Story so far
Faction Wars is over. Carl sits in a doorless cubicle in the Zero Zone, covered in ash and blood, shaking, his feet tingling and the eye tattoo on his chest aching, while everything weighs too much. Across a plastic table sits Quasar, the lawyer assigned to negotiate his exit, wearing a tie printed with a waving Mongo. Carl tells him the best thing about the room is the sound of nobody dying and nobody screaming, and says he could live here. About twenty thousand crawlers made the tenth floor - an accomplishment large enough that the offered deals are all garbage: fifty seasons undead, a Desperado Club bomber's guild slot with a contingent exit clause nearly as bad as Milk's, and a joint offer with Princess Donut to replace Chaco.
Carl consents to hear what the next floor is, costing a season on any deal he might take, and learns The Eleventh Floor is called Don't Come in Last: party leaders choose a conveyance, biological or mechanical, travel a fixed number of journeys between points, and whoever comes in last loses the survival containment around their vehicle. His mind goes straight to Katia, who would have excelled at it, and to the terror that he may never see her again. Then he declines every option. Donut has declined hers too, with what Quasar calls serious fireworks - because her assigned lawyer, Princess Chandra, is Carl's new wife.
Appearance
Caked in ash and blood, unable to stop shaking, hands leaving black marks on whatever he touches. His whole body aches, especially the eye tattooed on his sternum.
Role
The dungeon's number one crawler, who turns down every exit deal and keeps going.
Relationships
Princess Donut — His partner, who declined her own exit deals in a separate meeting
Quasar — His volunteered attorney, who thanks him on behalf of the bar association
Katia — Separated from him after Faction Wars; he does not know whether she is alive
Milk — Whose bizarre contingent exit clause is the benchmark for a terrible deal
Earlier in this series
Also appears in books you've already read — spoiler-safe to their endings:
Sources — 94 recorded facts, by chapter
Chapter 1
- Underwear-clad human mechanic turned the dungeon's most feared saboteur, now a warlord with a spider in his chest.
Chapter 2
- Underwear-clad human mechanic turned the dungeon's most feared saboteur, now carrying a spider in his chest and a star-killer in his head.
Chapter 4
- Underwear-clad mechanic, number-one crawler on the leaderboard, and now co-warlord of the Princess Posse - arriving on the ninth floor bald, soul-poisoned, and with a war already declared on him.
Chapter 5
- Carl opens over fifty backlogged achievement boxes in the saferoom while dreading Emberus's escalating quest.
Chapter 6
- Newly bald and waiting his turn at the loot boxes, Carl spends chapter nine rebuilding Donut into a tank.
Chapter 7
- The number one crawler, now armed with a Celestial phase skill and eight armies to kill.
Chapter 9
- Crawler and reluctant warlord who bonds with Sir Rendlegore and has his burned hair regrown to absurd length.
Chapter 10
- Crawler narrator who, while touring Louis's new airship, nearly buckles under the weight of nested realities and his hidden failsafe.
Chapter 11
- Crawler warlord recruiting through Larracos toward Juice Box, sizing up allies and grieving the city in advance.
Chapter 12
- Crawler leader touring Larracos for the first time, recruiting crawlers and dreading the war he's about to bring.
Chapter 13
- Warlord who debriefs Juice Box on Larracos's defenses while mentally mapping the Naga team's fortifications.
Chapter 14
- Crawler and Princess Posse warlord who trades a magic bowler hat to buy the mayorship of Shanty Town.
Chapter 16
- Crawler and warlord who is overwhelmed when fifty thousand former crawlers arrive to fight beside him.
Chapter 17
- Crawler and Princess Posse warlord who returns to his base camp and is greeted by a thunderous army war chant.
Chapter 18
- Human crawler and co-warlord who nearly dies to a suicide bomber inside his new faction stronghold.
Chapter 19
- Crawler and Princess Posse warlord who discovers the spider in his tattoo is quietly hijacking his skills.
Chapter 20
- Crawler warlord who leads a skunk-mob hunt in the expanded map while juggling army-building and Katia's rehab.
Chapter 22
- Crawler who lies down in a field hospital to drug-dive into Shi Maria's memory and trap her there.
Chapter 23
- Carl wakes from the Bedlam Bride procedure in a slaughtered Lemig throne room, host to a trapped spider goddess.
Chapter 24
- Blood-soaked warlord hauled into a field ruling over the Lemig plot that yanked his sleeping consciousness across the floor.
Chapter 25
- Warlord of the Princess Posse who survives the inquiry, absorbs Shi Maria, and is teleported home as war begins.
Chapter 26
- Crawler who, alone in a memory-ghost gas station on Christmas, chooses to disconnect the AI's containment rather than blow the fuse.
Chapter 27
- Co-warlord of Team Retribution who leaves the field hospital to lead the southern front as Phase One opens.
Chapter 28
- Crawler and Warlord of the crawler army, personally commanding the southern front trench line under naga artillery.
Chapter 29
- Crawler commander who runs the southern assault council and gives the order to attack Naga territory.
Chapter 30
- Crawler and Princess Posse strategist who leads the first head-on trench assault against the enemy line.
Chapter 31
- Warlord of the Democratic Sortion, leading the smoke-shrouded charge across no-man's-land into the enemy trenches.
Chapter 32
- Warlord of the Democratic Sortion who wakes from his own suicide-attack blackout and flies to assassinate an enemy empress.
Chapter 34
- Carl storms the Prism throne room, marks Empress D'Nadia as a warlord, and pulls himself back from the edge of murder.
Chapter 35
- Warlord of the Democratic Sortion who, moments after D'Nadia's death, pulls off the Ring of Divine Suffering and spares ten gnolls.
Chapter 36
- Newly minted party leader who loots the Prism castle, reassigns its mercenaries, and turns next toward the slimes.
Chapter 37
- Warlord juggling seven battalions who personally beats a brain-wormed crawler to death when the castle is infiltrated.
Chapter 38
- Crawler leader who directs the desperate defense of the castle entrance while agonizing over ordering a child into battle.
Chapter 39
- Warlord of the Democratic Sortion who directs the barracks-hill defense and detonates the enemy's own explosives.
Chapter 40
- Crawler leader who orders the guild saferoom sealed and is summoned to parlay with King Rust.
Chapter 41
- Carl rides out beside Donut to stall King Rust with a parlay while his defenses are frantically finished behind him.
Chapter 42
- Carl parlays with King Rust, learns of the failsafe plot, and conceals that he already disabled it.
Chapter 44
- Carl loots King Rust's head and corpse under fire, then is yanked away to the Desperado Club.
Chapter 45
- Blood-soaked and rattled, Carl is yanked into the liaison's office and interrogated about his illegal implant.
Chapter 46
- Powerless in a zero zone, Carl becomes the AI's chosen confidant as it reveals its reach is total.
Chapter 47
- Trapped in the meeting, Carl fails to warn Donut, endures the metaphor, and is left asking what just happened.
Chapter 48
- Crawler warlord who, fresh from the failsafe crisis, pivots his fractured army toward the naga raid.
Chapter 49
- Crawler and warlord who spends his last quiet hours opening boxes, taking a tattoo, and leaving for the council.
Chapter 50
- Freshly tattooed and separated from his cat, Carl stalls at the warlord council while his infiltration team moves.
Chapter 51
- Warlord of the Princess Posse, rattled at the council by Princess Vinata's presence while his assassination plan quietly runs.
Chapter 52
- Warlord who blows up at the council over outside communication and burns an action item to close the loophole.
Chapter 53
- Carl deduces from a stray talk-show remark that the Blood Sultanate's missing army is already dead.
Chapter 54
- Crawler commander who returns from transfer to find his naga assault upended by Prepotente's rampage and improvises.
Chapter 55
- Crawler and warlord who plans a four-group raid on the naga castle to flush out the sultana and save his friends.
Chapter 56
- Human crawler and reluctant war commander, coordinating the assault on the naga castle from Shanty Town.
Chapter 57
- Recruits Prepotente as a Colonel, chooses not to drug him with a conscription potion, and waits for the signal.
Chapter 58
- Writes the worship mechanics into his Cookbook edition, then leads a four-person raid on Khepri's temple.
Chapter 59
- Warlord leading a strike team into Club Vanquisher to reach the Temple of Khepri and end the naga line of succession.
Chapter 60
- Level 75 crawler who leads the infiltration of Club Vanquisher with potions, wire tricks, and improvised chaos.
Chapter 61
- Barefoot crawler leading the temple break-in, trailing wire and horror through Club Vanquisher to reach Princess Vinata.
Chapter 62
- Crawler warlord who walks into Vinata's temple trap, orders his allies to flee, and improvises an insane plan.
Chapter 63
- Immortality-buffed crawler who bombs Khepri's feast hall and survives being crushed, burned, and beaten by Vinata.
Chapter 64
- Barefoot crawler who survives self-detonation in the Khepri temple, kills the Sepsis Whore, and finally meets his sister.
Chapter 65
- Warlord of the crawler war effort, whose discovery of the Gate of the Feral Gods inspired Justice Light's true trap.
Chapter 66
- Crawler leader of Team Retribution, sleepless with dread as his all-fronts offensive nears its start.
Chapter 67
- Sorting thirty-two loot boxes and a horrifying new god-quest, Carl walks to the brig an hour before the plan begins.
Chapter 68
- Number-one crawler and warlord who interrogates the last surviving Blood Sultanate naga and rejects his treaty.
Chapter 69
- Warlord and author of the Cookbook who rides Party Planner on a bomb run as Operation Ruin begins.
Chapter 70
- Crawler riding the Party Planner as bombardier, arming the bomb load over the orc castle while forcing himself off the chats.
Chapter 71
- Warlord who jumps from a crippled airship into the Reavers' realm and witnesses the war mage rebellion steal his gate.
Chapter 72
- Carl salvages the wrecked gate operation, collects the war mage corpses, and sends Elle through the portal alone.
Chapter 73
- Warlord Carl infiltrates Madness territory through a minefield of traps while trying not to micromanage every other front.
Chapter 74
- Crawler leading a stealth raid on the Madness castle who loses surprise and must fight a full army head-on.
Chapter 75
- Crawler commander who survives a massed psionic assault, pushes Mind Balance to 16, and is spared Eris's Bear Witness.
Chapter 76
- Crawler warlord who forces himself to trust his team and press the attack while eighty thousand people lie frozen elsewhere.
Chapter 77
- Carl infiltrates the Madness castle under invisibility, scouts it with Ping, and finds two conscripted crawlers inside.
Chapter 78
- Warlord of the Princess Posse who kills Architect Houston, loses Burcu, and barely escapes the surgical theater.
Chapter 79
- Carl accidentally slips his mind past its bindings, landing in Katia's dream and glimpsing the private grief of everyone nearby.
Chapter 80
- Warlord of the Princess Posse, newly free of the Madness castle and the man whose defiance Rosetta quotes.
Chapter 81
- Warlord of Team Retribution, racing to salvage a collapsing battlefield as war mages seize Larracos.
Chapter 82
- Carl leads the survivors out of the saferoom into besieged Larracos, racing a countdown to bomb the hidden signal generator.
Chapter 83
- Crawler who bombs Larracos's zarogoth generator on pure reflex, then fights his way up the Nest tower to save Donut.
Chapter 84
- Crawler warlord who conscripts Lucia Mar, loses his sleep wand, and watches Mongo nearly die outside the Nest.
Chapter 85
- Carl learns the Eulogist's identity, kills the last gale tower, and reunites with Donut atop the Nest.
Chapter 86
- Horrified by War Crime's implications, Carl defends Donut's right to refuse and then promises her a matching tattoo.
Chapter 87
- Crawler warlord who coordinates the assault on Larracos and finds himself trapped in the Nest by Lucia Mar's hidden net.
Chapter 88
- Carl survives three simultaneous god effects, receives Eris's dangerous secrets, and holds Donut while she commits a massacre.
Chapter 89
- Barefoot crawler who watches the Nest's aftermath, reaches level 81, and starts planning the Reaver castle assault.
Chapter 90
- Crawler warlord who, with Larracos won, turns to rescuing Louis and untangling Akuma's warning about Agatha.
Chapter 91
- Carl leads a rescue convoy across the ash plains to the ruined Reaver castle to recover Louis.
Chapter 92
- Warlord who nukes the Reaver castle from a safe distance, ending the Reaver faction in a single stroke.
Chapter 93
- Riding back to the saferoom, Carl deduces Epitome Tagg is a cyborg and survives a Syndicate assassination attempt.
Chapter 94
- Crawler leader who rejects the Inevitable Ruin as hopelessness dressed up, insisting nothing is lost until death.
Chapter 95
- Warlord who stalls Tagg over chat while refusing to trade the crawl for one friend, then greenlights Samantha's transplant plan.
Chapter 96
- Warlord of the Princess Posse who triggers the endgame the instant Emberus sets a 66-minute deadline.
Chapter 97
- Carl chooses mercy over power, feeding away the Ring of Divine Suffering as the ninth floor ends and the Faction Wars are won.
Chapter 98
- Carl launches Samantha at Emberus as a distraction while the goddess trap for Huanxin Jinx springs.
Chapter 99
- Carl gets his people off the burning ninth floor, taking a warning about Kimaris and a promise from Donut with him.
Chapter 100
- Ash-covered survivor of Faction Wars who refuses every exit deal and walks on toward the eleventh floor.