Story so far

When an alien corporation razed Earth's surface to build a subterranean game show, the only humans spared were those caught outdoors, among them Carl, who had stormed into a winter night in his boxers to chase his ex-girlfriend's runaway show cat. He and that cat, Princess Donut, were plunged into the Crawl: a lethal, galaxy-broadcast dungeon of monsters, puzzles, and ever-shifting rules. Donut woke able to talk and cast spells, and guided by their NPC manager Mordecai the pair became the dungeon's brightest stars, accumulating allies, enemies, and a growing awareness of the corporate war being waged over the game itself. In her fan-club newsletter, Donut recaps the last two floors. On the sixth, Carl surrendered the Gate of the Feral Gods to Orren the Liaison in exchange for the rock-monster bodyguard Sledgie, bounty hunters stalked the pair, and killing the insectoid Vrah's little sister set off a vendetta that eventually drew Vrah's mother to Earth as the god Diwata. Katia left to hunt down the player-killer Eva, succeeded, and fell for Daniel Bautista. Everything converged at the Butcher's Masquerade, a talent-show gala at Queen Imogen's high-elf castle: the Elite Signet reclaimed her crown by killing Imogen and then herself, while Mongo and his mate Kiwi killed Vrah and Carl finished off the last hunter. Funded by fans, the pair bought a slot in Faction Wars and, seizing the elf castle, teleported it and its inhabitants to the ninth floor, making themselves warlords with an army. The cost was steep: Firas, Gideon, and others died, and the experience-hog Tserendolgor stole Mongo's rightful pet-show crown for her pet Garret, sparking #JusticeForMongo. Then the goat Prepotente broke reality, catapulting everyone from the sixth floor straight to the eighth, skipping the seventh entirely, as the crawl itself slips from Borant's control toward the alien Valtay.