Dungeon Crawler Carl, #1
Dungeon Crawler Carl
by Matt Dinniman
Contents
Chapter 33
Overview
Donut’s charm lets her lure the fairies and clurichauns out of the filling room, allowing Carl to destroy the workers with explosives while Donut kills the elite fairies. The victory gives them levels and loot, but Carl is disturbed by the morality of using charm against monsters who show fear and aspirations.
While looting the room, Carl discovers a game-designed path to immunity against the boss’s diseases, but he decides the fight is too risky. That choice is undercut when the boss breaks out of its chamber and traps Carl and Donut, revealing a dangerous new rule of the second floor.
Summary
Because Donut’s Puddle Jumper spell has a long cooldown and high mana cost, Carl stays hidden while Donut teleports into the filling room. Carl worries because Donut cannot easily escape or sustain combat, but the plan depends on her charm working on the two airborne laminak fairies guarding the room.
Donut successfully turns the two fairies neutral, but the many clurichauns remain hostile. When the fairies order the workers not to attack, Donut switches to “Plan Pied Piper”: she convinces the fairies that there has been an attack nearby and persuades them to bring the whole room to investigate.
Carl positions himself in the next chamber, where earlier dead clurichauns provide bait. Donut leads the workers into the room and draws the fairies into the foyer with Carl. Carl throws two activated Jug O’ Boom explosives into the clustered clurichauns, killing about forty at once, while Donut kills one fairy. The second fairy attacks Carl with a powerful magic missile, injuring him badly before he heals, and Donut eventually catches and kills her.
Carl and Donut both reach level 11. The fairies drop gold, brochures, and alchemy-material corpses rather than the hoped-for protection against the Taint disease. Carl feels guilty about exploiting Donut’s charm to kill enemies who briefly revealed ordinary hopes and personalities, but he reminds himself that the real enemies are the Syndicate, Borant, and the kua-tin, and that survival requires growing stronger.
Back in the filling room, Carl loots empty and full Rev-Up jugs, tables, an alchemy workstation, a banner, and parts of a bicycle-powered blender. He finds a recipe for a Rev-Up Immunity Smoothie that would protect against Taint and Vigorous Measles, apparently preparing crawlers to fight the boss, but Carl wants to avoid the boss chamber because of the risks and possible children inside.
Before Carl can finish proposing that they leave, the boss-room door blasts open. Long pink tentacles covered in screaming human-lipped mouths reach into the room, bars drop to trap Carl and Donut inside, and an achievement reveals that bosses on the second floor can leave their rooms.
Who Appears
- CarlPlans the lure-and-bomb attack, loots the filling room, and wrestles with guilt.
- DonutTeleports into danger, charms the fairies, lures enemies, and kills both elites.
- CarolineOne of the charmed laminak fairies who orders workers to follow Donut.
- MaxThe second laminak fairy, killed after attacking Carl with magic missiles.
- Clurichaun workersHostile moonshine workers lured into a chamber and killed by Carl’s explosives.
- Boss creatureUnseen boss extends screaming mouth-covered tentacles and traps Carl and Donut.