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

by Matt Dinniman

One of the resulting summoned gods was Ysalte, the Vinegar Bitch. That would have been an extinction-level event for this floor and the next. As exciting as that would be, we still have another floor of sponsorship bidding to get through before we can allow it. We are at 33% of the projected capacity for the sixth floor, and nobody wants that number to go lower than that.

And finally, some of you may have heard by now that third-party tourists will be joining us on the next floor. And they’ll be hunting you and your gear. Isn’t that exciting?

We have a record number of hunters participating this season thanks to a generous, anonymous sponsor who was willing to pay entry fees for anyone who wanted to join in on the fun. And people from all corners of the galaxy are taking advantage. Isn’t that fantastic? Now get out there and kill, kill, kill!

It was oddly beautiful, until I remembered each intact bubble was potentially a tombstone, a monument to crawlers who’d fallen victim to this fifth floor.

I understand you’re going to throw a feral god onto the ninth floor to jumble them up a bit. Good for you, mate. I’m looking forward to hearing about it.” “That’s the plan,” I said. I looked up. “We’re going to fuck those guys up. We’re going to toss a god right into the camp of the Skull Empire.”

He leaned forward and clasped me on the shoulder with his green, scaled hand. He kept his hand up there, and suddenly it was super awkward. He stared at me with his dark, intense eyes. “I was done, mate. I didn’t have anything,” he said, suddenly emotional. “You should have met her. My Ife. She was amazing. A ray of light. She was the bravest, kindest person I’d ever met. She gave me hope. I was done until I went into the club, and I met Elle. She told me a story about this man and his cat who’d stopped everything he was doing to help a group of old people in wheelchairs and how this same man was planning on using this artifact he’d found to save people stuck in their bubbles. And it reminded me that Ife wasn’t the only one. That there is good in this world. There is something left to fight for. I might die tomorrow, but it won’t be because I’ve given up. And I want to thank you for that.” “I’m just doing the best I can,” I said, not sure what else to say. The dude’s claw was still on my shoulder. I reached up and clumsily patted it. He retracted his arm quickly, as if surprised by my touch. “If you ever need a backup gun, I’m in your debt.” Then just like that, he turned and walked away. We watched him walk away in silence. He went straight to the stairwell, and without turning around, he disappeared. “That dude is pretty intense,” I said. “I like him. Still, that would’ve been much more emotional if he wasn’t a disgusting crocodile man,” Donut whispered after he was gone...

“I’m worried the ending is going to be anticlimactic. What if this doesn’t work? Then what?”

Fun how this can apply to the book or level

Still, you could do that. You could take a terrible situation and still find moments of peace, even joy.

Li Jun: You too. That woman is here, by the way. The one with the shopping cart. She just pulled up out of nowhere and entered the stairwell. She didn’t talk to us, and she went down before the six hour mark. I don’t know where she came from. She’s only level 12. Carl: Yeah, that’s Agatha. We just ignore Agatha. Best of luck to you. If this guild system is what I think it’ll be, look us up.

Porthus,

As the first to receive these words, and now, as the author of the second edition, I feel inadequate. I have not done enough.

A light breeze that smelled like cooked turkey wafted across the world.

Katia: By my calculations, the gate you just placed will open in five hours and four minutes. I looked at the clock. The level would collapse in five hours and 27 minutes, giving us 23 minutes once the gate opened. Gates stayed open on their own for twenty minutes unless all three pieces of the gate went through them. Carl: That’s cutting it pretty close. Katia: Hey, it’s your plan, big guy. Carl: True enough. Aren’t you going to miss this stuff? Katia: Ask me in five and a half hours.

“If you were going to die no matter what, which would you prefer? Die as a puppet, or die while striking back against those who are doing this to you?”

but the Valtay Corporation sent in an attorney to assist Borant’s position.

Apparently, since you now own stock in a company based in the Skull Empire, the lawsuit needed to be filed in a different court.

Zev: This is directly from the politburo, who have recently replaced the board of directors as principal controllers of the Borant Corporation. This is a direct quote. “Crawler Carl and Donut. While we approve of what you are planning, we wish to make something clear. Game-breaking antics that directly affect sponsors will not be tolerated in the future.” That was the whole message. It came from the top.

Donut liked him because he’d once said he was allergic to dogs.

You have received an Emergency Platinum Benefactor Box from your sponsor, The Open Intellect Pacifist Action Network, Intergalactic NFC.

Carl: Samantha, who is that fat demon with wings and a whip? I jumped into my menu and clicked on boxes. Samantha: A WHIP? DOES SHE LOOK LIKE AN UNCIRCUMCISED GNOME PENIS? Carl: Yes. Maybe. I don’t know. She doesn’t have a neck. Samantha: I HAVE NO IDEA WHICH ONE SHE IS. YOU JUST BRING ME OUTSIDE, AND I WILL TAKE CARE OF IT. I WILL KILL HER AND HER MOTHER. BITCH CAN’T HANDLE ME. Carl: Jesus, did Donut show you the caps lock key? Samantha: LET ME FIGHT HER! I CAN TAKE THE FAT BITCH DOWN!

“They have my other daughter, Carl. They’re going to bring her back. They’re going to turn her into a monster and make someone kill her if I don’t do this. I can’t let it happen.”

When the caprid came to us in the rest area, it told me it’d help if we killed you.” Caprid? Prepotente? That didn’t make sense. She had to be talking about another creature. Maggie suddenly shouted. “Fuck your warnings. If it’s legal to happen, then it’s legal to say out loud. Fuck all of you. What’re you going to do, accelerate me? Now?”

Before I passed out, I watched Mongo gleefully crunch down on the form of the Scree worm, ripping the tiny crawler into mulch and thus ending the saga of Frank Q and Maggie My.

“What do you mean? She has a lot of hats in here. Why does a worm need hats? What does Chris need with a bunch of hats? I collect hats. I feel strongly I should be able to keep them.”

She kissed me on the cheek. “Watch over my people. We have a deal. And keep him safe, too. I love him.” “Who?” I asked. “Louis,” she said. “We’re going to be married.” A few days back I had been chased by a massive, two-headed puppy. I’d crashed an airplane into the face of a god. I watched a talking goat snuggle up with a vampire after they killed the universe’s largest turkey. I’d just chucked a haunted sex doll head fifty kilometers in order to settle a girl fight between that same head and a makeup-encrusted demon the size of a small town. I’d just reached into the head of a rock monster in order to pluck a parasitic worm from his head. And yet, despite all of this, what Juice Box had just said was the most astounding thing I’d heard since this floor started. I looked at her like she had slugs crawling from her nostrils. “Louis?” I asked. “Our Louis? You’re in love with Louis? You’re getting married? Are you serious?”

“Brandon,” Chris finally said, lowering his head. “Brandon.”

I did, indeed, know all of this. That was the point. Carl: Whoops. My bad.

The whole system is already spiraling, and it’s the earliest this has ever happened.

Zev continued to breathlessly rant. It was finally dawning on me that her astonishment and outrage was actually an act, and what she really was doing was relaying crucial information to us. She was practically giddy and was barely containing it. She and Donut were talking somehow. Likely via the social media board, but I didn’t dare ask, not even using the magical paper we had hanging in the bathroom.

Made for Crawler Carl by the Open Intellect Pacifist Action Network, Intergalactic NFC with design approval by CEO and president of Outreach Operations, Dr. P. Hu.

“Once the sixth floor opens, we’ll all be locked in together. They’ll be just as trapped as we are.” I tossed the ring in the air, and I caught it. I looked up into the sky, ending all pretense that I was actually saying this to just Donut.

“You guys see this thing? I’ll tell you what. If you want it, it’s yours. It’s right here. Come and get it, motherfuckers. Actually, you know what? I have a better idea. No need to come to me because I’ll be coming to you. That’s my pledge to you and to everyone else watching this. By the time the sixth floor collapses, every single hunter who dares to set foot on the same floor as us will be dead." Donut, Mongo, and I moved into the stairwell. "This I swear on my life. One by one, I will break you. I will break you all.”

Porthus.

!!!!!!!!!!

the season’s Walk-On List

Risking his life to track down a godsdamned cat named Gravy Boat.

Called ittttt

Sadir’s team wasn’t even bothering with the woman in the tropical zone, despite the unusually high value placed on her capture.

An equal number were in the southern hemisphere seeking that little girl’s father.

Who could forget that Valtay season when Crawler Hoon piloted his mech to the elevator leading to the 12th floor, only to find his own children—repurposed as sentinel hunter killers—guarding the exit? All five of them, even the yearling. Hoon had chosen to eat his own gun. It was one of the few times the cruelty of the game had been too much, even for the free citizens. Sadir felt a shiver come over him, remembering that moment. They’d banned the use of collected children after that. Pregnant women, too. Fucking Valtay, Sadir thought. They were the cruelest of them all.

tracking individual natives was as easy as initiating a handshake with the planet’s AI controller.

Thanks to the Indigenous Species Protection Act, however, once the crawl started, all natives had their implants scrambled, despite being born with the damn things.

Once the crawl was done, and this entire circus moved on to another system, the planet would be locked down for multiple generations. Sadir couldn’t reme...

“We should be searching for that man in the southern hemisphere. Or that other creature. The goat.”

“If we don’t find the mark,” Gennrik replied, “we will move on. The captain is going to send us to the jungle on the planet’s other side. To find that dead crawler’s twin.”

Besides, in the inner system, all are free. It doesn’t matter what you are.”

Brad

If you wanted to live in New Queen Anne,

Bea did none of those.

That crazy man had started setting cars on fire, causing them all to flee outside into the cold.

Bea, already crying, scooped the thing right up and started sobbing even louder. “Ferdinand! You asshole. You stupid little asshole!” She clutched onto the cat and sobbed and refused to let go.

She knew he was no good.” Bea looked Brad straight in the eye. She had blood running down her face. “She was a lot smarter than me.”