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

by Matt Dinniman

Donut continued to hack in my ear. “Hey, don’t puke on my shoulder.” “Where else am I going to do it, Carl?” she said between breaths. She proceeded to puke on my shoulder. “Goddamnit, Donut,” I said.

Skyfowl didn’t have arms. Just feet and wings, like regular eagles. “Can you still, you know, do potion stuff in that body?” He looked at me as if I just asked to see nudes of his mom. “Better than ever,” he said.

“I’m going to assume right now that out of the 150 or so crawlers in this bubble, every single one of them is an incompetent idiot. That means you have less than four days to take each castle. So get that food in your mouths, open all the boxes you’ve accumulated, get your asses to bed, and then get back out there. We got a lot of work to do.”

I laughed. “Hey, Donut. If we were back home, you’d finally be able to knock that vase off the high shelf.” “That thing was a menace, Carl. It was haunted.”

The next achievement came in the AI’s creepy, I’m-touching-myself-and-smoking-a-cigarette voice. New Achievement! Smushed for Daddy.

You have initiated an attack that has caused more than 100 casualties more than 100 kilometers from your current position. You’re either the universe’s greatest sniper, or you’ve been a sneaky, little, portal-using bitch.

It is, quite simply, the single best item of loot he has received since he entered the dungeon.” “Not including the pet biscuit,” Donut said. “Not including the pet biscuit,” Mordecai agreed.

Tracked All-Terrain Suicide Machine. The Royal Chariot – Contraption. If a snowmobile got drunk on moonshine and had a sweaty, ill-advised night with a hillbilly’s coon-hunting ATV, this oversized birth defect of a vehicle would be the result.

New Achievement! Total, Utter Failure. You failed a quest less than five minutes after you received it. Now that’s talent. Reward: Ha. “Oh fuck off,” I muttered as I ascended the stairs just as Donut cried, “Get down!”

To accentuate the point, the city hall collapsed with a mighty crash. The minaret atop the building tumbled over and landed on the street as camels scattered. “You keep destroying governmental buildings, Carl,” Donut said. “People are going to start thinking you have a problem with authority.”

Congratulations. If I was allowed to upgrade your prize, I would. Maybe. I dunno. Actually, you know what? No. No I wouldn’t. Fuck you.

Coffee Shop Author Kit. Alcoholism and crippling self-doubt not included.

I pointed to Juice Box. “You,” I said. “Let’s sit down right now and talk. But we gotta make it quick. We’re going to take out that last castle once it gets dark.” “We still need to sleep, Carl,” Donut said. “We can sleep when we’re dead.”

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.

But most of all, she just wants to kill everybody. Especially bitches. And guess what you are? Tick Tock, motherfuckers. Aaaand here. We. Gooooo!

“You won’t win,” she gasped, gurgling the words. Foamy, colorless liquid oozed from her mouth and gills. “The Bloom will prevail. You will be forgotten.” “Nobody likes melodrama, Loita,” I said as the kua-tin died.

“Again, we’re getting off track,” I said. “Tell me how you killed your wife the last time you did it. I only need her dead for a few minutes, then we can get the hell out of here.”

out of context this is comically insane

Gwen: Hey, bomber guy. This is where I point out that if you’d simply let me open the valve in the first place, we could’ve avoided whatever the hell that was. Carl: And this is where I tell you to shut the fuck up.

Tran turned to Vadim. “Do you own a red shirt? I feel as if I should put one on.” “What does that mean?” Vadim asked.