Previously, in Dungeon Crawler Carl: the world ended in an instant. At around 2:23 AM on January 3rd, every building and structure on Earth was crushed and dragged down into the ground, killing nearly everyone who happened to be indoors or under any roof. The few survivors were those caught outside in the open air.
Carl was one of them. A twenty-seven-year-old former Coast Guardsman turned marine tech in Seattle, he'd recently broken things off with his girlfriend Beatrice after learning she'd brought her ex along on a Bahamas trip. When disaster struck, Carl was standing outside in below-freezing weather wearing little more than boxers, a leather jacket, and pink Crocs. He owed his life entirely to Donut, Beatrice's pampered, ribbon-winning Persian show cat, who had leapt out a window into a tree and lured him outdoors moments before the collapse.
As the truth came clear, so did the stakes. A neutral observer AI spoke directly into survivors' minds, explaining that Earth had been seized by the galactic Syndicate and handed to the Borant Corporation, which built an eighteen-level World Dungeon from the planet's own remains. Survivors could enter to reclaim their lost matter, descending floor by floor against ticking time limits, with tutorial guilds scattered through the early levels. Freezing and out of options, Carl chose to run for an entrance and become a Crawler.