist by the Crawler Bitch Boy Carl.

“This is just like with you and Miss Beatrice,” Donut said. “Do you remember that time she made you sleep on the couch for a week and wouldn’t tell you why she was mad?” “I do remember,” I said. I shrugged. “I think it was because I’d bought the wrong type of coffee pods. I ended up beating Fallout because of it.” Donut laughed. “It was because she’d read an article that said big fights make relationships stronger, and sometimes they cause guys to propose.”

These balls are similar in technology to pet carriers. As such, any mobs stored within are able to be placed within one’s inventory.

“Carl,” said Donut, “I don’t think your friend up in the sky is going to take ‘no’ for an answer.”

“Fuck you,” I growled up into the air. “Fuck you to hell.” I tossed a smoke curtain followed by a pair of hob-lobbers. I stepped over the hastily-constructed barricade and waded out toward the street. “Everyone stay back,” I called. “Carl, Carl, what are you doing?” Donut yelled. I extended my left arm shield. I caught a flying gerbil with the auto-buckler, and it fell hard to the ground, blinded and dazed. I was too tired to fight it anymore. I stepped down on the squirming gerbil.

New Achievement! You’re the reason why daddy drinks! You have, for an unspecified reason, raised the ire of the System AI. You have corrected the issue, and everything is back to normal. The acceleration action has been suspended. This time. Good boy. Reward: You’ve received a Gold Makeup Sex is the Best Sex box.

We are all prostitutes in one way or another, I suppose. ”

You soon graduated to Naruto fan-fiction.

I drew a rudimentary cat portrait, and the pen copied my work. Donut looked at the cat art with

nearly indestructible

“Hello, Chris,” I replied. “I’m glad to see you.”

She returned her gaze to Chris. “You can bring these two guys. We can all party afterward.” She suddenly grabbed my hand. “Carl, let’s go now.” Chris shook his large head. “I really wish you hadn’t said that.”

“I actually have two daughters,” Chris said. “You only know about the one, but there’s another. She’s older. From my first marriage. She was home, so she died in the collapse. Our game guide when we first got in here, he told us all about it. He said she might come back. People who die in the collapse aren’t really dead, but they’re put in storage. Only you can’t save them. I think about that a lot. They bring them out sometimes, but it’s never for good. They can be changed. They force you to kill them on the deeper floors. He told me about a crawler that was forced to face down his whole family. He killed himself instead.” I felt a chill wash over me.

“I can’t kill anybody else in my family, Carl. I can’t.” It hit me, then. All at once. I cursed myself for not seeing it. This wasn’t Chris. This was Maggie. Maggie My. But how?

“No,” Maggie-Chris agreed. She suddenly had a round, spiked ball in her hand. “I was waiting for the cat to come out, but she’s too much of a coward I guess. They promised me if I did it this way, they wouldn’t…”

There’s only one thing I can think of. An antiparasitic that will kill her, but I won’t have the materials until we hit the next floor.”

Elle: Imani is refusing to send you this message, so I will. It is from Chris, and I am copying and pasting his exact words. I’m sorry guys. “Carl, Donut. Please. Kill me. It’s okay. I give you permission. You’ll be helping me.” “Hey Chris, go fuck yourself,” I said. “We’re going to figure this out.” Then I told Elle what I said.

“Well they’re terrible at it,” Donut said. “I mean, really. If they can’t even manage to kill one human who doesn’t wear pants, how can anyone expect them to control an intergalactic empire? No offense, Carl.”

We got approached by this weird guy in a saferoom, and he told us…” That was the whole message.

“Carl?” Donut asked from my shoulder. “What?” “Don’t be mad at me.” A large hole opened up in the street, revealing a shimmering force field that separated this quadrant from the next. The form of Chris plummeted through the hole and disappeared, landing loudly into the dark chamber below. There was a splash. I only fell about a foot, landing on the shimmering air. I stood upon the forcefield like it was glass, looking down upon it with surprise. “You best step out of the hole, or your feet will get chopped off when I turn the spell off,” Donut said. “Daddy wouldn’t like that very much.”

Donut: LONELY_YETI_15 SAYS I HAVE THE PRETTIEST FUR PATTERN SHE HAS EVER SEEN. SHE ALSO SAYS SHE’S GETTING A TATTOO OF ME ON HER LOWER THORAX. Carl: You’re supposed to be helping Katia sew. Donut: I DON’T HAVE THUMBS, CARL.

New Quest. The Gate of the Feral Gods.

“They said this version was indestructible,” she said sadly. “Do you think the Kardashians had to deal with defective merch? This is most disappointing.”

the crawler.

The sign was hand-painted in blue and silver paint and had a star at the bottom, indicating the previous owners had been Dallas Cowboys fans. The doormat had a picture of a pistol and said, “We don’t dial 911.” “I’m getting mixed signals,” said Donut.

Donut leaped from my shoulder to the back of Mongo and gave him a little pat on the top of the head.

“Hello,” she said. She wore an oversized Dallas Cowboys jersey as a dress. She had brown pigtails peeking out from under her red, conical hat. The front of the jersey was smeared with blood. “Have you come to kill my father? You’re a little late. He’s already dead. Do you want to come in? I’m making lemonade!”

Ripped to shreds by Denise.

This should be a hoot! A hoot, I say! Actually, not a hoot. A… “Honk!”

But most of all, she just wants to kill everybody. Especially bitches. And guess what you are?

New Achievement! Wild Goose Chase! Oh, I’m sorry. Did you think this was an important potion? Magic doesn’t work, dumbass. It’s lemonade! Reward: It really is delicious. Too bad you’re about to splatter against the roof of the catacombs.

“Hey there,” Katia said, taking a knee in front of the child. “How are you doing, sweetheart?” “Do you know where I can get some lemons?” the child asked. “I want to set up a lemonade stand, but I used them all.” She gave me a withering look. “Somebody keeps spilling it.”

You’re lucky, I thought. There’s only two people out there they could dredge up. For most, that number had to be a lot higher.

Congratulations. Barely surviving battles is great for your numbers. Keep it up.

Loita: Do not talk back to me. You keep forgetting your place. Donut: I DON’T LIKE YOU, LOITA. YOU SMELL REALLY BAD. Loita: The feeling is mutual. And if you talk back again, I will have Mongo taken from you. We’ll use him to feed a mob on the next floor and we’ll make you watch. I can do that. Don’t test me.